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A TWO-STATE SOLUTION FOR ISRAEL AND PALESTINE IS STILL POSSIBLE  
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Limor Yehuda
September 3, 2025
Haaretz
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_ The E1 settlement bloc and ethnic cleansing are meant to foreclose
Palestinian liberation. But if we revisit our assumptions about
partition and reclaim the principle of equality, we can rethink what a
two-state solution looks like. _

Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Mustafa is seen on a interpreter
monitor as he speaks during an International Conference for the
Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine and the
Implementation of the Two-State solution at United Nat, credit Adam
Gray / AP

 

Nearly two years have passed since the October 7 war began. Israel's
war cabinet has once again refrained from even discussing a cease-fire
deal that could release hostages, while allowing the continued
annihilation of Gaza and the starvation of its civilian population.
Meanwhile, settler militias, shielded by the army, carry out daily
attacks against Palestinian communities in the West Bank
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a campaign of ethnic cleansing in all but name.

At the same time, two contradictory political currents advance. On the
one hand, momentum is growing for international recognition of a
Palestinian state: over 140 countries – now 147 UN members –
already recognize Palestine. In recent months, major Western powers
such as France, Belgium and Canada have declared their intention to
join them, signaling a shift in the diplomatic landscape.

On the other hand, Israel is consolidating control over the entire
land between the river and the sea. This is no longer merely a de
facto reality of one regime, but an official policy aimed at
transforming it into a single state. The Israeli government recently
approved the long-stalled E1 settlement plan – a neighborhood
strategically placed east of Jerusalem that would cut the West Bank in
two. Many observers fear that once E1 is built, the door to a viable
Palestinian state will be sealed. This is why E1 has long been known
as the "doomsday settlement
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The threat of E1 is no accident; it is not a passing whim but a
calculated move, fully in line with the raison d'être of the
settlement project. It fits neatly with Finance Minister Bezalel
Smotrich's 2017 "Decisive Plan," which openly envisioned the
dispossession of Palestinians from their homeland and the subjugation
of those who remain to a regime of Jewish supremacy. With the current
coalition, this plan is being advanced systematically, driven by a
combustible mix of revenge, messianic vision and illiberal governance.

And yet, despite the devastation, the option of dividing the land into
two sovereign states has not vanished. It remains possible – but
only if we are willing to revisit some of our basic assumptions.

Since the Oslo Peace Process, the Israeli imagination of a negotiated
settlement with the Palestinians has fused two concepts: partition and
separation. The idea of two states
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been tied to the idea of "us here, them there," reinforced by slogans
like "good fences make good neighbors." But this fusion is misleading
– and it has brought us to a dead end.

Partition, historically, refers to the drawing of political
boundaries. The 1947 UN Partition Plan, for example, proposed two
states linked by an economic union, with Jerusalem under a special
international regime. It assumed – rightly – that while there
would be independent Arab and Jewish states, Jews and Arabs would
continue to live as minorities in each other's states, with freedom of
movement between them, subject only to national security
considerations.

Separation, by contrast, emerged in Israeli discourse much later by
various former prime ministers. From Yitzhak Rabin's fear of
"demographic threat," to Ehud Barak's "we are here, they are there,"
to Ariel Sharon's "disengagement," separation meant physical and
demographic disentanglement. It assumed that peace could only be
achieved once Israelis and Palestinians stopped living together –
once walls and checkpoints obscured each side from the other.

But separation was always a fantasy. Jews and Palestinians are deeply
intermingled: in Jerusalem, in the West Bank and within Israel proper.
No border could ever produce two homogeneous nation-states. There will
always be minorities on the "wrong side" of the border. There will
always be shared resources and responsibilities, intertwined spaces
– and a shared homeland.

By fusing partition with separation, the "Oslo approach" created an
impossible and misleading version of the two-state solution. That
fusion has led many – Israelis, Palestinians and international
observers alike – to declare the idea dead. But what has failed is
the doctrine of separation, not the possibility of partition into two
sovereign yet interdependent states.

If partition is to have meaning today, it must be reimagined. The
first key to that reimagining is equality.

