I agree with a lot of this Foreign Affairs piece1 about how the 2-state solution is based on a fantasy that no longer is viable based on current conditions in Israel/Palestine. The article argues that the U.S. should abandon the two-state model and deal with Israel as it really is, an increasingly illiberal pseudo-apartheid state. By abandoning the two-state framework, the U.S. could deal with the entire zone that is effectively controlled by Israel (meaning "Israel proper", Jerusalem, the entire West Bank, and Gaza) as a single area and push for equality before the law and human rights for everyone who lives there. It then states:
To that end, Washington should begin conditioning military and economic aid to Israel on clear and specific measures to terminate Israel’s military rule over the Palestinians. Avoiding such conditionality has made Washington deeply complicit in the one-state reality. Should Israel persist on its current path, the United States should consider sharply reducing aid and other privileges, perhaps even imposing smart, targeted sanctions on Israel and Israeli leaders in response to clearly transgressive actions. Israel can decide for itself what it wants to do, but the United States and other democracies can make sure it knows the costs of maintaining and even intensifying a deeply illiberal, discriminatory order.
While I totally agree this is something the U.S. should do, it also seems to be wildly unrealistic given the current political climate in the U.S. I'm not even sure if a majority of Democrats would get behind a one-state/human rights driven policy, and virtually all of the Republican party would be against anything like that.
I like how the article points out that the entire framework that the Israeli-Palestinian issue is discussed is outdated and wildly out of step with reality in Israel/Palestine today. But because that framework persists, it is hard to imagine policy-makers to adopt anything that would address the actual situation.
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1- The article is firewalled, but you can create a free account that will let you read one free FA article per month. I used my one for April 2023 on this one and you can too!
