As the bombs fall on Gaza and negotiations stall yet again, the question lingers on the mind of every individual praying for peace: how can two national movements both survive?
International politics is a competitive endeavor. According to structural realism, the driving force behind state-building is first survival, and second, the pursuit of ideological or territorial expansion [1]. In this view, war is simply an extension of politics by other means [2].
Thus, the survival of the state and its respective ideology becomes a function of a mastery of the balance of interests and the balance of power amongst other states. What then happens when two political nationalist ideologies have diverging interests?
Drawing from the literature on indivisible issues as a rationalist explanation for war, bilateral and multilateral cooperation pose effective tools for multi-state stability in so far as that cooperation does not confront problems of existential threats [3].
In the case of Israel and Palestine, Israel’s establishment as a Jewish ethnic-state coincided with national independence movements of Arab states from former British and French imperial powers.
450,000 out of about 688,000 Jewish immigrants came from Europe [4], many of whom joined Jewish Zionist forces that coordinated terrorist attacks against the British in Palestine in an effort to establish an ethno-state, which they deemed as “rightfully theirs” [5].
As part of their efforts, they additionally established settlements through the forceful displacement of locals in the region, causing a fragmentation of Palestinian culture, society, and nationalist aspirations [6]. Thus, Israel’s very existence came at the expense of one of the only Arab national independence movements that did not achieve self-autonomy amongst its neighbors.
Taken as such, the Palestinian movement – be it by the sentiment embodied by surrounding nations or Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, or occupied territories – becomes emblematic of a rightly perceived existential threat to Israel.
This is evidenced by comments made by Israeli elected officials, such as Financial Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who describes the establishment of a Palestinian State as “an immediate, existential danger to the State of Israel,” [7]. Additional analysis of Israel’s military doctrine shift after the 1973 war to assume a preemptive posture further demonstrates the perceived threat [8].
Proponents of the establishment of a Palestinian state similarly perceive the fragmentation and displacement of over 700,000 Palestinians in the 1948 Nakba as grounds for a rightful possession of occupied territories [9].
Using a UN framework in an international system guided by human rights, this displacement, to them, provides a valid moral argument for self-autonomy and grounds for statehood. After all, the creation of a Jewish ethno-state stood opposed to nationalist aspirations for to be a Palestinian was never envisioned as a call to be a certain religion.
Therefore, coupling the permanence of stories of grandparents who lost their lands and the living memory of an ongoing onslaught with the historical fragmentation of Palestinians and continuation of what is perceived as an anti-colonial endeavor, Israel exists not just as a reminder of a scarred history, but an imminent existential threat to Palestinian identity.
In practice, this indivisibility is illustrated by multiple failed negotiations. One example is the Oslo Accords which left further indivisible issues such governing Jerusalem to be solved later at Camp David II. Later at Camp David, those negotiations fell through as well [10].
The inefficacy of a two-state solution becomes inevitable not for its immediate impossibility but for its untenability given the nature of international politics as a series of competing politiks. So what then is the way forward? After all, I write about the irreconcilability of wills from the comfort of having a roof over my head when more than 64,000 Palestinians in Gaza have already been killed [11].
I argue that the first step is in confronting what humanistic tendencies we ascribe to our generation as somehow overcoming the rather violent reality of statecraft. Often, these tendencies are but self-illusions we engage in, existing more to self-affirm our own morality than to confront the reality that we have made a choice to not act and are comfortable doing so.
My invitation is an introspective call that allows us to move past this point of paralysis. There is not one solution that will appease everyone, for challenging the status quo necessitates reimagining power dynamics. In the context of the US, it risks a comfortable posture on the world stage.
Therefore, the question is not about what we should do but what we are willing to do. If the nature of international politics– as evidenced by gruesome stories and a rather violent present– makes for a competitive anarchic system, what then should guide its conduct?
Be it loyalty to a people within the confines of self-drawn maps through nationalism or a universalist value system, a choice made is a choice one bears the burden of carrying.
When the martyred mothers and fathers mourn the life their unborn child never lived, the choice is no longer between peace and war, but between whose existence is allowed to endure.
