Will the State of Palestine become a reality in 2024?

Political solution

The clear result is that Israel must deal with Palestinian affairs politically and must try to solve the conflict. The only reasonable and political solution requires at least accepting the bare minimum of Palestinian national rights: the right for self-determination and national independence in their existing state, like any other people on earth.

Israel must accept negotiations between the two sides to delineate the borders between the two states, which have to be based on the 1967 borders and the mutual recognition between Israel and Palestine as well as the form of relationship that will ensue between them after the conclusion of the agreement and the establishment of peace.

That will facilitate solving difficult issues such as Jerusalem as the capital of the two states, in addition to other issues such as settlements and settlers based on the inviolability of the continuation of settlements and the rights of Palestine's refugees based on their right to citizenship in the state of Palestine and their rights to return, to compensation and ownership.

That might sound far-reaching, especially considering the negative mood inside Israel toward the potential settlement with the Palestinian people.

I do not deny the difficulty of the matter. Still, the stubborn fact remains that Israel ought to answer the central question of what should be done with the Palestinian people and how the conflict should end. Frankly, no possibility for a solution other than the one mentioned above can be foreseen.

Two-state solution

It is useful to mention that dividing the land into two states has been the prevailing idea since the UN General Assembly Resolution 181 of 1947.

This idea was resisted by extreme tendencies on both sides, pushing for taking over the entire land and denying the other side's aspirations.

The irony is that far-right Israeli groups recently emerged as a serious force trying to settle the conflict based on taking over everything and therefore denying Palestinian national rights. However, this tendency lost its credibility over achieving its goals, and it became clear that it would not be able to do so.

Needless to say, several Western countries friendly to Israel, which provided unequivocal support for it during the war, shall endeavour to reach the necessary solution that they call the "two-state solution" as they see this as guaranteeing the Jewish and democratic character of Israel.

From a Palestinian point of view, what is important is not to be dragged into the so-called "peace process", which achieved nothing but calamities for the Palestinian people and only provided cover for the colonisation of Israeli settlers.

What is equally important is the rejection of a fake settlement in favour of a real political framework that defines the end result in advance, even with some preparatory arrangements that might be needed for the functioning of the state of Palestine based on the 1967 borders and the mutual recognition between the two states.

Preventing expulsion

To succeed in that direction, the first step should be ending the war while preventing the forced expulsion of Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip, knowing that if this happens, it is going to be a rehearsal of forced expulsion of Palestinians from the West Bank, including from East Jerusalem, as annexing the West Bank is the real prize for the Israeli far-right.

Moreover, any Israeli re-occupation of any part of the Gaza Strip should be prevented, as should any move to shrink the area of the Strip. No Israeli forces should return to the Strip, and no Israeli measures should be imposed on it.

In other words, there should be an official Israeli acceptance of the lie it promoted since its 2005 redeployment when it withdrew from the Gaza Strip.

Of course, these measures should be complemented with serious additional measures in the West Bank; first and foremost, the cessation of Israeli settler colonialism and the reconsideration of the mobility of inhabitants, of the Israeli military presence, of the Paris Agreement, among other issues.

For the sake of accuracy, we can mention the potential of Israel's crazy and fascist leaders suddenly going for not only continued settler colonialism but also imposing forced expulsion from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem,  with the aim of getting rid of Palestinians and hence liquidating the Palestine question.

This obviously goes against the spirit of our age: it is opposed by almost all states of the world, and it will lead to serious damage for Israel in the region and internationally without eclipsing the Palestinian question.

Thus, it is unlikely that such a plan will be implemented despite its adoption by "crazy" Israelis, which leaves the solution mentioned above as the only possible one.

Palestinian National Authority

It is understood that the Gaza Strip, like the West Bank, will be governed by a different party than Hamas with the reaffirmation of the necessity of maintaining the Palestinian decision and keeping the national consensus among all parties, including Hamas, in its current form or whatever it becomes.

It is equally understood that the Palestinian National Authority should be preserved because of its legitimacy and because it guarantees unity between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, but with the change of the group in control, which lost legitimacy and caused important losses for the Palestinian people.

Finally, it is also understood that the drastic solution will be through general elections as soon as Palestinian life goes back to normal, which unfortunately might take some time, perhaps somewhere between 18 and 24 months.

Achieving the above opens the door to a political solution, and it is logical to assume that this will happen or at least start in 2024, that is, while the current US administration is still in place.

Of course, the commencement of the political solution that involves defining the end result does not necessarily mean the immediate implementation of that solution. Still, it should mean the formal a priori commitment and the acceptance of the final solution, i.e. knowing the result and defining it from the beginning.

**This article has been translated from Arabic.**