Alan Baker is one of Israel’s prominent experts in international law. He served for 10 years as the legal adviser of Israel’s Foreign Ministry, followed by a four-year term as Israel’s ambassador to Canada. Previously, he was seconded to the UN as a senior legal adviser and has participated in numerous peace process negotiations, as well as in the drafting of various peace treaties and other agreements.
The Jerusalem Report spoke to Baker about the history and current status of the two-state solution.
Where did the concept for today’s vision of a two-state solution come from?
The ‘two states’ concept appeared originally in the 1947 UN General Assembly partition plan, referring to ‘independent Arab and Jewish states.’ But the ‘two-state solution’ currently being discussed originated in a speech by then-US president George W. Bush on June 24, 2002.
Did the idea appear in other peace pushes?
It was not mentioned in original documentation and agreements that constitute the backbone of today’s Middle East peace process, such as UN Security Council Resolution 242 following the Six Day War in 1967 or Resolution 338 in 1973 after the Yom Kippur War.
Prime minister Yitzhak Rabin’s vision of the permanent status, set out in his last speech to the Knesset in October 1995, referred to the establishment of ‘a Palestinian entity that will be a home to most of the Palestinian residents living in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.’ He added that the entity would be ‘less than a state and will independently run the lives of the Palestinians under its authority.’
It was referenced in the 2003 Quartet ‘Performance-Based Roadmap to a Permanent Two-State Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict,’ which describes ‘an independent, democratic, and viable Palestinian state living side by side in peace and security with Israel and its other neighbors.’
Did the Oslo Accords offer a two-state solution?
No, there was absolutely no reference to a two-state solution in the Oslo Accords.
In the accords, the parties agreed to negotiate ‘the permanent status of the territories,’ but no mention was made as to what that permanent status would be – whether one, two or three states, an autonomy, federation, confederation, condominium or any other form or entity.
Why has the concept never translated into reality?
The present-day references to the ‘two-state solution’ are being parroted by leaders, from former US president Barack Obama through to today’s various European leaders led by French President Emmanuel Macron, as well as the prime ministers of Canada, the UK, Australia, and others, as a form of naive wishful thinking, without any basic understanding of the complexities of the region and its history.
In order for this expression of wishful thinking to be translated into practical terms, proponents of a two-state solution need to be cognizant of the inherent realities and assumptions of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.
These include the premise that a Palestinian state will only emanate from direct negotiations between the Palestinians and Israel (as agreed in the Oslo Accords); will be demilitarized and limited in its military and security capabilities and other sovereign prerogatives; and the border between it and Israel will be the result of negotiation between them, and will not necessarily be the 1967 lines, which were never considered to be formal borders.
Similarly, any such state must be based on principles of democracy, liberty, and good governance, and [it] must prevent terror and incitement. A Palestinian state would also need to recognize Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people, in the same manner in which Israel would need to recognize a Palestinian state as the nation state of the Palestinian people.
Why has this not happened?
Since the PLO-Israel negotiations envisioned in the Oslo Accords regrettably never materialized into their final stage of determination of the permanent status of the territories, and since the Palestinian Authority – the temporary governing agency established by those accords to administer the territories – has never been able to develop any practical plan for governance, the two-state plan has never been given any concrete content.
Is the two-state solution viable today?
It could be viable assuming the existence of a unified and responsible Palestinian leadership duly enabled and genuinely willing to negotiate a peaceful relationship with a unified Israeli leadership.
In the present circumstances of open and violent schism within the Palestinian leadership between the Fatah and other factions in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza, in which there is no unified Palestinian leadership, there is little possibility of reaching any viable solution, whether it be one, two, three states or any other solution.■