A Two-state Solution for Israel and Palestine Is Still Possible – Just Look Back at the 1947 Partition Plan

By Limor Yehuda,

The E1 settlement bloc, like the strategy of ethnic cleansing, is meant to foreclose Palestinian nationalism and Palestinian liberation. But if we revisit our assumptions about partition between Israelis and Palestinians and reclaim the principle of equality, then we can rethink what a two-state solution looks like.

Nearly two years have passed since the October 7 war began. Israel’s war cabinet has once again refrained from even discussing a cease-fire deal that could release hostages, while allowing the continued annihilation of Gaza and the starvation of its civilian population. Meanwhile, settler militias, shielded by the army, carry out daily attacks against Palestinian communities in the West Bank – a campaign of ethnic cleansing in all but name.

At the same time, two contradictory political currents advance. On the one hand, momentum is growing for international recognition of a Palestinian state: over 140 countries – now 147 UN members – already recognize Palestine. In recent months, major Western powers such as France, Belgium and Canada have declared their intention to join them, signaling a shift in the diplomatic landscape.

On the other hand, Israel is consolidating control over the entire land between the river and the sea. This is no longer merely a de facto reality of one regime, but an official policy aimed at transforming it into a single state. The Israeli government recently approved the long-stalled E1 settlement plan – a neighborhood strategically placed east of Jerusalem that would cut the West Bank in two. Many observers fear that once E1 is built, the door to a viable Palestinian state will be sealed. This is why E1 has long been known as the “doomsday settlement.”

The threat of E1 is no accident; it is not a passing whim but a calculated move, fully in line with the raison d’être of the settlement project. It fits neatly with Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s 2017 “Decisive Plan,” which openly envisioned the dispossession of Palestinians from their homeland and the subjugation of those who remain to a regime of Jewish supremacy. With the current coalition, this plan is being advanced systematically, driven by a combustible mix of revenge, messianic vision and illiberal governance.

And yet, despite the devastation, the option of dividing the land into two sovereign states has not vanished. It remains possible – but only if we are willing to revisit some of our basic assumptions.

Since the Oslo Peace Process, the Israeli imagination of a negotiated settlement with the Palestinians has fused two concepts: partition and separation. The idea of two states has been tied to the idea of “us here, them there,” reinforced by slogans like “good fences make good neighbors.” But this fusion is misleading – and it has brought us to a dead end.

Partition, historically, refers to the drawing of political boundaries. The 1947 UN Partition Plan, for example, proposed two states linked by an economic union, with Jerusalem under a special international regime. It assumed – rightly – that while there would be independent Arab and Jewish states, Jews and Arabs would continue to live as minorities in each other’s states, with freedom of movement between them, subject only to national security considerations.

Separation, by contrast, emerged in Israeli discourse much later by various former prime ministers. From Yitzhak Rabin’s fear of “demographic threat,” to Ehud Barak’s “we are here, they are there,” to Ariel Sharon’s “disengagement,” separation meant physical and demographic disentanglement. It assumed that peace could only be achieved once Israelis and Palestinians stopped living together – once walls and checkpoints obscured each side from the other.

But separation was always a fantasy. Jews and Palestinians are deeply intermingled: in Jerusalem, in the West Bank and within Israel proper. No border could ever produce two homogeneous nation-states. There will always be minorities on the “wrong side” of the border. There will always be shared resources and responsibilities, intertwined spaces – and a shared homeland.

By fusing partition with separation, the “Oslo approach” created an impossible and misleading version of the two-state solution. That fusion has led many – Israelis, Palestinians and international observers alike – to declare the idea dead. But what has failed is the doctrine of separation, not the possibility of partition into two sovereign yet interdependent states.

If partition is to have meaning today, it must be reimagined. The first key to that reimagining is equality.

The 1947 Partition Plan included not only a territorial map but also a set of guarantees: equality for the minorities in each state, and equal treatment of all citizens regardless of religion or nationality. Crucially, it also reflected the idea of collective equality – parity between the two peoples, expressed in the recognition of both Jewish and Arab states side by side, reinforced by a joint economic union and reciprocal commitments and guarantees.

Partition, in this original sense, was not only about drawing borders but about affirming the equal national rights of both peoples to self-determination and belonging in the same land. That principle was abandoned after Oslo. Exploiting asymmetrical power relations, Israel managed to reduce the Palestinians to subjects of an interim autonomy, while entrenching Jewish settlement in their midst.

Equality is not simply a moral imperative. It is, as robust research on conflict and peace shows, a practical necessity.

In any conceivable two-state arrangement, there will be Israelis living under Palestinian sovereignty and Palestinians living under Israeli sovereignty. In Jerusalem, two capitals will overlap. If domination continues, these mixed realities will be a recipe for renewed disaster.

Importantly, the equality required here cannot be limited to the individual level. It must also be collective equality – recognition that both peoples, Israeli and Palestinian, have equal national rights to self-determination in the same land. Only by ensuring parity between the two collectives, not just fairness between individuals, can partition avoid perpetuating domination by one nation over the other. Only by committing to collective equality can the option of a sustainable peace become real.

Jewish presence in Palestine need not legitimize the settlement project, designed to destroy Palestinian sovereignty. Instead, it can genuinely insist on and commit to equality, both individual and collective.

But with both sovereignty and equality wherein Palestinians and Israelis alike can live as minorities with full rights in each state, and if both peoples are assured equal standing as nations, recognized as peoples at home in their shared homeland – then settlements no longer dictate the future. What they lose is their capacity to monopolize our political imagination.

What does this mean in practice? A partnership-based two-state solution would still recognize two sovereignties, Israel and Palestine. Borders would still matter for independence, diplomacy and international law. But borders would not function as walls of exclusion.

Jerusalem, for instance, could serve as an open city and the capital of two states, with joint institutions managing holy sites, shared infrastructure and interconnected public services. Minorities on each side of the border would enjoy guaranteed rights, reinforced by joint arrangements between the two states and secured by international guarantees. Shared institutions could manage water, the environment and economic interdependence. Instead of treating interdependence as a problem to be solved by separation, partnership would embrace it as the foundation of peace.

This vision is not utopian. It draws on experiences from other deeply divided places – such as Northern Ireland and Bosnia – where sovereignty and cooperation coexist in creative, if imperfect, ways. It is anchored in necessity.

Israelis and Palestinians cannot escape each other. The only choice is between domination and fair partnership.

E1, like the strategy of ethnic cleansing, is meant to foreclose Palestinian nationalism and Palestinian liberation. But if we revisit our assumptions about partition and reclaim the principle of equality, we can expose this project as neither inevitable nor irreversible.

The two-state solution is not dead. What is dying is the illusion of separation. What remains is the possibility of partition – reimagined through equality, sustained by partnership and built on the recognition that both peoples belong to this land, together and apart.

Limor Yehuda is a Senior Research Fellow and Founding Director of the Shemesh Center for Partnership-Based Peace at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute. She is the author of “Collective Equality: Democracy and Human Rights in Ethnonational Conflicts,” and the Co-Chair of the joint board of the Israeli-Palestinian movement A Land for All.