Israel Doesn’t Have a “Right to Exist” — But Israelis and Palestinians Do
We’re often told that creating a single secular democratic state with equal rights for Israelis and Palestinians would violate Israel’s “right to exist.” But no nation-state has an inviolable right to exist — especially not an ethnostate based on exclusion and ethnic cleansing.
Palestinians who fled their home due to Israeli air and artillery strikes fill bottles with water at a school hosting refugees in Gaza city, on May 14, 2021. (Mohammed Abed / AFP via Getty Images)
In 1991, Israeli and Palestinian representatives gathered in Madrid, Spain to restart a “peace process” they hoped, at least ostensibly, would lay the groundwork for a future “two-state solution.” Three decades later, as Israeli bombs rain down on Gaza, the creation of an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza seems further from realization than ever.
The idea of a two-state solution never made much sense. The West Bank and Gaza are geographically disconnected, and the Gaza Strip takes up all of 140.9 square miles. Under the terms of a future two-state deal, the residents of this tiny strip of land, densely packed with refugees from elsewhere in Israel/Palestine, wouldn’t be able to travel anywhere else in their country without venturing through the territory of a hostile military power that could deny such permission at any time. Does that sound like a meaningfully independent nation?
There are other obvious questions that arise. Would refugees whose families were ethnically cleansed from “Israel proper” be allowed back in Israel? Would this “independent Palestinian nation” be able to have its own army? And if militant groups dissatisfied with the accord launched attacks from within Future Independent Palestine, would Israeli bombers be on their way to enact collective punishment?
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