The two-state paradigm is killing Palestinians in conjunction with genocide

Two announcements within the span of a few days about a Palestinian state, or the absence of it, should be enough evidence to prove that the international community is playing diplomatic games for its own benefit, nobody else’s.

“A Palestinian state will not be established,” said Israeli Economy and Industry Minister Nir Barkat on Israel’s Channel 14. “It will not happen under any circumstances.” He also ruled out a single democratic state, which is what many Palestinians have advocated for, post-decolonisation. Instead, Barkat spoke of fragmented areas “coexisting” amid the colonial settlements and referenced Jabotinsky’s Iron Wall. “If you recognise us, we’ll help you. If you don’t recognise us, we’ll devastate you like Gaza.” Colonialism and genocide are the new order of the day as far as Israel is concerned, and the international community is just one step away from endorsing this horror.

But not overtly, at least for now; it’s focusing on the defunct two-state paradigm.

In a press conference with his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fatah Al-Sisi, French President Emmanuel Macron announced the co-hosting with Saudi Arabia, of “an international conference for the two-state solution.” Macron also “opposed” the forced displacement of Palestinians and annexation of territory. “It would be a violation of international law and a serious threat to the security of the entire region, including that of Israel,” he said. Genocide is not, presumably, within the newly-altered scheme of things as far as international law is concerned.

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The statement, however, only serves to illustrate how the international community is only willing to engage with its own enforced paradigms. Years before the genocide, even before the Abraham Accords, the two-state paradigm was declared obsolete. Emboldened by the international community’s response to the genocide, which took up the hostage narrative as a priority even more than Israel itself, Israeli leaders have become overtly vociferous in their opposition to a Palestinian state.

Israel’s genocide has continued to alter reality for Palestinians, as well as for the international community, which has been allowing the change to happen since its endorsement of the 1947 UN General Assembly Resolution 181 (II) on the Future Government of Palestine (Partition Resolution) to give the “Partition Plan” it’s correct name. There was a time when the UN Secretary General would remind us intermittently that “There is no Plan B” and adamantly refuse to even consider other possibilities that were based on decolonisation. The ensuing genocide is also partly attributed to this stance, because the international community’s refusal was strictly limited to Palestinian political alternatives. Israel’s atrocities were always embraced with impunity.

A conference does not stop genocide, and it will not implement the two-state paradigm.

Israel is working towards destroying and decimating all that is left of Palestine and Palestinians, and the international community is doing nothing to stop it, or halt the genocide. On the contrary, it will waste time in futile conferences to buy Israel more time. Meanwhile, Israel’s kill toll of Palestinians continues to rise. The occupation state is also continuing to seize more land in Gaza under the guise of security. And how will Macron’s conference address Israel’s opposition to the two-state paradigm? More pertinent still, will the conference speak about how the international community’s reliance on obsolete plans are fuelling the genocide in Gaza?

Instead of calling out Israel’s genocide, Macron condemned “the resumption of Israeli strikes on Gaza, which constitute a dramatic setback for the civilian population, the hostages, their families and the entire region.” Of course, Macron needs no reminder about Israel burning Palestinians to death, blasting them in the air, or beheading them. Neither does he need to be reminded of the extrajudicial killings and the uncovered mass graves, or the rubble itself that serves as a mass grave for the thousands of Palestinians still buried beneath it all. But this is precisely what allows the two-state farce: despicable euphemisms — “dramatic setback”? Shame on him — that cater for political oblivion in a world brimming with awareness.

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