Death of the two-state solution

by Neill Lochery
June 13, 2002

As Prime Minister Ariel Sharon met with President George Bush 
in Washington, the major issue on the table was the creation 
of a Palestinian state. 

Since Yasser Arafat publicly appeared to embrace the idea of 
the State of Israel alongside a Palestinian state in 1988, 
and the Israeli government accepted the concept of a Palestinian 
state by signing the Oslo Accords in 1993, it was presumed 
that the peace process was moving inevitably toward a 
two-state solution. Commentators such as myself have embraced 
this solution for years. 

Sadly, however, I now sense we were wrong. Put simply, the 
Palestinians are not ready for statehood. I say this with the 
deep-held belief that in a perfect world there would already 
have been a Palestinian state - one that was politically 
stable and economically viable. 

To create a Palestinian state in 2002, however, would not 
solve the problems of the Middle East, as President Hosni 
Mubarak argued to President Bush at Camp David last weekend, 
but would exacerbate the difficulty in bringing stability 
to the region. 

The key to any creation of a state is a monopoly over the 
means of violence by the legitimate leadership of the 
proposed state. This is clearly absent in Palestinian 
Authority areas. There is mounting evidence that Arafat has 
lost control over the various Palestinian paramilitary 
groups and is afraid of challenging the freedom of radical 
Islamic groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad to launch 
attacks in Israel. 

At present, the Islamic groups - and some groups closer to 
Arafat - reject the two-state solution to the conflict. 
As a result, even if a Palestinian state were created the 
violence would not end; Hamas and others would continue to 
launch attacks against Israeli citizens. Israel would be 
forced to retaliate - a factor that would no doubt lead to 
an increase in Palestinian support for more attacks against 
Israeli targets. 

In short, statehood would not end the violence, but might 
actually fan its flames. 

The question of political reform among the Palestinian 
Authority has now become such a vital ingredient to progress 
in the peace process that to proceed with the creation of a 
state before this has taken place would be foolhardy for 
all parties. We need to see a more mature leadership emerge 
from the ruins and chaos of the current situation. 

Words like accountability and democracy need to be instilled 
into a new leadership that must serve its people in a less 
selfish manner than Arafat and his cronies. Without these 
changes a Palestinian state would resemble Iraq under Saddam 
Hussein. 

Economically, a Palestinian state is not viable today. 
If created, there is a strong possibility of serious civil 
strife and an over-reliance on international aid from Arab 
and EU countries. Much of what was promised in the past 
never arrived. 

The business sector has not developed as hoped back in 1993. 
The majority of successful Palestinian entrepreneurs live 
outside the boundaries of the proposed state, and have 
shown little inclination to invest in the PA, preferring 
markets where there is a stronger chance of financial return. 
Put simply, they continue to invest in the global markets 
for business and not nationalist reasons, and there is 
little sign that this would change with the creation of a 
state. 

Consequently, many Palestinian families would become 
increasingly reliant on one or more members of the family 
working in Israel or Kuwait. In these circumstances it is 
difficult to see how a state could raise enough taxes to 
pay for even the most basic services for its citizens. 

Absence of control over the armed groups, the lack of 
legitimacy and credibility of the political leadership and 
a weak economic sector suggest that the only criterion for 
creating a state today would be to satisfy the nationalist 
aspirations of Palestinians. This argument is, however, 
sheer folly. 

The creation of a state would lead to an increase in national 
aspirations as the state struggled to survive. The land of 
milk and honey across the border would likely become a 
target of this frustration, with increased calls to destroy 
Israel in order to form a more viable state of Palestine 
from the Mediterranean to the River Jordan. There would 
doubtless be renewed Palestinian violence as they attempted 
to carve out a better deal. 

World leaders need to understand the simple fact that 
creating a Palestinian state today would not end the 
violence. President Mubarak of Egypt admits this in private - 
as does King Abdullah of Jordan. From their perspective, 
however, the creation of a weak Palestinian state poses 
little short-term political threat to the strategic balance 
of the Arab world and satisfies the increasingly strong 
pro-Palestinian sentiment of their respective populations. 

What they do not see is that a failed Palestinian state 
(for that is what it would eventually be) is as much a 
danger to their own positions as to Israel. 

Prime Minister Sharon will no doubt have reminded President 
Bush of this point. At present, a two-state solution is no 
solution at all. 
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The writer is director of the Center for Israeli Studies at 
University College, London