The Reemergence of One-Statism

tion mark is misleading: the piece is quite emphatic about the unacceptability (to the Palestinians), indeed, death, of the two-state paradigm and the ineluctability of the one-state solution. She suggests that it might begin with “a formal policy of binationalism” that “may even ultimately pave the way to the secular democratic state in historic Palestine.” (I shall return to the “secular democratic state” formula later.)

More significant still is Palestinian American historian Rashid Khalidi’s admittedly cagey though ultimately unambiguous exposition of the one-state position in The Iron Cage (2006). He maintains in this book that his exposition does not “involve advocacy.” But even a minimally perceptive reader will not miss where his heart and mind lie.

He writes: “Among some observers... a realization has been growing for years that this outcome [that is, a two-state solution] is increasingly unlikely. This realization has taken shape irrespective of the merits or demerits in principle of the two-state solution, in spite of the long-standing desire of majorities of Palestinians and Israelis for their own state, and notwithstanding the (often grudging and hedged) acceptance by each people of a state for the others... In this view, the inexorable cementing of Israel’s hold over the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem has rendered moot the possibility of establishing what could legitimately be called a Palestinian state [alongside Israel]... This is the case if a ‘Palestinian state’ is taken to mean a viable, contiguous, sovereign, independent state on the territory of the 22 per-