The one-state solution for Palestine has been spoken of for decades—sometimes as a moral ideal, sometimes as a technocratic fix, and at other times as a convenient abstraction that avoids confronting the brute realities of settler colonialism. Today, after 7 October 2023, and the ensuing genocide in Gaza, the idea of “one state” can no longer be discussed in the language of coexistence, balance, or liberal optimism. It must be confronted as a post-catastrophe political project, one that emerges not from symmetry but from liberation, accountability, and historical repair.

The clarity and questions raised by Lara Kilani’s astute essay, “Liberation Is Not Integration: On liberal Zionism, one-state fantasies, and what Palestinians actually want,” and Rima Najjar’s uncompromising response, “The Settlers Are Not Leaving: Decolonisation, not coexistence,” place the discussion of Palestine’s future precisely where it belongs—with Palestinians themselves. These interventions reject the liberal framing of the one-state solution as a multicultural compromise between two equal sides. Instead, they reassert a fundamental truth: Palestine is not a conflict to be managed, but a colonial structure to be dismantled.

From a Jewish anti-Zionist perspective – one articulated for years by the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network—the role of Jews is neither to design nor to preside over Palestine’s future. It is to actively dismantle Zionism: as an ideology, a global network of institutions, and a violent colonial project. As Najjar rightly argues, de-Zionisation is not an optional ethical gesture; it is a precondition for Palestinians to imagine liberation on their own terms. Yet the question remains unavoidable: what comes after occupation ends? How does a society emerge from genocide, apartheid, mass displacement, and structural erasure? And is it possible—indeed necessary – to imagine a single, secular, inclusive political community after such devastation?

This essay does not offer blueprints. It outlines conditions, principles, and hard questions—not as liberal aspirations, but as the groundwork of a post-colonial future.

Is This the Darkest Moment – and Can Light Still Emerge? October 7 and its aftermath shattered the last illusions sustaining the so-called “peace process.” The genocide in Gaza has stripped Israel of any remaining moral camouflage. It has also devastated Palestinian society beyond measure—physically, psychologically, and socially. To speak of reconciliation now risks sounding obscene unless it is grounded in justice first.

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