The prognosis for the Israel-Palestine conflict couldn’t be darker. The week before this magazine went to press, a fragile ceasefire in Gaza was summarily terminated by Israeli strikes which, in one day, added nearly 200 children to the overall Gaza death toll of more than 50,000, according to Palestinian officials. The war that had been grinding on for a year and a half had started again.
After Hamas’s attack on 7th October 2023, the two-state solution returned to the rhetoric of global statesmen the world over. But in the face of what many term a one-state reality, and with “two states” as distant as ever, this can feel like mere lip service to an idea no one seems to believe can actually happen.
Amid the hopelessness, one Israeli-Palestinian initiative is trying to reimagine the two-state solution for our ever-volatile times. Founded in 2012, A Land for All takes the “classic” formulation of two states and turns it into something that matches our “new reality”, political scientist Rula Hardal, co-director of the initiative, tells me when we meet in Prospect’s office.
Hardal was in London for a conference. She would be back in town in March to receive the inaugural Vivian Silver award, named after the peace activist killed on 7th October, alongside Hardal's Land For All co-director, May Pundak.
With the slogan “two states one homeland”, A Land for All is pitching an idea that has long been mooted, in various guises, as an alternative: a confederation. In their version, Israelis and Palestinians, including settlers and Palestinian refugees, could live anywhere in Israel-Palestine, while voting in the state where they are citizens. Joint institutions would take responsibility for shared issues, such as climate change.
When we meet, the ceasefire hasn’t yet fallen apart, but it still feels like time is running out for a solution. “We don’t have time to wait” to try and solve the conflict, she says, “and even if both sides aren’t ready, in the mainstream, I don’t care.”
From the small northern town of Peki’in, Hardal, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, has also spent time living and teaching in Germany and the West Bank (she currently resides in Ramallah). In a black jacket with gold buttons and manicured nails, she is warm and authoritative. One thing that infuriates her is the Israeli slogan—official and popular—that “there is no partner [for peace]” on the Palestinian side. “Who told you there’s no partner? How did you decide this?” There is much misunderstanding of Palestinians among Israeli Jews, she says.
In Germany, influenced by the discourse of the Palestinian diaspora, Hardal advocated for one democratic state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. She had questions, however. “Okay, how will we get there? And no one had answers.” It became evident to her, too, that both Palestinians and Israeli Jews “still want their state”.
Three years ago, Hardal joined A Land for All. The initiative has eight principles tackling the most contentious issues in the conflict, such as the status of Jerusalem. The most controversial for Palestinians, says Hardal, is the notion that settlers might stay in a future Palestinian state. Hardal has presented the group’s vision to officials in Europe, the US and the Gulf. Earlier this year, A Land for All was invited to the Munich Security Conference.
“There is a global understanding,” she says, that “we have to update this two-state slogan. Yes, this will take time, but you still need a vision”. She believes one of the problems with the Oslo peace accords in the 1990s was a lack of aspiration, and the lack of a sense of what Israel and Palestine would ultimately look like as a result.
Is there leadership on either side that can do what Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat did in signing Oslo? “Sadly no, there isn’t, but you have to create these leaders. We have enough clever and good people.”
A Land for All’s solution will be inspiring to some and naive or impossible to others. Hardal says Israelis and Palestinians need a change of “mindset”, albeit in different ways, for any solution to work. She notes, however, that in their own recent history lies hope: “Do you remember that until the First Intifada... people travelled to Gaza? And people in Ramallah drove to Haifa? It’s not a long time ago. Not everything... in our shared experience is black.”
