Strategic Assessment

The concept of “one state” has existed in Palestinian thought alongside the “two-state vision” since the first days of the conflict with the Zionist movement. When the Palestinian Authority was established, the idea of one state was pushed aside, although it had been rooted in the Palestinian establishment for many decades (mainly in the “Palestinian democratic state” objective). However, in view of the multi-faceted crises besetting the Palestinian system in recent years, and at their heart an understanding of the difficulty of realizing the two-state vision, there has been a revival of the idea of one state. Unlike the past, when this debate was limited to an elite and fed by ideological and political considerations, today these matters are widely discussed, driven by practical and materialistic considerations – the desire for a stable life. Unplanned and unintentionally, the two-state vision is gradually moving toward a one-state reality, in which the inherent tensions between the two peoples stand to become more extreme and volatile.