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Hala Jaber – What The World Is Offering Palestinians Isn’t A State
On which I hand the mic to Hala Jaber
Hala Jaber @HalaJaber – 13:41 UTC · Aug 1, 2025
🧵The Two-State Solution is Dead. What the world is offering Palestinians isn’t a state.
The concept of a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine is often presented as a path to peace, but it has become an empty promise, a diplomatic illusion that distracts from the reality of occupation and apartheid. This thread examines why the two-state solution was and is no longer viable, analyzing its historical promises, current realities, and inherent flaws.
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All this talk of a two-state solution is delusion at best, distraction at worst.
Israel’s leadership has made it clear: it has no intention, ZERO, of allowing a sovereign Palestinian state, EVER.
Even Netanyahu has said it: “There is no post-war scenario that would lead to a Palestinian state.”
This collides with the idea of sovereignty.
This stance reveals a fundamental contradiction: a “state” without sovereignty is not a state, it’s a rebranded occupation. Israel’s actions, settlement expansion, annexation policies, & daily violence, genocidal rhetoric, demonstrate that the system is designed to prevent Palestinian statehood, not enable it. It’s not a bug, it’s the system.
The rhetoric of a two-state solution persists as a diplomatic distraction, masking the reality of apartheid while offering Palestinians a hollow promise. So what are you negotiating? A mirage? A hostage with a flag isn’t a state? Stop dressing up apartheid as diplomacy.
Let’s assume, just for argument’s sake, a Palestinian state was declared tomorrow, its functionality would be impossible under current conditions.
The proposed state would consist of two disconnected territories: Gaza in the southwest and the West Bank in the northeast, separated by a heavily militarized Israel. Israel controls all borders, airspace, and movement between these regions, rendering Palestinian autonomy dependent on Israeli permission.
A state without control over its borders, economy, or defense is not sovereign. The Oslo framework demanded a demilitarized Palestine, leaving it defenseless against blockades, settler violence, or military incursions. Even if Palestine were “recognized,” it would be a state in name only with:
- No army.
- No control over borders, airspace, or economy.
- No right to defend itself.
- No protection from bombs, blockades, or settler militias.
This is not statehood, it’s an open-air prison with a flag and better branding.
But more importantly: it never acknowledged the Nakba: the expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians, the theft of 78% of their homeland, the erasure of their right to return.
Even the limited territory promised under Oslo II, Areas A and B, roughly 40% of the West Bank, has been eroded. Area C, comprising 60% of the West Bank, remains under full Israeli control. Over 700,000 Israeli settlers now live in 150 settlements and 128 outposts, most built post-Oslo, fragmenting the West Bank into disconnected enclaves.
Settlement expansion and land theft have made a contiguous Palestinian state impossible. What remains is a patchwork of cantons, surrounded by apartheid infrastructure, that cannot form the basis of a viable state.
Instead, it asks Palestinians to accept symbolic scraps while their homeland is devoured and call it peace, when truth be told, that’s not reconciliation, it’s Western diplomacy laundering colonial dispossession.
This isn’t a “solution.” It’s a settlement of guilt, for everyone but Palestinians. The two‑state model is a corpse: cold, buried, kept artificially warm by leaders who want to say they “tried.” But geography, justice, and reality have pronounced it dead.
Symbolic gestures, like international recognition of a Palestinian state, are meaningless without control over land, resources, or security. The two-state solution has become a diplomatic prop, a way to maintain the appearance of progress while enabling occupation.
Netenyahu’ statements including: “Any future independent Palestinian state would pose a threat to Israel’s existence,” further underscore the futility of negotiations.
Recognition without sovereignty is publicity for occupation, not liberation.
Which brings us to today:
Western leaders are racing to “recognize” a Palestinian state; Starmer, Spain, Norway, framed as a historic gesture. But what are they actually offering? The current status quo: diminished land, no sovereignty, no protection.
Even Netanyahu celebrates this in his statements, including in his July 2025 White House remarks that an independent Palestinian state would “pose a threat to Israel’s existence,”
Recognition without sovereignty is publicity for occupation, not liberation.
Summary:
The two-state solution is dead, if it was ever truly viable. It offers Palestinians neither sovereignty nor justice, serving instead as a distraction from the realities of occupation, displacement, and systemic violence. Clinging to this outdated framework enables the status quo, not liberation.
Palestinians deserve more than a flag over ruins or a seat at a table where their rights are perpetually deferred. True peace requires confronting the root causes of injustice, the Nakba, land theft, and apartheid, and dismantling the systems that perpetuate them. Anything less is not a solution; it’s a delusion dressed as diplomacy.
Recognition without justice isn’t peacekeeping. It’s betrayal, gift-wrapped, so let’s stop pretending this is statehood, it’s not.
It’s PR over policy & fiction over freedom.
Exclusive: How Karim Khan’s Israel war crimes probe was derailed by threats, leaks and sex claims
By David Hearst, Imran Mulla and Simon Hooper
Already targeted by US sanctions, the ICC chief prosecutor’s pursuit of Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders now threatens his career, his reputation, and the future of the court itself
A major Middle East Eye investigation has uncovered extraordinary details of an intensifying intimidation campaign targeting the British chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court over his investigation into alleged Israeli war crimes.
