The end of Israel

As the title snags your attention, allow me to clarify: this is no call for genocide or displacement of any group or individual, voluntary or otherwise, but an exploration of a governance model, which determines the lives of 14 million people, give or take, between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. This regime seems to be at an end, sooner than you think.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is often depicted in binary terms. We're familiar with a simple map – Israel in one colour; Palestinian Gaza, East Jerusalem, and the West Bank in another. Zoom in, and the picture complicates. Numerous Israeli settlements; 700,000 souls, and counting, weave through Palestinian territory. The straightforward map, along with the prospect of a cohesive Palestinian state, disintegrates.

Missed Opportunities: A Tale of Two Narratives

Israelis often say that Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Palestinian negotiators, from the heady days of the Oslo Accords in 1993, which were intended to be a stepping stone towards a Palestinian state, to the failed Camp David summit in 2000, counter: in the same period, the number of Jewish settlers on Palestinian land increased from 250,000 to 450,000. Not exactly a solid foundation for a two-state solution.

What was actually on offer? A few East Jerusalem suburbs to serve as the Palestinian capital, connected by tunnels, sunken, or separate roads to Gaza and West Bank cities like Ramallah, Bethlehem, and Nablus. Most of the West Bank, including the agriculturally valuable Jordan Valley, remained reserved for Israeli-only roads and cities. Even in the most generous proposals, the so-called Palestinian state would lack sovereignty over borders, airspace, or security. The Palestinian government, much like today, would thus remain a glorified municipal administration.

Netanyahu has never hidden his belief that 'Oslo' is dead. In recent weeks, he reiterated that Israel intends to remain the ultimate sovereign in the entire area between the river and the sea forever. A map held aloft over the podium at the United Nations General Assembly underscored this grim picture. While the Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas holds onto a two-state solution, more and more Palestinians see its absurdity. After 30 years of half-hearted attempts, so should the international community. But what alternative is there?

Divide and Rule

Before we outline an alternative future, let's first reframe our description of the current situation: In Israel, sans occupied territories, seven million Jewish citizens enjoy a vibrant democracy. Two million Palestinians; Muslims and Christians, have the same rights. At least on paper. In reality, there's entrenched discrimination, including in housing, infrastructure investments, and language.

The nearly one million Palestinians in East Jerusalem, occupied and annexed in 1967, are 'subjects' to Israel, but not citizens. They can only vote in municipal elections, and hence have no say in national matters.

Three million Palestinians in the West Bank live under varying degrees of Palestinian Authority and Israeli army control. In Palestinian cities ('Area A' according to the Oslo Accords), they nominally fall under the Palestinian Authority. In Area B, where the Palestinian government and the Israeli army coordinate security, and Area C, fully controlled by Israel, Palestinians are governed by checkpoints, deadly violence by soldiers and heavily armed settlers, and military courts. Their Jewish neighbours, spread across 144 settlements, fall under Israeli civil courts and enjoy national voting rights, pristine [separate] roads, and enough water for lawns and swimming pools – overdrawing aquifers leaving Palestinians with a fraction of what they get.

Despite Israel's withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, the Jewish state never relinquished control over the enclave's airspace, coastline, and land borders. To weaken the Palestinian government and thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state, Netanyahu has for years supported Hamas. Since the terrorist organisation's coup in 2007, Israel has imposed an iron blockade on the nearly two million inhabitants of the area.

Simply put: between the Jordan and the Mediterranean coast, one state calls the shots. Half of the inhabitants vote, the other half endures.

Mullet

Instead of dividing the land, could we envisage giving everyone the vote? Would that it were so simple. Universal suffrage would result in a fifty-fifty parliament, a people's representation of seven million Jews and seven million Christian and Muslim Palestinians. This threatens the core identity of Israel as a safe haven for Jews, an understandable sentiment after a thousand years of religious and ethnic persecution culminating in the Holocaust. Devil's advocate: has Israel ever been that safe haven? Have its policies towards Palestinians not achieve the opposite? How sustainable, in other words, is such a mullet-style political system, democracy in front, tyranny in the back?

A democratic transition; one federal state à la Belgium, seems thus unlikely. But even less likely, in a rapidly changing world, is the continuation of the fifty-year status quo. In Gaza, Israel cannot militarily assert itself against a ragtaggle of tunnel-dwelling, sneaker-clad amateurs lacking a navy, air force, or mechanized infantry, even with a superpower’s military and diplomatic backing. Despite or precisely because of the staggering number of civilian casualties, Israel is resolutely losing this battle, on the ground, in the International Court of Justice, and of public opinion. Each new round of violence increases the stakes. At some point, something’s gotta give.

Non-linear

History has a way of inching forward, more or less predictably, until a dam bursts. A good example of non-linear change, a revolution if you will, is the demise of the Soviet Union. In his latest book, 'The Picnic', historian Matthew Longo recounts the fall of the Iron Curtain, a seismic shift in global politics in part catalysed by a quixotic citizen initiative: an outdoor meal across the Austro-Hungarian border helped spark the end of an era. Perhaps hard to envisage now, but the entrenched conflict in the Holy Land could end in a similar fashion: a grassroots movement provoking a tipping point.

