Evidence of genocide in Palestine has inspired several prominent onlookers in Western media and academia to offer up “solutions”. This means the resurfacing of the so-called two-state solution, ie providing Palestinians with their own nation-state – one that would coexist peacefully with Israel.
It is better to leave it to the Palestinians to discuss their own future. But, for my own edification, it would be helpful to know whether what is being offered in the “two-state solution” is the same old neocolonialism, especially as it seems increasingly possible that this talk of two states may become more than the ruse it is now.
That is, more than a distraction created to present Israel and the West as rational, modern actors genuinely committed to the pursuit of “peace in the region” but whose efforts are frustrated by atavistic Palestinian terrorism. A “solution” emerging from the colonists’ goodwill, drawn from the humanitarian breast of those engaged in the extermination campaign.
If genocide of the Palestinians is unacceptable, and establishing two states is also unacceptable, what is the other solution?
Abolishment of the Apartheid state of israel and a single state with equal rights. Just like what happened with Apartheid South Africa.
Will the planned State of Palestine be like the “former” colonies of France whose airspace can be penetrated at will and whose gold and art are held in the coffers of Paris for safekeeping? Will cheap agricultural products and minerals be invited in with one hand but migrants be shot at, turned back and directed to drown at sea or starve in deserts and detention camps with the other? Will the land given to the new independent state be controlled by the families of men who a century ago penned that the native would forever be an unsuitable candidate for self-rule? And who happen to support the “reformed” settler political party now led by their chosen conservative “native” leader smiling wide on his marionette strings? Will the natural resources be “opened up” to Canadian business who return loose change in the form of aid, inventing a national identity of the altruistic society while mourning the “sad story” of the Congo it holds by the collar?
Is this the second state of the two-state solution? Academic decolonisation? Rebranding of the colonial stranglehold as a departure from it? A changing of the guard from colonial administration to deputised colonial administration? The postcolonial government nothing but a glorified tour guide for neocolonialism?
If so, it explains why liberals in the West are anxiously clamouring for it, embarrassed that the overt founding violence of settler-colonialism has not yet become the backroom violence of the troubled “postcolonial state” and that Israel, for some reason, has not yet exchanged the thrill of the sjambok and demand for white rule for the normalcy of neocolonialism and a multicultural white power where the planters are now foreign direct investment, the railway barons now development experts, NGO directors and CEOs for green startups. Perhaps the second state will be full of white women building wells in photos with smiling Palestinian children and former colonisers applauding themselves for their charity, where reparations will be said to have already been paid in the form of department stores built atop burned Indigenous cities and the new jobs created in the service industry.