The campaign has involved threats and warnings directed at Karim Khan by prominent figures, close colleagues and family friends briefing against him, fears for the prosecutor’s safety prompted by a Mossad team in The Hague, and media leaks about sexual assault allegations.
It has taken place against the backdrop of Khan’s efforts to build and pursue a case against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials over their conduct of the war against Hamas in Gaza and accelerating Israeli settlement expansion and violence against Palestinians in the illegally occupied West Bank.
Last month, Middle East Eye revealed that Khan was warned in May that if the arrest warrants issued last year for Netanyahu and his former defence minister Yoav Gallant were not withdrawn, he and the ICC would be destroyed.
The warning was delivered by Nicholas Kaufman, a British-Israeli defence lawyer at the court, during a meeting with Khan and his wife, Shyamala Alagendra, at a hotel in The Hague.
Kaufman told Khan he had spoken to Netanyahu’s legal advisor and was “authorised” to make him a proposal that would allow Khan to “climb down the tree”, according to a note of the meeting on file at the ICC seen by MEE.
In response to questions from MEE, Kaufman denied threatening Khan. He denied having been authorised to make any proposals on behalf of the Israeli government and said he had shared his personal views with Khan on the Palestine situation.
The meeting came less than two weeks before allegations of sexual assault against Khan, which he has strenuously denied, were first published, and as he was reportedly preparing to seek arrest warrants for more members of the Israeli government.
There is no suggestion of any connection between the Kaufman-Khan meeting and the publication of the allegations.
Khan went on leave shortly afterwards after an attempt to suspend him, prompted by a senior member of his own office, failed and amid an ongoing United Nations investigation into the allegations against him.
Intense pressure on the prosecutor had been building even before Khan became the subject of the now widely publicised allegations.
MEE can reveal details about correspondence between Khan and the complainant, a female ICC staff member, which appear to raise questions about some of the previously reported claims about the case in American and British media.
In response to questions from MEE, the complainant said she had fully cooperated with the UN investigation and could not “engage with the questions posed or correct the inaccuracies” because she is bound by “obligations of confidentiality and professional integrity”.
Khan has declined to comment to MEE on the matters raised in this article.
The timeline of events reveals that pressure on Khan started to build in April 2024 as he prepared to apply for the warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant, then again in October, before judges issued the warrants.
It intensified further this year as Khan was reported to be seeking warrants for more Israeli ministers, and coinciding with further media leaks about the sexual assault allegations.
MEE spoke to sources with knowledge of the affair and reviewed material understood to be relevant to the investigation into the allegations currently being conducted by the UN’s Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS).
MEE’s investigation can reveal that:
– In April 2024, weeks before Khan applied for the warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant, then-British Foreign Secretary David Cameron privately threatened Khan that the UK would defund and withdraw from the ICC if it issued warrants for Israeli leaders
– In May 2024, US Republican Senator Lindsey Graham threatened Khan with sanctions if he applied for the warrants
– Before the allegations were made, Khan had received a security briefing that indicated that Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency, was active in The Hague and posed a potential threat to the prosecutor
– The woman accusing Khan of sexual misconduct wrote in May 2024 in text messages to Khan that there were “games being played” and attempts to make her a “pawn in some game I don’t want to play”. Two internal ICC investigations into the allegations were closed after she refused to cooperate with them
– The complainant had previously sought and obtained Khan’s help in another complaint against a second senior ICC official. This was during the period in which she later alleged Khan had repeatedly sexually assaulted her. Investigators found no wrongdoing on the part of the individual who was the subject of her complaint
– Thomas Lynch, Khan’s special assistant, who he tasked to liaise with Israel on the Palestine investigation, played a key role in making the allegations against Khan official. Privately however, Lynch had expressed his own doubts about the allegations to Khan’s wife and said that the timing was suspicious. In response to questions from MEE, Lynch described allegations in this article as “false and misleading”.
– A female ICC lawyer told MEE there was a group of people within the court who disagreed with Khan’s approach and who were working to discredit him. She said she had been approached in May 2024 and asked if Khan had ever behaved inappropriately towards her: “I told them he is the last person on my list of men who would do that”
– Khan met Nicholas Kaufman, the British-Israeli defence lawyer, to discuss the Israel investigation just two weeks before he was forced to go on leave after it was publicly revealed that he was under investigation over sexual assault allegations. According to a note of the meeting on file at the ICC, Kaufman told Khan that if the warrants against Netanyahu or Gallant were not dropped, “they will destroy you and they will destroy the court”
– Two former ICC judges have told MEE they have grave concerns about the way the OIOS investigation into the allegations against Khan has been conducted, questioning why the prosecutor was publicly named as the subject of a complaint, and the need for an external investigation into his alleged misconduct
MORE…
https://www.middleeasteye.net/big-story/exclusive-karim-khan-israel-war-crimes-probe-derailed-threats-leaks-sex-claims?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=Social_Traffic&utm_content=ap_knvpzt2m0i
Posted by: Menz | Aug 2 2025 9:33 utc | 164
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