The gov­ern­ment is moving with unstop­pable momentum towards recog­nising a Palestini­an state without a nego­ti­ated end to the conflict with Israel.

It is long­stand­ing bipar­tis­an Aus­trali­an policy, and the policy of the Executive Council of Aus­trali­an Jewry, to support the notion of two states for two peoples.

The United Nations Special Committee on Palestine, con­sti­tuted by the UN to recommend a formula to end the conflict, reported in 1947 that:

“regard­less of the origins of the conflict, the rights and wrongs, the Jews and Arabs are dis­sim­il­ar in their ways of living and separated by political interests. Only by partition can these con­flict­ing national aspir­a­tions find sub­stan­tial expres­sion and qualify both peoples as inde­pend­ent nations.”

The theory expressed here cannot be faulted, which is why it has long been embraced. But a theory with no capacity to be imple­men­ted is worthless.

If it were otherwise, the two-state solution would have become a reality in 1948, when Israel, having built the insti­tu­tions of a demo­crat­ic state, declared inde­pend­ence pursuant to the UN’s partition plan. Instead, it was rejected by the Arab side and opposed through invasion and civil war.

If it were possible, it would have become a reality once Egypt broke the Arab consensus on permanent war with Israel and made peace in 1979.

Instead, it spawned a massive dip­lo­mat­ic and political campaign by the Palestini­ans, still with us today, to topple Israel through inter­na­tion­al isolation.

If it were possible, it would have happened during the Oslo Process, which estab­lished the Palestini­an Authority, confined the conflict to five core issues and presented a roadmap to peace. Instead, this collapsed into the horrors of the Second Intifada.

And if it were possible, it would have become reality following the Israeli with­draw­al from Gaza in 2005. Instead, it led to the election of Hamas, the total mil­it­ar­iz­a­tion of Gaza, and inev­it­ably, the October 7 massacre.

Why have all attempts to solve the Israeli-Palestini­an conflict failed?

Because this is not a border dispute. It is about the place of an autonom­ous Jewish presence in the Middle East. The survival of a Jewish state or its complete destruc­tion. And there is no middle ground between life and death.

The historian Benny Morris observed:

“The Jewish State had arisen at the heart of the Muslim Arab world – and that world could not abide it. Peace treaties were even­tu­ally signed by Egypt and Jordan, but the Arab world – the man in the street, the intel­lec­tu­al in his perch – refused to accept what had come to pass.”

Things have changed since Morris wrote those words. Four other Arab countries have made peace with Israel. Perhaps even among the man in the street and the intel­lec­tu­al in his perch, there has been some accept­ance that Israel ain’t leaving.

But the Palestini­an attitude has hardly changed since the emergence of Palestini­an nation­al­ism in the 1920s.

Why? Because the Egyptian, the Emirati, the Saudi might resent Israel as a thorn in the body of Islam, but they are not defined by their oppos­i­tion to it. They can cease war with Israel and still remain who they are.

But Palestini­an identity IS oppos­i­tion to Israel. This is why the Palestini­an flag is taken up by those with a fetish for Arab res­ist­ance and anti-Zionist ideology.

Palestini­an nation­al­ism is incapable of accepting a two-state solution that would extin­guish their claims to the entirety of the land and per­man­ently entrench a Jewish state in the heart of the Middle East. To do so, would not only destroy their dreams of a great return, it would destroy their very iden­tit­ies.

Western gov­ern­ments do not grasp this. Through a mixture of idealism and blindness, they think this can be overcome by ordinary dip­lo­mat­ic prin­ciples of pressure and incent­ives. It is a perfect delusion.
In all but des­troy­ing Hamas, Israel has removed the primary obstacle to the recog­ni­tion of a Palestini­an state.

And we can be sure that con­cur­rently with their public state­ments on recog­ni­tion, world leaders are pres­sur­ing, flat­ter­ing and inducing Mahmoud Abbas into saying the words needed to overcome the final barrier to recog­ni­tion of a Palestini­an – a com­mit­ment to free elections, mean­ing­ful reform, and peaceful coex­ist­ence.

Once these things happens, or rather, once Abbas says they will happen, there is nothing to stop it.

What will this mean in practice?

What will happen to 700,000 Israelis who live in what will be deemed the sovereign territory of the Palestini­an state? The Aus­trali­an Gov­ern­ment has shown its will­ing­ness to sanction indi­vidu­als it considers infringing on Palestini­an rights in the West Bank, to com­plic­ate the visa process for ordinary Israelis, and bar entry to indi­vidu­als whose rhetoric it doesn’t like.

Will a student or academic of Hebrew Uni­ver­sity living just ten minutes from campus on the wrong side of the 1949 armistice line be pro­hib­ited from trav­el­ling abroad, engaging with col­leagues in Australia? What about Jews who access the Western Wall and other parts of the old city of Jerusalem?

Most crit­ic­ally of all, what does Israel do? Does it read the writing on the wall, accept that it has emerged from the singular horror of October 7 with the greatest advantage over its col­lect­ive enemies it has ever enjoyed? Does it use that advantage, act with tactical deft, pledge to negotiate final status issues like set­tle­ments, Jerusalem and borders in good faith and put the ball back in the Palestini­ans’ court?
Or does it rage and lash out at the West, and seek the dip­lo­mat­ic cover of a wholly unpre­dict­able US admin­is­tra­tion.

Does it overplay its hand, submit to the demands of the most extreme elements of its coalition gov­ern­ment who don’t care if Israel becomes an island cut off from the world, and pun­it­ively annexes parts of the West Bank and Gaza thinking this will show them, when it fact they would be doing exactly what the West expects them to do, walking right into the trap it has set.