By Alon Ben-Meir *
Although the two-state solution has been all along the only viable option that best serves Israel’s national security and political interests and meets the Palestinians’ national aspiration for statehood, the Israel-Hamas war has only reaffirmed that there is no other option
The Israel-Hamas war has reignited discussions over a two-state solution as an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Those who closely monitor the conflict and consider its history, the psychological mindset of both peoples, and their affinity and mutual claims to the same land, cannot escape the conclusion that a two-state solution is the only practical and sustainable option.
Other “options” have circulated, but careful examination shows that none are viable—nor is the status quo, which is unsustainable, as demonstrated by the Israel-Hamas war
After 57 years of occupation, Israeli-Palestinian relations are worse than ever before. Indeed, we have never seen this level of violence that has robbed the lives of so many Israelis and Palestinians and rained havoc and destruction.
This attests to the dismal failure of both sides to accept that neither has an exclusive right to the entire land stretching from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River, and that only two independent states would usher in a permanent solution to their endemic conflict.
Sadly, it took the Israel-Hamas war to awaken both sides to their tragic reality. They must now realize there will be no return to the status quo ante. The circumstances that led to the Israel-Hamas war only reinforce the inescapable requirement for a two-state solution. Simply put, there is no other viable option other than continuing the bloody conflict for decades to come.
This war, instigated by Hamas’ unprecedented slaughter of 1,200 Israelis, has inflicted horrifying destruction in Gaza and resulted in the death of nearly 23,000 Palestinians at the time of writing, 70 percent of whom are women and children. This tragic development has demonstrated the colossal failure of successive Netanyahu-led Israeli governments, which believed they could indefinitely maintain the occupation of the West Bank and the blockade of Gaza to prevent the Palestinians from establishing a state of their own.
The nearly six decades of occupation, which were punctuated by violence, Intifadas, terrorism, and mini-wars, have not seemed to faze Netanyahu and his hard-core followers. They maintain that the casualties that Israel has sustained over these years were a price worth paying for what they deemed ‘protecting Israel’—translating to keeping the occupation in place and expanding the settlements.
Meanwhile, some ministers have been implicitly encouraging the settlers to harass Palestinians in the West Bank, engaging in systematic dehumanization and creating unbearable conditions for Palestinians, forcing many of them to abandon their........