Welcome to the Gulf News Debate. This month, two of our leading opinion writers argue on the viability of the two-state solution for lasting peace between Palestinians and Israelis. For the contrasting view to this article, click here: It is past time to move to a different model
The people of Palestine deserve their full and independent state, run by their own government, responsible only to the Palestinian people. They should not be required to seek citizenship in an alien state and they should not have to settle for less than full sovereignty. They should not settle for allowing their basic rights or citizenships being doled out to them like a child might receive random treats from an uncle.
This means that Israel and Palestine have to be two different states, and between them they will divide the territory between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea. The present challenge is how to achieve this aim since the Israelis have won successive wars over the Palestinians and they see no need for compromise and are content to remain a brutal occupying power, prepared to use force when they deem necessary with no regard for law, on the false logic that protecting Israeli security allows the security forces to do what they want.
A further fallacy is that the Oslo Accords will work. The hopeless premise of that agreement is that the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) and Israeli government will work together in mutual respect to arrive at a full and complete solution. This is nonsense as successive Israeli governments have moved further and further to the nationalist and religious right, mocking the terms of the Oslo Accords and refusing to listen to any voice other than that of their own military and security chiefs.
Divided people
In addition, the Israelis have worked hard to encourage divisions between the Palestinian people, which have manifested themselves in the enduring split between Fatah and Hamas, and the separate status of the Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem. It is a matter of great comfort for the Zionists that the Palestinians are so disunited and therefore are unable to come up with a single coherent political position.
The way forward is to start again. It is unlikely that this will happen with the current leadership of the PNA, which has got used to working with the occupying power, which has had a particularly malign effect on security issues as Palestinian security forces enforce Israeli decrees, and over economic cooperation where favoured Israeli firms get access to cheap Palestinian labour.
But a new and younger generation of leaders will be able to make the essential fresh start and withdraw the cooperation that the discredited current leadership offers Israel. The unilateral disbanding of the PNA will force Israel to take full responsibility for its occupation rather than outsourcing some of it to Palestinian forces. It would also send a strong and clear signal that all Palestinians are not willing to accept the continuing occupation, which manifests itself in so many ways, like the appalling dismemberment of the West Bank by Israeli colonies and security barriers, the continuing blockade of Gaza and the repression of the people of occupied East Jerusalem, including the current attempt to impose a Jewish presence in Al Haram Al Sharif.
Rebuilding institutions
The outgoing PNA would do well to spend some time reinforcing the Palestinian institutions of civil society so that when the PNA is no longer there, there are independent and autonomous local institutions in various sectors that can provide alternative services and act as regulatory agencies. By looking to the vigorous life in Palestine contained in civil society groups, political parties, private sector associations, labour unions and local government bodies, the new leadership would recognise that the current political structures are broken. It would acknowledge that no country can hope to win with a president ruling by decree, a government collaborating with the Israelis and a parliament that has not met for years.
Such a voluntary disbanding of the PNA might also help heal the rift between Hamas and Fatah. It would certainly solve Fatah’s overwhelming political problem that it is a party committed to a dialogue, which it cannot deliver, because the dialogue is treated with contempt by the other party. The way the Israelis have mocked and fooled the Fatah negotiators is enough to make any self-respecting Palestinian angry with both the Israelis, but also with Fatah for continuing such an obviously vacuous course.
The Palestinians will achieve their nation through steadfast application of their principles. They should not surrender their self-respect and they should not wait for the Israelis to choose to grant them what is theirs by right.
No one can argue that it will be easy, and it is painfully obvious, that Palestine faces a vicious enemy that has achieved a dominant position. But ultimate independence and national pride cannot come from collaborating in a Zionist project. Instead, it needs complete resistance from the combined entirety of the Palestinian people in order to win full independence. This will require the complete withdrawal of all colonies and all Israeli troops will have to leave the West Bank. Occupied Jerusalem needs to be open to all Palestinians while those living in the city do not suffer racist oppression. And Palestine will be able to build its own national institutions as a free state.
