The only way forward is single Palestinian state from the river to the sea in which Jews will have full religious and cultural rights
By Michael Pröbsting, Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT), 8 December 2023, www.thecommunists.net
The Biden Administration and their European allies are warming up once more the hackneyed idea of the so-called two-state solution, i.e. the idea to create a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza alongside the Israel state. It is no accident that this concept receives support from the same governments which lend “unlimited support” to the Zionist state and its genocide in Gaza. [1]
It is obvious why the Western governments are reviving talk about this idea just now: they want to create the impression that they would care about the future of the Palestinian people so that they can deflect attention from their political and military support for the Israeli massacre in Gaza. This is all the more necessary for Biden & Co since most of the world – and particularly the Arab and Muslim countries – are enraged about Washingtons’ complicity in mass murder.
If the U.S. and Western Europe would have been seriously interested in the creation of a Palestinian state, why did they do nothing in the past decades to force Israel to accept such a solution?! Why did they continue to send money and weapons despite the ongoing expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and the siege against Gaza for years and decades?! In other words, Washington’s and Brussel’s revived rhetoric about the “two-state solution” is nothing but a smoke screen.
Of course, there are many people who seriously and without cynical intentions support the idea of the two-state solution. While we respect their intentions, the RCIT considers this concept both as illusionary as well as reactionary.
Violation of the historic rights of the Palestinian people
Why do we call it reactionary? Because it violates the historic rights of the Palestinian people. As it is well known, the creation of the Zionist state in 1948 was based on the expulsion of 85% of all Palestinians living on that territory. When Israel expanded its colonial control in 1967 by occupying Gaza and the West Bank, even more people were forced to flee.
According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, there are about 14.3 million Palestinians living in historical Palestine and the diaspora. Of these, more than 5.3 million live in Gaza and West Bank, 1.7 million in the 1948-occupied territories (i.e. the state of Israel), 6.4 million live in other Arab countries and about 800,000 in non-Arab states. [2]
In 2019 more than 5.6 million Palestinian refugees were registered with the United Nations. More than half of the Palestinian diaspora – i.e. people living outside of Gaza, West Bank and Israel – are stateless, lacking legal citizenship in any country.
The vast majority of the Palestinians want to return to their homeland but they are prevented to do this by the Israeli occupation power. Of course, there is an inner logic to this. The Zionist state is based on the settler project which requires the expulsion of the native population and the building of an exclusive Jewish state on their land. Allowing the Palestinians to return to their homes would destroy the material basis of the Israeli state.
The only democratic solution is the dissolution of the Israeli settler state and the right of the Palestinians the return to their homeland. Naturally, this would make the Palestinians the majority population and the Jews the minority (currently, there about 7 million Jews living in Israel).
This was also the situation before the creation of the Zionist state. In fact, only about 10,000 Jews were living in Palestine at the beginning of the 20th century. It was only because of the British occupation of the country in 1920 and the systematic settlement of Jews (combined with the expulsion of the native Arab population), that the Zionists could lay the foundation of the future Israeli state. In other words, the state of Israel is by its whole historical development a settler project which was enabled (and kept alive) by imperialist powers.
A dangerous trap
For all these reasons, it is evident that the Israeli Apartheid state would never accept a democratic solution which allows the return of the Palestinian refugees. This is why Zionism is structurally oppressive, racist, and incompatible with democracy. Hence, this state must be abolished.
It is for the same reason that Israel is violently opposed to the creation even of a Palestinian mini state in Gaza and the West Bank. It is opposed because it fears that such a state could strengthen the Palestinians and its resistance forces and pose a threat to Israel at a future stage. The sophisticated and surprising 7 October attack of Hamas has certainly increased such fears among the Zionists.
However, it is theoretically not excluded that a shift in the relation of forces both in the Middle East as well as globally could result is the creation of a Palestinian mini state. However, this would a reactionary solution not only because it would prevent to millions of people to return to their homes in 1948-occupied Palestine.
It would be a reactionary solution also because such a mini state would inevitable become completely dependent and subordinated to Israel. Israel has one of the most powerful armies in the world and possesses about 200 nuclear weapons. It is an imperialist state with a modern capitalist economy. Its GDP is 488.5 billion dollars and it’s GDP per capita is 52,170. Compare this with Palestine (West Bank and Gaza) which has a GDP of only 18.04 billion dollars and its GDP per capita is 3,663. In other words, Israel’s economy is more than 20 times as strong than that of the West Bank and Gaza. Hence, such a Palestine mini state could not but be an economic appendix of Israel which would be kept in impoverished conditions and super-exploited by a small elite of capitalists.
Add to this that is most likely that Israel and its Western allies would insist that such a Palestine mini state would accept to have only a weak army which purpose would be mainly to suppress its own population. In fact, this is already the case in the West Bank where the Palestinian Authority of Mahmoud Abbas uses its numerous security services exclusively to attack resistance forces but never fires a single shot against the occupation forces.
In short, such a Palestinian mini state would be a de-facto colony of Israeli imperialism. Hence, a two-state solution would be a dangerous trap for the Palestinian people.
The only way forward: A single state from the river to the sea
The RCIT and its comrades in Israel / Occupied Palestine have always insisted that the only solution is the destruction of the Zionist state. Israel must be replaced by a single Palestinian state from the River to the Sea which would allow the right to return of all Palestinians. [3]
Does this mean that we advocate the expulsion of the Jewish population from Palestine? No, of course not. Such a state should be democratic and secular, i.e. it would treat all citizens as equal irrespective of their religious or ethnic background. While the Jews would be a minority in such a state, they would have full religious and cultural rights. It is likely that some of the Zionist settlers could not accept the loss of their dominant position, as it was the case with many white settlers in Africa. But all those who accept to live as equals with the Palestinians will be welcomed.
Such a state has to be a workers and poor peasant republic as part of a socialist federation of the whole region. Only a state which expropriates the monopolies and billionaires can ensure that the Palestinians get back their land and their homes. Only a socialist economy could elaborate a plan to rebuild Gaza and the West Bank and to share the wealth equally among all citizens.
In summary, the two-state solution has never been a solution for the Palestinian people. It is an illusionary concept or, if it would be implemented, it would be a reactionary trap. In other words, it is a reactionary illusion. The only way forward is the creation of a single, democratic and secular Palestinian state from the River to the Sea which should be a workers and poor peasant republic as part of a socialist federation of the Middle East.
[1] We refer readers to a special page on our website where the RCIT documents on the 2023 Gaza War are compiled: https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/compilation-of-articles-on-the-gaza-uprising-2023/.
[2] Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) Presents the Conditions of Palestinian Populations on the Occasion of the International Population Day, 11/07/2022, p. 1
[3] See on this e.g. two books by our comrade Yossi Schwartz, a Jewish Anti-Zionist since nearly six decades living in Occupied Palestine, who has dealt extensively with the Zionist state and the Marxist program: The Zionist Wars. History of the Zionist Movement and Imperialist Wars, 1 February 2021, https://www.thecommunists.net/theory/the-zionist-wars/; Palestine and Zionism. The History of Oppression of the Palestinian People. A Critical Account of the Myths of Zionism, RCIT Books, Vienna 2019, https://www.thecommunists.net/theory/palestine-and-zionism/; see also a pamphlet by Michael Pröbsting: On some Questions of the Zionist Oppression and the Permanent Revolution in Palestine, May 2013, https://www.thecommunists.net/theory/permanent-revolution-in-palestine/