French President Emmanuel Macron announced on Thursday that he has decided that France will recognize the State of Palestine before the UN General Assembly (UNGA) in New York this coming September.
On the sidelines of the General Assembly, France and Saudi Arabia will chair a high-level international conference with heads of state and government on the implementation of the two-state solution. The conference, which was rescheduled due to Israel-Iran war in June, will start with a meeting on ministerial level next week (28-29 July).
Macron’s announcement came at a crucial junction in the conflict with alarming reports about widespread starvation and destruction in Gaza, insufficient implementation of the EU – Israel understanding on access to humanitarian aid, and the breakdown in the proximity talks between Israel and Hamas on a ceasefire-hostage deal which could end the war and pave the way for “the day after”.
“The urgent priority today is to end the war in Gaza and to bring relief to the civilian population,” Macron twitted on X but added that "peace is possible”. He also included a letter to the President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, who has condemned Hamas’ terrorist attack on 7 October 2023, confirmed his support for the two-state solution and called for Hamas to be disarmed.
“We must also ensure the demilitarization of Hamas, secure and rebuild Gaza,” Macron underlined. “And finally, we must build the State of Palestine, guarantee its viability, and ensure that by accepting its demilitarization and fully recognizing Israel, it contributes to the security of all in the region."
Despite these safeguards, Macron’s announcement was automatically rejected by Israel and the US that described any recognition of a future Palestinian state as “surrender” or a “reward” to terrorism and a “slap in the face to the victims of 7 October”. The Israeli Parliament (Knesset) even approved on Wednesday a non-binding motion in favor of annexing the West Bank.
Former EU’ foreign policy chief, High Representative Josep Borrell, said early on in the Gaza war that one horror does not justify another horror. He initiated the idea of an international conference to keep the two-state solution alive and restore a political horizon towards such a solution. He also repeatedly complained about the lack of a common EU position on how to end the war and promote the solution.
EU’s long-standing position is that the solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict should be based on two-states, “with the State of Israel and an independent, democratic, contiguous, sovereign, and viable State of Palestine, living side by side in peace and security and mutual recognition, and with Jerusalem serving as the future capital of both states”.
The conference is expected to mobilise support for the two-state solution and initiate a process for its implementation but it cannot impose the solution on the two sides. Israelis and Palestinians will have to negotiate directly about the parameters and reach an agreement on the details. The EU can offer mediation and incentives, put pressure and use its leverage to bring them to the negotiation table.
How will the two-state solution look like and is it still feasible? The solution foresees a partition of the land both sides claim as their own, based on the pre-1967 borders and possible land swaps, with a Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip alongside Israel. A concrete proposal for relaunching the peace process towards this two-state solution was presented last year by two Israeli think tanks.
This “classic” solution has until now failed despite several attempts since the Oslo process in the 90-ies to implement it. No agreement was ever reached on all the “final status issues” such as borders, security arrangements, Israeli settlements, the Palestinian right to return, and Jerusalem. Is it time to move away from the Oslo zero-sum mindset to a new peace vision focusing on shared interests and territory?
The Brussels Times met Meron Rapoport, an award-winning Israeli journalist and writer who in 2012 co-founded the joint Israeli-Palestinian initiative A Land for All (ALFA) or Two States, One Homeland. As in the two-state solution, it envisages two fully sovereign states but from there it differs. The two states are linked in a confederation, with Jerusalem as a shared capital, open borders, and a negotiated right of return for both sides.
How has the movement developed in Israel since 2012 in terms of membership, public support and drafting of the confederation vision?
ALFA is still a relatively small movement without any strong support in Israel, at least so far, Meron Rapoport replied. Support for the two-state solution has demonstrably declined, especially after 7 October. “Figures on public support are uncertain but there is a growing interest in ALFA as a solution to the conflict amid declining support for the classic two-state solution advocated by the EU”.
The ALFA vision has some resemblance to the idea of “parallel states” that the Swedish diplomat Mathias Mossberg proposed in 2010 when doing research at The Center for Middle Eastern studies (CMES) at Lund University. It also included open borders and shared competencies but not a formal confederation. Mossberg sadly passed away last year.
Before you founded ALFA, you believed in the two-state solution. Why is the ALFA solution more realistic after 7 October?
“ALFA is more realistic because separation between the two peoples is no longer realistic. It’s not possible to evacuate 500,000 or more settlers from the West Bank, nor to divide Jerusalem. Jews and Arabs are living together in Israel. The ALFA solution is closer to reality because it addresses all the root causes, including both sides’ connection to Palestine before 1948, that have been swept under the rug until now.”
