In the run-up to a special session of the UN General Assembly at which at least seven Western states have announced their intention to extend diplomatic recognition to the State of Palestine, numerous respected and knowledgeable commentators are declaring that a “two-state solution” is no longer possible and that advocating and pursuing it is a waste of time. While, even more so today than ever before, it is virtually impossible to imagine achieving any measure of justice for the Palestinian people, the opposite conclusion regarding a “two-state solution” may be reached through an assessment of the prospects for realizing the three conceivable scenarios for the future of Palestine.

1. A continuation of the status quo — an aggravated apartheid state actively pursuing the ethnic cleansing or extermination of the indigenous population of Palestine.

2. A single fully democratic state with equal rights for all in all of historical Palestine.

3. Partition of historical Palestine into two states, as recommended by the UN General Assembly in 1947 but now essentially along the pre-June 1967 lines, with a special status for a shared Jerusalem.

While Scenario 2 would be the most morally, ethically and humanly satisfying scenario in the eyes of most people, it must be recognized that, according to recent polling, only 14% of Palestinians favor that scenario, that the percentage of Jewish Israelis favoring that scenario is likely to be even lower and that no foreign government currently advocates that scenario.

By contrast, Scenario 3 is at least rhetorically advocated by every foreign government except the U.S. government (which advocated it, if only rhetorically, for several decades prior to the first Trump presidency), with 147 countries having already extended diplomatic recognition to the State of Palestine and more promising to do so this month.

Indeed, based on its compliance with the four criteria for statehood outlined in the Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States (with which Israel does not fully comply, since, unlike Palestine, it has never defined its borders) and its diplomatic recognition by more than three-quarters of UN member states encompassing the overwhelming majority of mankind, the State of Palestine already exists as a matter of international law. It does not yet effectively function on the ground because its entire territory remains under belligerent occupation by the State of Israel, an occupation which the International Court of Justice has declared illegal.

The challenge is thus to bring the current apartheid one-state reality on the ground into line with the two-state legality under international law by ending the illegal occupation.

Doing so will require not just rhetorical aspirations and more than mere diplomatic recognitions. It will require crippling, multi-faceted sanctions by Western governments, accompanied by pariah-status shunnings by Western societies and international sports federations, in order to convince a majority of Israelis that ending the occupation would enhance the quality of their lives, as, indeed, it would.

While nothing good should be hoped for from any American government, the leaders of European governments, who are being awakened from their moral slumber by the intensity of the quest for some measure of justice manifested by their citizens and who have proven themselves capable of some 20 rounds of sanctions against Russia for acts far less reprehensible than Israel’s ongoing genocide, might, if only to serve their own personal political self-interests, finally match their virtue-signaling rhetoric with serious, meaningful and effective action.

It is therefore incumbent upon decent European citizens to do everything in their power to inspire their governments to do whatever it takes to achieve the end of the occupation and the transformation of the existing two-state legality in international law into a functioning two-state reality on the ground.

Doing so will be extremely difficult and success may rationally be deemed unlikely, but the possibility of success must not be dismissed as inconceivable. Since Scenario 2 has become more inconceivable than ever since October 2023, giving up on Scenario 3 would constitute a default and submission to the inevitable continuation of Scenario 1 — apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and extermination.

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