Everyone Is Free or No One Is Free

Since Hamas's terror attack on October 7, which killed 767 civilians and 376 security forces members, the Israeli public appears monolithically in favour of the war and against – even minimal – concessions to Palestinians. But here, too, a closer look reveals a more nuanced picture. Jewish Israelis were rudely awakened. The Netanyahu doctrine; peace with neighbouring dictators, while ignoring Palestinian demands at home, has failed. It's become painfully clear that this policy affects not only Palestinians. The extensive militarisation of Israeli society increasingly erodes what little democracy remains. With police violently cracking down on Israeli peace and democracy demonstrators, going so far as to jail a teacher for critical remarks on social media, it’s becoming clear that there’s no such thing as a half-democracy. Sooner or later, the mullet comes home to roost.

Astute Israelis have long linked the occupation to the erosion of their own rights. This realisation echoes in calls from the families of Hamas hostages to negotiate a return of hostages, an end to the war and more broadly, the occupation. Such awareness, once it achieves critical mass, has the potential spark a turnaround. The increasingly totalitarian Netanyahu regime with its extremist settlers pushes democratically-minded Israeli Jews into the same camp as Palestinians deprived of democracy. Plenty of overlap exists, for instance the 'Combatants for Peace' or the 'Parents Circle,' an Israeli-Palestinian organisation that unites more than 600 families who have lost someone to the conflict.

Murrica!

While change might sprout from the grassroots, darker clouds are gathering high in the sky. A planet-wide chasm has opened up between European and American policymakers on one side, staunchly behind Israel, and ordinary citizens on the other; flabbergasted at the daily bloodbaths lighting up Instagram. Fourteen billion dollars in additional American aid to Israel (on top of the three and a half billion the country receives annually) barely scrapes through an increasingly isolationist Congress. The left has ethical objections, the right thinks the money is better spent at home. A capricious president from their ranks might just pull the plug completely. Without American support, Israel cannot afford further diplomatic and economic isolation in the region.

Wall of shame

The Iron Curtain slicing through the West Bank, supposedly to protect Israelis after the wave of suicide bombings in the early two-thousands, is already history. In many places, the 'separation barrier,' as Israel calls it, doesn't divide Palestinians and Israelis, but Palestinians with different rights. More than a hundred thousand West Bank Palestinians cross it daily to work in Israel. About half do so through self-made holes – without control. The 'fall' of the 'Racist Apartheid Wall,' as Palestinians have labelled it, is already behind us. No Berlin-like jubilant scenes, but a silent slide into irrelevance.

Cake

These days, imagining the near future whilst also staying hopeful is tall order. But that doesn’t make it any less necessary. Imagine a people’s march; one from Tel Aviv, as there were several last year, another from Jenin. In the latter, Israelis lead the way, convincing 'their' soldiers not to shoot. They meet at the infamous Qalandia checkpoint between Jerusalem and Ramallah. For a picnic, perhaps. With two of the world's best cuisines, it might just be the tastiest revolution since Marie-Antoinette's cake. And just like the French Revolution, every end signals a beginning:

An improvised people's assembly drafts a fresh constitution, a new flag, and a new name for the country. The 'real' Knesset meanwhile continues its work, but internationally, the omertà has been broken: the one-state solution finally goes mainstream. Violence is never far away, but the absence of American dollars ups the ante, while numerous boycotts and international sanctions in the multipolar 2030s grind the Israeli economy to a halt. As unthinkable as the extradition of Serbian war criminal Slobodan Milosevic to The Hague was, Netanyahu's appearance there invites shrugs.

Opening

A referendum, under the auspices of a group of countries led by China, offers the prospect of a Swiss solution: a confederation of autonomous Jewish, Palestinian, and mixed cities and regions; with freedom of movement and voting rights for all citizens. 'Yes' narrowly makes it. Peace treaties with Lebanon, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Iran, and the end of the oil era follow. The slimmed-down and integrated army no longer serves as regional ‘bad cop’ at the behest of the United States.

Palestinian refugees eagerly take advantage of open borders to visit their grandparents' land. Some stay. 'Isratine,' as Gaddafi coined it, welcomes them in brand-new cities, built with Arab and, one should expect, bucket-loads of German money. Jews of Arab or Persian origin rediscover Cairo, Alexandria, Baghdad, and Casablanca. The cross-pollination and reopening of ancient Levantine trade routes make the regional economy truly bloom, as evidenced by the inauguration of the high-speed rain-line connection Aleppo and Cairo, via Beirut and Tel Aviv.

Back to Reality

Quixotic musings aside, Israel today remains an isolated bridgehead, economically and militarily intertwined with the West without sustainable local anchor points. The country's survival, however, depends on regional integration. Real peace with neighbouring countries cannot bypass the Palestinians. The path of least resistance today does not lead to a two-state solution but to a united, democratic state that respects the rights of all its inhabitants... from the river to the sea.