Palestine: A One-State Solution Is the Only Solution

Why Two States Is a Dead End — And Why Justice Demands One Free Palestine

It may have taken tens of thousands of dead and images of emaciated children that people can’t ignore. Still, the world is once again slowly reaching a conclusion (except the United States, of course) that something must be done about Palestine.

And yet, what “must be done” is still centred on the interests of Israel, as Keir Starmer's commitment to a “two-state solution” following France’s recognition of Palestine shows. While some may see these things as helpful, the truth is, they’re not.

The Two-State Lie

For those who somehow remain in the dark, Gaza has been undergoing an official Genocide for what is now approaching two years. At the same time, many would argue that a genocide has been ongoing ever since the formation of the state of Israel, if not always physically, then certainly culturally. Entire families have been erased from existence. Children maimed. People burned alive. Babies left to rot in incubators. Famine used as a weapon.

Not only that, but within the last year, the so-called state of Israel has launched attacks against Lebanon, Syria, and Iran, and continues its long tradition of influence and black ops in many other countries around the globe. Even taking Gaza out of the equation, Israel’s violence, belligerence and racism are widely known:

• They carried out repeated bombings and assassinations in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Iran, violating international law.

• Maintained a blockade on Gaza, described by UN officials as “collective punishment.”

• Codified apartheid through the 2018 Nation-State Law, which declares that only Jewish people have a right to national self-determination in Israel.

• Built a dual legal system, where Jewish settlers in the West Bank live under civil law while Palestinians live under military law.

Israel is, put flippantly, not a good neighbour.

So, what level of naivety do you still have to have to, at this point, be talking about “two states living side by side in peace?”

Would you want to live next to the person who blew your mother to pieces? burned your father to death in his bed? Killed your children? Would you want to live next to a violent racial supremacist?

The two-state solution rests on an illusion of symmetry between Israel and Palestine. But this disingenuous framing ignores the core reality of the situation - that this is not a conflict between equals. Nor in most respects, a conflict at all. Palestine has no effective military force to stand against Israel. It has no navy, no air force. It is effectively unarmed, fragmented, and besieged. Instead, it is a settler-colonial situation where Israel, thanks to the West, possesses advanced weaponry, including nuclear weapons, which they have threatened to use on more than one occasion.

Israel dominates those around it thanks to Western military support. It can strike Beirut and Damascus at will and kill high-positioned officials at will. It invaded Lebanon. So how does a two-state solution offer any challenge to domination, assassination, and future invasion? How does it solve the problems of Palestinians getting back more than a fraction of their historic land? Or reunite their people instead of remaining scattered across disconnected enclaves? Will it stop Israel from controlling water, trade, or airspace?

The two-state solution is a fraud that allows Israel to keep its stolen land, keep its hegemony in the Middle East, while keeping the middle class happy at Western dinner tables.

What then, is the alternative?

The street on the right was once the main shopping street of Hebron. In 1994 the Israeli occupying forces forced the closure of some 500 Palestinian shops and barred Palestinians from driving there. In 2000 they barred Palestinian pedestrians too. More than a thousand store owners have been forced to close their shops due to checkpoints and closures, but illegal Israeli settlers are allowed free movement in the closed streets and are protected by occupying military forces. | John Austin via Labour2Palestine, cc-by-2.0

One State, One Future: Decolonised and Equal

The answer is, and has always been, a one-state solution. It is the only just, moral, and practical solution. It is the only path honouring history, human rights, and the lives already lost. And it is the only solution that ensures no child will have to grow up behind a wall, under siege, or in fear of airstrikes.

This would take the form of a single democratic state in all of historic Palestine—today’s Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza—where every human being, regardless of ethnicity, religion, or origin, enjoys equal citizenship and equal rights—no more apartheid laws, with human rights applied to all, equally.

However, what would need to happen for this solution is not easy. It would require:

• Full civil and political rights for all people currently living between the river and the sea.

• The right of return for Palestinian refugees, as affirmed by UN Resolution 194, allowing those displaced in 1948 and their descendants to return to their homes or receive fair compensation.

• The dismantling of apartheid systems, including segregated roads, legal codes, and military occupation.

• A national process of truth and reconciliation, modelled on South Africa’s post-apartheid process, allowing for acknowledgement, redress, and the return of stolen land and property.

• The trial of war criminals under international law—not as an act of vengeance, but of justice.

There are precedents for this, most notably South Africa, which dismantled its racial hierarchy and created a single, multiracial democracy. Also, in Rwanda, after their own terrible genocide, they sought unity through a single national identity and community-based justice.

However, a one-state solution is something that the current far-right fascist regime in Tel Aviv is not going to accept and, realistically, is something likely to have to be forced on Israel. South Africa and French Algeria fought against decolonisation and equality, and so did the Jim Crow South. Power rarely yields voluntarily. But it can be forced to yield in the face of military resistance, boycotts, divestment, sanctions, public pressure, and the moral clarity of a global movement that refuses to accept apartheid.

However, it is vital that the global movement speaks with one voice and one goal. It's time for everyone, not just Keir Starmer and his ilk, to realise that a two-state solution is not a solution at all.

This is not a time that we should be compromising with fascism and injustice. It is not a time we should be accepting unworkable solutions to a problem that has left tens of thousands dead and millions displaced. It is not a time we should be appeasing Western consciences. What is needed is not another round of failed negotiations built on bad faith by a state that wants genocide, but a moral awakening and a determination to finally bring an end to the violence of occupation and apartheid.

A one-state solution is not a fantasy if you accept that the Israeli regime is the biggest obstacle to peace and its dismantling is a political necessity. Once achieved, a one-state solution is the only path grounded in human rights, historical accountability, and genuine justice.

And justice does not come from maintaining the comfort of the powerful. It comes from standing with the oppressed—even when it’s unpopular, even when it’s difficult, even when it requires breaking with decades of diplomatic theatre.

Palestine does not need our pity. It requires our solidarity. And that solidarity must begin by burying the myth of two states and demanding, without apology, one free, democratic, decolonised Palestine—for all who call it home. From the river to the sea.

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