ISRAEL-PALESTINE

An Israeli historian lays out contending possibilities for a political solution to the conflict with the Palestinian people.

“As a soldier and as a citizen,” writes Sand, “I had fought for Israel to become a state for all Israeli citizens (and not the state of all Jewish people in the world, who, as is known, don’t live there).” The latter conception, he says, deprecates the needs and wishes of the Palestinian population, with predictable reactions. Courting controversy, Sand observes that the horrific attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, were part of a chain of conflicts dating back to the first displacement of the Palestinians following the establishment of the state of Israel, “in some ways an indirect repercussion of the Nakba, which occurred seventy-five years ago.” The long-sought ideal for the Israeli left has been a binational—or one-state—solution wherein Palestinian and Israeli communities live with equal rights and obligations in a Swiss-like federation, but Sand is “highly skeptical of the possibility of seeing it put into practice in the near future.” As for a two-state solution, he writes, “there is currently no significant political appetite for this project within Israel itself,” even if the U.S. and others might back such a solution. One can hardly disagree with Sand when he concludes, “At present, there are no political options in sight to prevent another impending disaster.”

A sobering look at the complexities of even beginning to talk about peace in the Middle East.