Tom Minear: Two-state solution cannot be wished into existence
Rushing to recognise a Palestinian state, as Australia is now willing to do, risks backing Israel into a corner. Tom Minear argues it ignores the reality of the politics of peace.
A two-state solution for Israel and Palestine will only succeed – if it ever does – when both sides are willing to accept it. It cannot be wished into existence, as 143 members of the United Nations including Australia tried to do last week.
The US was one of nine countries to vote against Palestine’s bid for full membership of the UN because it understands this reality. Its presidents have tried and failed to cajole both sides into an agreement, with none coming closer than Bill Clinton in 2000.
“I killed myself to give the Palestinians a state,” he recalled in 2016, but they turned it down.
All of Gaza, 97 per cent of the West Bank, and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat still said no.
In the wake of Hamas’s October 7 terrorist attack, Australia’s Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong has been one of many leaders to criticise Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s refusal to now entertain a two-state solution. She is not wrong.
What this criticism often misses, however, is an acknowledgment that Netanyahu has no legitimate partner for peace. Hamas obviously cannot be at the table, and the Palestinian Authority is the object of much distrust and dissatisfaction in the West Bank.
And even if Netanyahu had a genuine negotiating partner, is it any surprise he is not ready to talk, six months since the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust? This reticence is not merely the product of his coalition’s far-right roots – it is a common view in a country at war.
With this in mind, it is difficult to see what last week’s UN vote will change.
Australia’s support for the resolution, outlined by the government’s representative James Larsen, stems from frustration in the slow progress on a two-state solution and a new belief that recognising Palestinian statehood should no longer wait until the end of the process.
As understandable as that frustration is, rushing to recognition is backing Israel further into a corner. Its UN representative furiously shredded the body’s charter in the General Assembly.
This is why the US is working so hard on a normalisation deal with Saudi Arabia, because that could drag Israel out of a horrible war in Gaza with a carrot rather than a stick.
It might feel good for the Australian government to vote for Palestine at the UN. But wouldn’t it feel better to recognise a state that legitimately exists, accepted by Israel and vice versa?
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Originally published as Tom Minear: Two-state solution cannot be wished into existence
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