One-state solution

[3] The one-state solution is sometimes referred to as the bi-national state, owing to the hope that it would successfully deliver self-determination to Israelis and Palestinians in one country, thus granting both peoples independence as well as absolute access to all of the land.

According to the most recent joint survey of the Palestinian–Israeli Pulse in 2023, support for a democratic one-state solution stands at 23% among Palestinians and 20% among Israeli Jews.

[10] The "one-state solution" refers to a resolution of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict through the creation of a unitary, federal or confederate Israeli-Palestinian state, which would encompass all of the present territory of Israel, the West Bank including East Jerusalem, and possibly the Gaza Strip and Golan Heights.

[13] From 1915 to 1916, the British High Commissioner in Egypt, Sir Henry McMahon, corresponded by letters with Sayyid Hussein bin Ali, the father of Pan Arabism.

[18] The Palestine Mandate recognized the Balfour Declaration and required that the mandatory government "facilitate Jewish immigration" while at the same time "ensuring that the rights and position of other sections of the population are not prejudiced".

[22] Continued violence and the heavy cost of World War II prompted Britain to turn over the issue of Palestine to the United Nations in 1947.

During the following years, a large population of Jews living in Arab nations (close to 800,000) left or were expelled from their homes in what has become known as the Modern Jewish Exodus and subsequently resettled in the new State of Israel.

The International Jewish Labor Bund was against the UN vote on the partition of Palestine and reaffirmed its support for a single binational state that would guarantee equal national rights for Jews and Arabs and would be under the control of superpowers and the UN.

The Palestinian position evolved following Israel's victory in the Six-Day War, when it became no longer realistic to expect the militarily powerful and densely populated Jewish state to disappear.

[25] But according to a poll taken by the Palestine Center for Public Opinion in 2020, around 10% of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza believe that working towards a binational state should be a top priority.

[43][44] Hamas co-founder Mahmoud Al-Zahar has been cited saying he "did not rule out the possibility of having Jews, Muslims and Christians living under the sovereignty of an Islamic state.

[1] Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei and former president Ebrahim Raisi both expressed their support for a one-state solution, in which Palestine would become the sole legitimate government of Israel.

[51][52] Leftist journalists from Israel, such as Haim Hanegbi and Daniel Gavron, have called for the public to "face the facts" and accept the binational solution.

Khalidi further argued that the "peace process" had been extinguished by ongoing Israeli settlement construction, and anyone who still believed it could result in an equitable two-state solution should have their "head examined".

Lustick argued that people who assume Israel will persist as a Zionist project should consider how quickly the Soviet, Pahlavi Iranian, apartheid South African, Baathist Iraqi and Yugoslavian states unraveled.

Zone C, agreed upon as part of the Oslo Accords, comprises about 60% of West Bank land and is currently under Israeli military control.

"[71] In an interview with Jeffrey Goldberg, Hussein Ibish claimed that it is not realistic for Israel to be compelled to accept a binational solution with full right of return for refugees through international pressure or sanctions.

[72] New Historian Benny Morris has argued that the one-state solution is not viable because of Arab unwillingness to accept a Jewish national presence in the Middle East.

[73] Morris argues any such state would be an authoritarian, fundamentalist state with a persecuted Jewish minority, citing the racism and persecution minorities face throughout the Arab and Muslim world, and writing that "Western liberals [...] refuse to recognize that peoples, for good historical, cultural, and social reasons are different and behave differently in similar or identical sets of circumstances."

[75] Morris argued that while the Palestinians would have few moral inhibitions over the destruction of Israeli-Jewish society through mass murder or expulsion, fear of international intervention would probably stymie such an outcome.

[78] This negative view of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza prompts some critics to argue that the existing level of rights and equality for all Israeli citizens would be put in jeopardy with unification.

[79] Benny Morris echoes these claims, arguing that Palestinian Muslims, who would become the ruling majority in any such state, are deeply religious and do not have any tradition of democratic governance.

In response to the common argument given by proponents of the one state solution that Israel's settlements have become so entrenched in the West Bank that a Palestinian state is effectively impossible, scholars such as Norman Finkelstein and Noam Chomsky have countered that it is far more unrealistic to expect Israel to accept a one-state solution that would spell the end of Zionism than it is to expect it to dismantle some settlements.

[80]Shaul Arieli has likewise argued that the settlement enterprise has failed to create the appropriate conditions to prevent a contiguous Palestinian state or to implement the annexation of the West Bank.

He has noted that the settlers comprise only 13.5% of the West Bank's population and occupy 4% of its land, and that the settlement enterprise has failed to build up a viable local economic infrastructure.

[81][82][83] This sentiment has been echoed by Shany Mor, who argued that in 2020, the geographical distribution of settlers in the West Bank had not materially changed since 1993, and that a two-state solution is actually more feasible now than it was in the past due to the disentanglement of the Israeli and Palestinian economies in the 1990s.

[88] Left-wing Israeli journalist Amos Elon argued that while Israel's settlement policy was pushing things in the direction of a one-state solution, should it ever come to pass, "the end result is more likely to resemble Zimbabwe than post-apartheid South Africa".

"[90] On the aftermath of any hypothetical implementation of a one-state solution, Gershom Gorenberg wrote: "Palestinians will demand the return of property lost in 1948 and perhaps the rebuilding of destroyed villages.

[85] Gorenberg wrote that in addition to many of the problems with the one-state solution described above, the hypothetical state would collapse economically, as the Israeli Jewish intelligentsia would in all likelihood emigrate, writing that "financing development in majority-Palestinian areas and bringing Palestinians into Israel's social welfare network would require Jews to pay higher taxes or receive fewer services.

[91] However, in February 2007, NEC found that around 70% of Palestinian respondents backed the idea when given a straight choice of either supporting or opposing "a one-state solution in historic Palestine where Muslims, Christians and Jews have equal rights and responsibilities".