The 1947 Partition Plan included not only a territorial map but also a
set of guarantees: equality for the minorities in each state, and
equal treatment of all citizens regardless of religion or nationality.
Crucially, it also reflected the idea of collective equality –
parity between the two peoples, expressed in the recognition of both
Jewish and Arab states side by side, reinforced by a joint economic
union and reciprocal commitments and guarantees.

Partition, in this original sense, was not only about drawing borders
but about affirming the equal national rights of both peoples to
self-determination and belonging in the same land. That principle was
abandoned after Oslo. Exploiting asymmetrical power relations, Israel
managed to reduce the Palestinians to subjects of an interim autonomy,
while entrenching Jewish settlement in their midst.

Equality is not simply a moral imperative. It is, as robust research
on conflict and peace shows, a practical necessity.

In any conceivable two-state arrangement, there will be Israelis
living under Palestinian sovereignty and Palestinians living under
Israeli sovereignty. In Jerusalem, two capitals will overlap. If
domination continues, these mixed realities will be a recipe for
renewed disaster.

Importantly, the equality required here cannot be limited to the
individual level. It must also be collective equality – recognition
that both peoples, Israeli and Palestinian, have equal national rights
to self-determination in the same land. Only by ensuring parity
between the two collectives, not just fairness between individuals,
can partition avoid perpetuating domination by one nation over the
other. Only by committing to collective equality can the option of a
sustainable peace become real.

Jewish presence in Palestine need not legitimize the settlement
project, designed to destroy Palestinian sovereignty. Instead, it can
genuinely insist on and commit to equality, both individual and
collective.

But with both sovereignty and equality wherein Palestinians and
Israelis alike can live as minorities with full rights in each state,
and if both peoples are assured equal standing as nations, recognized
as peoples at home in their shared homeland – then settlements no
longer dictate the future. What they lose is their capacity to
monopolize our political imagination.

What does this mean in practice? A partnership-based two-state
solution would still recognize two sovereignties, Israel and
Palestine. Borders would still matter for independence, diplomacy and
international law. But borders would not function as walls of
exclusion.

Jerusalem, for instance, could serve as an open city and the capital
of two states, with joint institutions managing holy sites, shared
infrastructure and interconnected public services. Minorities on each
side of the border would enjoy guaranteed rights, reinforced by joint
arrangements between the two states and secured by international
guarantees. Shared institutions could manage water, the environment
and economic interdependence. Instead of treating interdependence as a
problem to be solved by separation, partnership would embrace it as
the foundation of peace.

This vision is not utopian. It draws on experiences from other deeply
divided places – such as Northern Ireland and Bosnia – where
sovereignty and cooperation coexist in creative, if imperfect, ways.
It is anchored in necessity.

Israelis and Palestinians cannot escape each other. The only choice is
between domination and fair partnership.

E1, like the strategy of ethnic cleansing, is meant to foreclose
Palestinian nationalism and Palestinian liberation. But if we revisit
our assumptions about partition and reclaim the principle of equality,
we can expose this project as neither inevitable nor irreversible.

The two-state solution is not dead. What is dying is the illusion of
separation. What remains is the possibility of partition –
reimagined through equality, sustained by partnership and built on the
recognition that both peoples belong to this land, together and apart.

_Limor Yehuda is a Senior Research Fellow and Founding Director of the
Shemesh Center for Partnership-Based Peace at the Van Leer Jerusalem
Institute. She is the author of "Collective Equality: Democracy and
Human Rights in Ethnonational Conflicts," and the Co-Chair of the
joint board of the Israeli-Palestinian movement A Land for All._

_Haaretz
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is an independent daily newspaper with a broadly liberal outlook both
on domestic issues and on international affairs. It has a journalistic
staff of some 330 reporters, writers and editors. The paper is perhaps
best known for its Op-ed page, where its senior columnists - among
them some of Israel's leading commentators and analysts - reflect on
current events. Haaretz plays an important role in the shaping of
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to Haaretz._

* two state solution
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* Palestine
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* Israel
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* Oslo Accords
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