The world still believes that the “Two-State Solution” is the way to resolve the Israel-Palestine Conflict. But when the Arab Palestinians invoke this idea, they are holding something back.
“Half a loaf is better than no bread.”
For decades, the slogan, the “Two-State Solution,” has triggered a conditioned reflex. It has been widely accepted as the optimal solution to the war that the Arab world has waged against Israel.
Each side, however, interprets the term differently.
From the outset, it was designed as a weapon of political warfare, whose purpose was deception. Its facile appeal has remained because the general public is largely ignorant of the real motives behind it.
Most people of good faith understand the “Two-State Solution” as Partition, dating back to the Peel Commission, which, on July 7, 1937, recommended the division of Mandatory Palestine into two unequal parts: one, Palestinian Arab, and the other, Jewish, with transfers of population.
Its conclusion eloquently presented the Commission’s compromise: “Half a loaf is better than no bread” is a peculiarly English proverb; and, considering the attitude that both the Arab and Jewish representatives adopted in giving evidence before us, we think it improbable that either party will be satisfied at first sight with the proposals we have submitted for the adjustment of their rival claims.
The prominent Zionist leaders of the time, Chaim Weizmann and David Ben Gurion accepted the Commission’s compromise, namely “the half a loaf,” which was much less than half, because they understood the limitations of power. In contrast, the Arab Palestinian leadership, led by the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, rejected the Commission’s proposals. Later, in May 1939, seeking to appease the Arab world, Great Britain caved and issued the White Paper, severely limiting Jewish immigration to Mandatory Palestine. At this critical moment in history, a real “Two-State Solution” could have saved many lives.
For his part, the Mufti ardently collaborated with Nazi Germany and spent most of the Second World War in Berlin as a privileged guest with a fat budget.
By rejecting the compromise of the Peel Commission and of the United Nations, the Arab side made a costly mistake. When the Arab states attacked Mandatory Palestine in 1947, they were not concerned with the fate of the “Arab Palestinian People” (who at the time simply considered themselves Arabs). They intended to partition the land for themselves.
The nascent State of Israel won the 1948 War for Independence, changing the demographic balance that had previously been to the Arab advantage. Both in 1937 and 1947, the Jews of the Yishuv were the only side that accepted Partition, i.e., “the half loaf.”
If our leaders sincerely want to advance the cause of peace, they should not delude themselves so that they can make our sworn enemies into friends. Advocating the “Two-State Solution” in any form is tantamount to gambling with the future of the Jewish state because the Palestinians are committed to its destruction. They have told us so, and we must take them at their word.