Two Peoples or One Nation: The Case for Re-Imagining Israel-Palestine

Israel’s settlements in the West Bank have progressed to the point that most observers privately agree that a two-state solution is dead. Yet while Israel absorbs ever more land and resources, diplomats and regional experts continue to discuss the partition, as though it is still viable. The idea of a two-state solution appears everywhere in international diplomacy. Why is the concept of the two-state solution so entrenched?

According to Virginia Q. Tilley, the collective refusal to accept the obvious is best understood as a ‘paradigm shift’ that has stalled. This is because the international community cannot reconceive the Palestine problem as ‘one nation wrongfully divided by racial nationalism’ but instead view it as ‘two peoples in one land’. To deconstruct the idea, Tilley invites readers to reconsider the very terms of ‘peoples’, ‘nations’, ‘states’ and ‘nation-states’, and challenges ideas about the history of the conflict and the racial logic that has for too long been accepted. Based on this new analysis, and by comparing the situation of South Africa, Jewish statehood is revealed to be conceptualized in ways that generate a regime consistent with the definition of apartheid in international law.

The book recommends a paradigm shift in international law and argues that peace is dependent on the embedded beliefs, values and ideas being revised by all parties. This means that the Palestine problem should be treated as a domestic conflict that requires conflict resolution to eliminate racial division within the society, rather than an international conflict that requires conflict resolution to end Israel’s occupation.