One-state solution
The one-state solution is a proposed approach to the Israeli–Palestinian peace process that envisions a single state within the boundaries of the former Mandatory Palestine. The term one-state reality refers to the belief that the current situation in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict amounts to a single de facto political space. The one-state solution is sometimes described as a bi-national state, reflecting the idea that it could provide self-determination to Israelis and Palestinians within a shared state.
It is a potential resolution to the conflict through the creation of a unitary, federal or confederate Israeli–Palestinian state, encompassing Israel, the Palestinian territories, and potentially the Golan Heights. Perspectives differ: some argue that such a model would alter Israel's identity as a Jewish state and leave the Palestinians without national independence within a two-state solution, while others view it as an equitable framework for ending the conflict.
Various models have been proposed for implementing the one-state solution.
- One such model is the unitary state, which would comprise a single government with citizenship and equal rights for every ethnic and religious group in the land, similar to the legal arrangement of the British Mandate for Palestine. Some Israelis advocate a version of this model in which Israel annexes the West Bank and grants Israeli citizenship to all of the Palestinians living there, thereby integrating the region and gaining a larger Arab minority, but remaining a Jewish and democratic state.
- A second model calls for Israel to annex the West Bank and integrate it as a Palestinian autonomous region.
- A third model involves creating a federal state with a central government and federative districts, some of which would be Israeli and others Palestinian.
- A fourth model, described by the Israeli–Palestinian peace movement A Land for All, involves the establishment of a confederation in which independent Israeli and Palestinian states share powers in some areas, and giving Israelis and Palestinians residency rights in each other's states.
Historical background
Antiquity until World War I
The area between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River has been controlled by various national groups throughout history. A number of groups, including the Canaanites, the Israelites, the Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Jews, Romans, Byzantines, Umayyads, Abbasids, Seljuk Turks, Crusaders, Mamluks, Ottomans, the British, Israelis, Jordanians, and Egyptians have controlled the region at one time or another. From 1516 until the end of World War I, the region was controlled by the Ottoman Empire.Ottoman and later British control
From 1915 to 1916, the British High Commissioner in Egypt, Sir Henry McMahon, corresponded by letters with Sayyid Hussein bin Ali, the father of Pan Arabism. These letters were later known as the Hussein–McMahon Correspondence. McMahon promised Hussein and his Arab followers the territory of the Ottoman Empire in exchange for assistance in driving out the Ottoman Turks. Hussein interpreted these letters as promising the region of Palestine to the Arabs. McMahon and the Churchill White Paper maintained that Palestine had been excluded from the territorial promises, but minutes of a Cabinet Eastern Committee meeting held on 5 December 1918 confirmed that Palestine had been part of the area that had been pledged to Hussein in 1915.In 1916, Britain and France signed the Sykes–Picot Agreement, which divided the colonies of the Ottoman Empire between them. Under this agreement, the region of Palestine would be controlled by Britain. In a 1917 letter from Arthur James Balfour to Lord Rothschild, known as the Balfour Declaration, the British government "view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people", but at the same time required "that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine".
In 1922, the League of Nations granted Britain a mandate for Palestine. Like all League of Nations Mandates, this mandate derived from article 22 of the League of Nations Covenant, which called for the self-determination of former Ottoman Empire colonies after a transitory period administered by a world power. The Palestine Mandate recognized the Balfour Declaration and required that the mandatory government "facilitate Jewish immigration" while at the same time "ensuring that the rights and position of other sections of the population are not prejudiced".
Resentment over Zionist plans led to an outbreak of Arab-Jewish violence in the Palestine Riots of 1920. Violence erupted again the following year during the Jaffa Riots. In response to these riots, Britain established the Haycraft Commission of Inquiry. The British Mandatory authorities put forward proposals for setting up an elected legislative council in Palestine. In 1924 the issue was raised at a conference held by Ahdut Ha'avodah at Ein Harod. Shlomo Kaplansky, a veteran leader of Poalei Zion, argued that a Parliament, even with an Arab majority, was the way forward. David Ben-Gurion, the emerging leader of the Yishuv, succeeded in getting Kaplansky's ideas rejected. Violence erupted again in the form of the 1929 Palestine riots. After the violence, the British led another commission of inquiry under Sir Walter Shaw. The report of the Shaw Commission, known as the Shaw Report or Command Paper No 3530, attributed the violence to "the twofold fear of the Arabs that, by Jewish immigration and land purchase, they might be deprived of their livelihood and, in time, pass under the political domination of the Jews".
Violence erupted again during the 1936–39 Arab revolt in Palestine. The British established the Peel Commission, which recommended partition of Palestine. While the Jewish community largely supported the concept of partition, but the Arab community entirely rejected the Peel Partition Plan. The partition plan was abandoned, and Britain issued its White Paper of 1939, which sought to accommodate Arab demands regarding Jewish immigration by placing a quota of 10,000 Jewish immigrants per year over a five-year period from 1939 to 1944. It also required Arab consent for further Jewish immigration. The White Paper was seen by the Jewish community as a revocation of the Balfour Declaration, and due to Jewish persecution in the Holocaust, Jews continued to immigrate illegally in what has become known as Aliyah Bet.
Continued violence and the heavy cost of World War II prompted Britain to turn over the issue of Palestine to the United Nations in 1947. In its debates, the UN divided its member States into two subcommittees: one to address options for partition and a second to address all other options. The Second Subcommittee, which included all the Arab and Muslim States members, issued a long report arguing that partition was illegal according to the terms of the Mandate and proposing a unitary democratic state that would protect rights of all citizens equally. The General Assembly instead voted for partition and in UN General Assembly Resolution 181 recommended that the Mandate territory of Palestine be partitioned into a Jewish state and an Arab state. The Jewish community accepted the 1947 partition plan, and declared independence as the State of Israel in 1948. The Arab community rejected the partition plan, and army units from five Arab countries – Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Transjordan, and Egypt – contributed to a united Arab army that attempted to invade the territory, resulting in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War.
Establishment of Israel
The 1948 Arab–Israeli War resulted in Israel's establishment as well as the flight or expulsion of over 700,000 Palestinians from the territory that became Israel. During the following years, a large population of Jews living in Arab nations left or were expelled from their homes in what has become known as the Modern Jewish Exodus and subsequently resettled in the new State of Israel.By 1948, in the wake of the Holocaust, Jewish support for partition and a Jewish state had become overwhelming. Nevertheless, some Jewish voices still argued for unification. The International Jewish Labor Bund was against the UN vote on the partition of Palestine and reaffirmed its support for a single binational state that would guarantee equal national rights for Jews and Arabs and would be under the control of superpowers and the UN. The 1948 New York Second world conference of the International Jewish Labor Bund condemned the proclamation of the Jewish state, because the decision exposed the Jews in Palestine to danger. The conference was in favour of a binational state built on the base of national equality and democratic federalism.
A one-state, one-nation solution where Arabic-speaking Palestinians would adopt a Hebrew-speaking Israeli identity was advocated within Israel by the Canaanite movement of the 1940s and 1950s, as well as more recently in the Engagement Movement led by Tsvi Misinai.