Critics of a two-state solution between Israelis and Palestinians doubt that separation between the two peoples can be achieved. In an age of growing interdependence and ethnic intermixing, is the model of an independent sovereign state for each people still the best option?
Yes. The prevailing trend in modern history is toward the achievement of self-determination by ethnic groups within their own political framework, often despite the existence of extensive economic, cultural, social, and demographic ties with others.
In perspective, the process begins in the nineteenth century. The nations of the Western hemisphere, though often not differing ethnically, achieved independence from their mother countries. Minorities within the Ottoman Empire – Greeks, Serbs, Macedonians, Bulgarians, Romanians, Albanians – separated themselves from their Turkish rulers before World War I. After the war, other nation-states were born out of disintegrated multinational empires: Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Finland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia.
A similar process of separation into ethnic states took place with the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991 and of Yugoslavia in 1991-1995. Over a dozen new nation-states struck out on their own; clearly disaggregation and not amalgamation has been the order of the day.
It is worth noting that Ukrainians approved their independence from the former Soviet Union, and Russia, by a 92.3 percent majority in a national referendum.
For more relevant models of two-state solutions, there is the separation of Norway from Sweden in 1905, the division of India and Pakistan in 1948, the Bangladesh split from Pakistan in 1971, the “Velvet Divorce” between the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1993, the secession of Eritrea from Ethiopia in 1993, the generally recognized independence of Kosovo from Serbia after 1998, and the emergence of South Sudan out of Sudan in 2011.
Cyprus has been de facto divided into two states, Greek and Turkish, since 1974. A similar situation prevails in Moldova and in the country of Georgia, where break-away ethnic enclaves maintain their independence with the help of Russian troops.
Iraqi Kurdistan has also been, in most respects, self-governing since 1991, and even held a referendum in which 92.7 percent favored total independence.
National minority movements calling for separation into two states, and sometimes gaining referenda on the issue, have also been active among Scots in Great Britain, Catalans in Spain, French in Canada, and Flemish in Belgium. Ironically these last two nations are often the prime (and almost only) examples cited in support of claims that a binational solution – two peoples sharing power equally within a single state – is a preferred solution and offers a way out to Israelis and Palestinians.
So what does history say? Suppose we agree that none of the conceivable solutions to Israeli-Palestinian conflict are, at the moment, workable. History would suggest that giving each people a state of its own remains the least unworkable proposition.
Well put. It gives a good "win- win" description.