The Futility of the Two-State Solution: Ahmed Moor on the Palestinian Struggle

As Ahmed Moor, a Palestinian writer and fellow at the Foundation for Middle East Peace, reflects on the Palestinian struggle for justice, he cautions that the failure of the Peace Process was pre-ordained by the inherent imbalance in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Moor recounts his own experiences growing up in Palestine, held back by checkpoints and barred from visiting Jerusalem or Israel due to the color of his ID card, a stark reminder of the injustices that lie at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Key Takeaways:

• The Palestinian rejection of the two-state solution is rooted in the fundamental injustice of the establishment of the state of Israel, which was founded through ethnic cleansing and deliberate displacement of native Palestinians.
• The Oslo Peace Process, which commenced in Madrid and Oslo, was undertaken in good faith by sincere and earnest people, including Palestinian negotiators like Diana Buttu and Daniel Levy, but was ultimately doomed to fail due to the inherent imbalance in the conflict.
• The failure of the Peace Process can be attributed to the fact that many American negotiators were Zionists, who were invested in Jewish supremacy in Palestine, and that the process pitted a stateless people against two nuclear-armed states.
• The Palestinian struggle is not about a seat at the United Nations, representation in UNESCO, or FIFA, but about justice, and the force of the Palestinian cause rests in this fundamental principle.
• The genocide in Gaza has changed Moor's perspective on the majority of Jewish Israelis, and he argues that they will have to reckon with the moral and actual wreckage of their century-long violent presence in Palestine.

Statistics:

• 1995: The Oslo process, which was supposed to produce a Palestinian state, commanded the support of two-thirds of Palestinians.
• 18th century Australia: Tony Judt compared Israel's actions in Gaza to the used of violence and colonialism in Australia during the 18th century, highlighting the anachronistic nature of Israel's policies.
• 2 nuclear-armed states: Israel and the United States, led by Zionists, were pitted against a stateless people, contributing to the failure of the Peace Process.
• 1 principle: Justice is the fundamental principle that drives the Palestinian cause.
• 20 years: Daniel Levy has been a outspoken opponent of Israeli apartheid and the genocide in Gaza, and a critic of the peace process.

Sources:

• Robert Malley and Hussein Agha, "Tomorrow Is Yesterday: Palestine and the Power of Nonviolence", 2022.
• Ahmed Moor, "Op-Ed piece in The New Yorker", 2022.
• Diana Buttu, various interviews and writings.
• Daniel Levy, various interviews and writings.
• Tony Judt, "Israel: The Anachronism", New York Review of Books, October 2003.
• Emmanuel Macron, speech in September 2022.
• Mark Carney, statement on Canada's recognition of a "Zionist Palestinian state".
• Bill Clinton, interview on "Judea and Samaria", 2022.
• Dennis Ross, various writings and interviews.