Implementing “Two Peoples, One Future”: Conceptualizing Mutual Self-Determination in Israel-Palestine

Abstract

The prevalent conception of the Israel-Palestinian “peace process” has long outlived any expectation for its success, and has provided cover for Israel’s de facto capacity to dictate terms. That framework fetishizes the two-state solution, mistaking the means (partition) for the end (mutual self-determination), while conceptually fragmenting the Palestinian political community so as to deprive it of its equal standing. Practical, moral, and legal considerations require nothing less than a re-imagining of the project of Jewish self-determination in Israel/ Palestine to accommodate the realization of Palestinian national rights on terms of equality. At the same time, it is errant and counterproductive for critics to treat the essence of that project – distinguishable both from the false universalism that marked the Labor Zionist era and from the unadorned ethno-nationalism that marks the contemporary practice of the Israeli state – as reducible to a colonialism fit to be vanquished. A consociational approach to the conflicting national aspirations promises a more productive engagement with the practical requisites of a mutual self-determination consistent with international legal standards.