[...]... encompassing the territory of Israel and the (at present) semioccupied West Bank and Gaza Strip For many of these “Western” Palestinians, this represents nothing more than an emergence from the closet In fact, these current one- staters never really identified with the Fatah’s professed advocacy in the 1990s of a two -state solution, with a partitioned Palestine divided into two states, one Jewish, the other... always advocated the elimination of Israel and a one- state a Muslim Arab state solution for the Israel/ Palestine problem But over the past few years, Palestinian Arab intellectuals linked to the mainstream Fatah Party and living in the West have also begun talking openly about the desirability, or at least the inevitability, of a one- state solution one state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean,... turn: the Israeli-Palestinian Oslo peace process of the 1990s, based on an assumed ultimate outcome of two states, had died, essentially because of Israeli obstructionism, and could not be resurrected There could and would be no partition of Palestine /Israel into two states And the demographic facts on the ground, given the Arabs’ far greater birth rate, as well as the current demographic reality of Israel s... group of one- staters, according to Khalidi’s definitions, are those who advocate “a binational approach [that] would take into account [the] two national realities within the framework of one state. ” Khalidi acknowledges that all the onestate approaches have not taken real account of the “stone wall” of Israeli and American rejection of the dismantling of the Jewish state and run counter to the international... But the Western—American and European—governmental twostate mantra and the PLO’s apparent adoption of two- statism in the late 1980s and early 1990s forced them underground or into a duplicitous advocacy of, or reluctant acquiescence in, the twostate formula Now these Arab one- staters the “all of Palestine is ours” advocates—are surfacing once again, loudly proclaiming the truth and justice of their... collectivity toward the other.” According to Khalidi, there is another group of one- staters whose thinking is a “throwback to the old Palestinian idea of a single unitary state of Palestine [either] in terms of the previ4 The Reemergence of One- Statism ous PLO conception of a secular, democratic state in all of Palestine with equal rights for all [or] in terms of an Islamic state in which non-Muslims... activist, perhaps heralded the trend with her article (albeit published in Arabic, in 2002) “A Secular Democratic State in Historic Palestine: An Idea Whose Time Has Come?” The ques2 The Reemergence of One- Statism tion mark is misleading: the piece is quite emphatic about the unacceptability (to the Palestinians), indeed, death, of the two -state paradigm and the ineluctability of the one- state solution She... by the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel in June 1967.” This realization has “instigated renewed consideration of the old idea of a one- state solution, as either the ideal outcome or as the most likely default outcome, for Palestine /Israel. ” According to Khalidi, some see this one- state denouement as the “inevitable outcome of the extension into the immediate future of current trends [These... published in the London Review of Books It kicked off with a motto by Edward Said: The notion of an Egyptian state for the Egyptians, [and] a Jewish state for the Jews, simply flies in the face of reality What we require is a rethinking of the present in terms of coexistence and 16 The Reemergence of One- Statism porous borders.” The rest of the article follows the selfsame logic The two -state solution... so because Israel s unrelenting settlement drive has made the unraveling of Palestine /Israel into two states impracticable—and “there can be no reversal of the settlement policy,” much as the expulsion of the country’s Arab population is unthinkable So only a one- state solution, with Jews and Arabs coexisting, remains But Tilley admitted that for the Jews, the obstacles” of converting their country . One State, Two States This page intentionally left blank One State, Two States Resolving the Israel/ Palestine Conflict Benny Morris yale university press new haven & london Copyright © 2009. never really identified with the Fatah’s pro- fessed advocacy in the 1990s of a two -state solution, with a parti- tioned Palestine divided into two states, one Jewish, the other Arab, living side by. Solutions. Printed in the United States of America. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Morris, Benny, 1948– One state, two states : resolving the Israel/ Palestine conflict / Benny Morris. p.