The crucial difference between the two-state solution and ALFA is that the latter recognizes that both peoples have ties and roots to the entire country, he explained. They should therefore have the right to live everywhere - as citizens with voting rights in their respective independent state and as residents in the other part of the confederation with municipal voting rights.
A confederation on these terms takes into account the narratives of both sides and what the entire country means to them. Rapoport did not go into detail whether it would be possible to leave so many settlers, with an extreme ideology, in the future Palestinian state. Do they want to become citizens in that state and live in peace with their Palestinian neighbors?
According to a version of the two-state solution, the settlement blocs in the West Bank with the majority of settlers would be annexed by Israel and the isolated settlements deep in the West Bank would be evacuated. Rapoport argues that ALFA offers them a better option than forced evacuation. ALFA takes also into account the right of return, which means so much to the Palestinians.
He admitted that there is a lot of suspicion and distrust on both sides after 7 October but he also sees the war as an opportunity for change. Both sides have experienced big traumas. It can either lead to a deepening of the conflict and feelings of revenge (“forever war”) or an understanding of the necessity to overcome the conflict for a better future for both peoples.
“The unresolved conflict has cost us so much. The inhabitants of Gaza initially supported Hamas but hardly any more after all the destruction that its attack against Israel on 7 October caused them. The war shows the limits of power and military solutions. Both sides should understand that by now.”
Rapoport referred to previous wars such as the Yom Kippur War which was followed by Egyptian-Israeli peace. He also compared ALFA with the EU as a peace project. After constant wars for centuries, culminating in WWII, a gradual process was launched after the war which would result in the European Union as we know it today.
“The ALFA solution with common institutions and mechanisms would be an ideal solution because we live today in mixed and intertwined societies but on completely unequal terms.”
Half of the Palestinian people live outside Israel/Palestine and almost 6 million of them have refugee status according to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA). Will ALFA cancel the refugee status of those who will continue to live in other countries?
“Israel’s population has grown from 600,000 to 10 million since 1948,” Rapoport replied. He believes that both Israel and the future Palestinian state have the capacity to absorp many returning Palestinians without specifying how many.
“It’s absolutely necessary to address the refugee problem, otherwise the conflict will continue. Just as in principle all Jews in the world can return to Israel, the Palestinians should have the same right to return to their homeland.“
In fact, the majority of Jews living outside Israel do not intend to emigrate unless they are forced to do so because of antisemitism and persecution. Rapoport argues that the same principle must apply to the Palestinians. “This doesn’t imply that all the Palestinians will return at once. Its’ a process over time, depending on the circumstances. But it’s impossible to ask them to disregard the right to return.”
That said, it is important to find a realistic solution, he added. “Those who return to the Palestinian state will become citizens there and therefore also citizens of a confederation which grants them the right to live and work in Israel.” The question whether this would threaten Israel’s existence as a Jewish democratic state with a Jewish majority (80 % today) was left open.
Will the future Palestinian state be demilitarized or do you foresee that defence and security against external threats will become a shared responsibility?
“All militias and terrorist organisations will have to be disarmed but it’s impossible to forbid an independent state from having an own army of any kind,” Rapoport replied. “It was the Palestinians who were expelled or forced to leave in 1948. Today it’s Israel that destroys Gaza and threatens the Palestinians, not the other way around, so their need for security is understandable.”
Rapoport does not accept the Israeli demands for demilitarization of a future Palestinian state in the framework of a confederation. In the ALFA vision, defence and security should be common concerns. There must be security for both sides. He argues that the external threats against Israel will decrease, if not disappear, because a peace agreement with the Palestinians will give Israel security.
“The Palestinians can say to Iran, we live in peace with Israel, if you attack Israel, you attack us too. Iran loses its pretext to threaten Israel with extermination. The hostile outside world loses its pretext to threaten and attack Israel.” He argues that Israel would not need to maintain its military superiority to deter all current and future enemies.
Is there consensus inside the ALFA movement about the principles or components of the vision or will the details be left to be solved in future negotiations?
“There is a consensus about the framework but we cannot replace the politicians,” Meron Rapoport summarized. “Legitimate representatives of both peoples need to sit down and negotiate all the details. The exact details should be discussed by both sides. In the meantime, we are in a process where we are trying to answer to as many questions as possible and prepare the ground for upcoming negotiations.
A first draft for discussion has been published but is currently being updated. For more information about ALFA, click here.
