Not two-state solution, the only panacea for Palestine is to dismantle Zionism

By David Miller

Western states, especially the UK, are trying to resurrect the two-state solution to the long-simmering Palestinian issue as they move for the first time to endorse a Palestinian state.

This new move signals recognition that the Axis of Resistance is winning and winning emphatically despite four months of the genocidal war waged by the Israeli regime on Gaza. 

But why do these Western states, which claim to exalt democracy, not favour a democratic solution to the occupation of Palestine?

Why not offer a vote to all Palestinians about how they want to live? Surely, this would be an elegant solution that would show a true commitment to democracy.

As it happens, there is one state that has proposed a democratic solution to the occupation. That is the Islamic Republic of Iran.

In November last year, Iran’s foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian emphasized again the right of the Palestinian people to determine their own destiny saying a referendum would be a “complete” solution to the Palestinian question.

"The dimensions of this idea have been officially registered by the Islamic Republic of Iran in the United Nations," Amir-Abdollahian said. Efforts to promote the idea have been made in various bilateral, regional and international fora.

At present all those living in Historic Palestine including additional territories such as the Golan amount to 7.2 million Jews (48.6%) and 7.1 million Palestinians (47.7%). 

In addition there are a further 7 million Palestinians in the Diaspora, 6.3 million in Arab countries and around 750,000 elsewhere.

Of this total of 21 million, therefore, some two-thirds are Palestinian.  These figures reveal the stark nightmare for the Zionists. 

In any democratic process, the so-called “state of Israel” would be voted into the dustbin of history.  There is no mandate in the territory of historic Palestine for a “Jewish state” and there never will be. 

As Amir-Abdollahian put it in November, “The Zionist regime, in the shadow of its inability to confront the Resistance forces, took revenge on the defenseless people of Gaza and the (occupied) West Bank, which resulted in committing genocide and the war crimes”. 

It is plain that the bloodlust visible in the revenge on Gaza is driven by the sure and certain knowledge of the Zionists that they are outnumbered and their genocidal settler-colonial ethnostate can only survive by force of arms. 

The question now is: how long can that endure?

The only just and workable solution to the problem of the occupation of Palestine is to dismantle the settler Zionist colony.  But how could the Palestinians be expected or in practice accomplish living in peace with millions of genocidal Zionists?

De-Zionisation is clearly necessary. But what would it involve?

After the end of the 1939-45 war, it was clear that the entirety of German society would need to be cleansed of Nazi influences and effects, and that the Germans would need to be “re-educated”. The allies agreed on this at Yalta.

A key problem was what to do with the millions of Germans who had belonged to one or another Nazi organization – how to denazify them.

Perhaps the most iconic part of the process was the Nuremberg Tribunals at which leading Nazis were arraigned. 

The tribunals also had a key lasting effect on international humanitarian law which we can see in the ICJ judgment today that Israel is plausibly committing genocide in Gaza.

In relation to Palestine, a large number of war criminals would need to be tried and sanctioned – starting with Netanyahu, Gallant, Herzog, Ben Gvir and Smotrich.

The idea that they could ever again commit genocide in Palestine must be firmly smashed.

Once the material support for racist ideas is removed, then the ideas themselves are starved of sustenance. Once the British left most of Ireland in 1920, there were unionists in the Irish Free State who were bitterly and obstinately committed to Ireland remaining a colony of Britain. 

But, after the declaration of a republic in 1948 and the fact of Irish independence, most unionists gave up.  Within a generation they had come to think of themselves as Irish.

The lesson for Palestine is that the material circumstances supporting the hate-centric Zionist ideology must change and then it will be possible to dismantle Zionism.

De-Zionisation means, first of all, dismantling Zionist organisations.  This can be done by disbanding key organizations such that they cease to exist. Most obviously, this would include the World Zionist Organisation and all of its affiliates all over the world.

But there are Zionist organisations that can have legitimate functions in society should they be effectively De-Zionised. 

Today there are many Jewish groups that could be encouraged to disaffiliate from the genocidal ideology of Zionism.  There is no reason to close schools, synagogues, and student groups that can and should be encouraged to disavow Zionism and to provide places of learning, worship, or representation for all. 

But make no mistake: formally Zionist groups would have to either de-Zionise or cease to exist, wherever they are found.

David Miller is the producer and co-host of Press TV’s weekly Palestine Declassified show. He was sacked from Bristol University in October 2021 over his Palestine advocacy. 

(The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of Press TV)

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