Palestine is a word that resonates deeply in the conscience of every Arab and Muslim. It is a shared cause whose burdens and suffering displaced people we have carried for decades amid unprecedented global dithering and neglect regarding an issue of human right before being a political and existential question. <\/p>\n
An independent Palestinian state remains the cornerstone of a prospective peace. The two-state solution is the key to stability in the Middle East and remains the only viable and workable framework for coexistence. Peace in exchange for a two-state solution is the only real formula for resolving this long-standing conflict that has cost the region so much already. Peaceful coexistence begins with negotiations toward two neighboring states: a viable Palestinian state, not fragments of territory studded with settlements that Israel\u2019s far-right governments have fostered to prevent the emergence of a cohesive and territorially connected Palestinian state. Although Israel itself will pay the price for this policy because there can be no stability or security without a resolution of the Palestinian question, Israeli extremists do not even accept the idea of a mixed state. <\/p>\n
The Israeli army continues to seize Palestinian land simply by declaring it state or military property, stripping the native inhabitants of ownership and handing it to immigrants, thereby building a state upon dispossession and blood. Israel disregards Article 53 of the Geneva Convention, which stipulates that \u201cAny destruction by the Occupying Power of real or personal property belonging individually or collectively to private persons, or to the State, or to other public authorities, or to social or cooperative organizations, is prohibited,\u201d uprooting Palestinian olive groves, demolishing homes, and expelling their inhabitants from their land. <\/p>\n
Since the occupation of Palestine and other Arab territories began in 1948, this occupying force has persistently sought to legitimize its confiscation and bulldozing of land, as well as its construction of settlements inhabited by people from various nationalities and nations who share nothing but their Jewish faith and who eventually banded together under the banner of the \u201cYisrael Beiteinu\u201d party. <\/p>\n
Peace in exchange for a two-state solution is the formula for resolving the conflict in the Middle East, and peaceful coexistence begins by negotiating the establishment of two neighboring states. We continue to say and repeat it: Israel will never achieve security or stability otherwise, no matter how powerful it becomes or how heavily it fortifies itself with walls and weapons. <\/p>\n
We have grown accustomed to Israeli governments emptying initiatives to achieve this of their substance by dragging the process into the swamp of Kissingerian politics: postponing major issues and then fragmenting initiatives into stages, thereby ensuring that only ten percent are ever implemented. This has been the fate of most previous peace initiatives; whether collectively proposed by Arab states or advanced unilaterally, they all were ultimately circumvented. <\/p>\n
Israel can \u201cJudaize\u201d its state once it recognizes the Palestinian people\u2019s right to a state of their own. That is not the problem. Calling for a Jewish state while simultaneously claiming to be a liberal democracy, however, is untenable. No matter how much time goes by, Israel has only one option, and the whole world knows it. Any other path would merely condemn both sides to perpetual conflict until there is a final reckoning. <\/p>\n