The Two-State Two-Step – Israel’s Century-Long Dance Marathon, or Why Joe Biden Thinks He Can Succeed Where Winston Churchill Failed -- PART I

Author’s Note: This week’s article will be presented in two parts. In lieu of an article next week, Part II will be presented tomorrow.

It has been over six months since the shocking October 7 invasion of Israel, the massacre by Hamas of over 1200 Israelis, and the seizure of hundreds of hostages.  In those months, the reaction of the United States government has fallen into a familiar pattern.  Initially, President Biden and his administration offered full-throated support for Israel and measures that it would take in response.  Quickly, however, as the horrors of the slaughter receded into the past, fissures appeared within that support, as members of the Biden administration and members of the Democratic Party challenged, sometimes quietly, sometimes loudly, the administration to moderate its policy, to the point that it has opposed an Israeli offensive into Rafah.

Paramount among Washington’s calls to Israel has been the overriding demand for a so-called “two-state solution.”  In a Valentine’s Day article published by the Washington Post, it was reported that the United States and Arab nations were “rushing to complete a detailed, comprehensive plan for long-term peace between Israel and Palestinians, including a firm timeline for the establishment of a Palestinian state.”  The planning participants purportedly included Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Palestinian representatives.  These participants hoped to discuss their plans with European leaders in the future.  Without any discernible sense of irony, the Post declared that the “elephant in the room,” was the party apparently not in the room, namely Israel, although it acknowledged that Hamas would also have “‘to be on board with this’ if any peace process were to succeed.”

The backdrop for these talks, according to the Post, was “decades of failed attempts to bring about a two-state solution,” a reference to the last, sustained discussion of such a resolution – namely the 2000 Camp David Summit among Bill Clinton, Ehud Barack, and Yasser Arafat wherein, Arafat rejected offers of a state by Israel.  The failure of those talks was shortly followed by the Second Intifada.

But attempts to bring about a two-state solution do not span mere decades.  They span more than a century, going back almost to the time of the Balfour Declaration.  Attempts at achieving such a solution have invariably followed a recurring, Groundhog Day-like pattern – attempts by third parties, primarily Western, to fashion a two-state compromise, engagement by Israelis or their Zionist predecessors, Arab intransigence followed by a resort to violence, whereupon the West inevitably makes new attempts to reshape a compromise that makes more demands upon the Jews and fewer upon the Arabs.

Put another way, the Washington Post article is one that could have been written in just about any decade of the 20^th Century.

1881-1920: The Ottomans Attempt To Stifle Zionism at Birth

Critics of Israel consider the starting point for the State of Israel to be the Balfour Declaration in 1917.

However, the conflict between Jewish immigrants and the Arab rulers of Palestine predates that declaration by several decades.  Zionism emerged as an informal movement in Europe in the late 19^th century, but accelerated after the assassination of Russia’s Czar Alexander II, precipitating  numerous pogroms in Russia and the passage of the May Laws directed at Jews.  The situation in Russia was the catalyst for the First Aliyah, regarded as the first major wave of Jewish settlers to be part of the Zionist project.

From the outset, the Ottoman Empire opposed such immigration.  Ottoman intelligence, which keenly observed developments within its mortal enemies, Russia and Austro-Hungary, was aware of the Zionist movement and its potential impact in Palestine.  As early as 1881, the Foreign Ministry had created a file, “Situation of the Jews; Question of their Immigration into Turkey: 1881.”  In 1882, the Ottoman government announced that it would permit all Jews to immigrate into any province of the Ottoman Empire except for Palestine.  The exclusion of Jews from Palestine was not necessarily motivated by antisemitism (the Ottomans had historically welcomed Jewish refugees fleeing persecution in Europe), as much as it was by the fact that the vast majority of settlers would be Europeans, coming from countries, such as the aforementioned Russia and Austro-Hungary, that were enemies, or potential enemies, of the Empire.

Ottoman efforts were only partially successful.  Because of treaties with the Western powers, the so-called Capitulations, which permitted pilgrimages by Europeans into religious sites, the Ottomans could not prevent Jews from entering Palestine entirely.  They attempted to slow immigration by requiring monetary deposits from pilgrims, recoverable upon their leaving the country, and, when this proved unsuccessful, thereafter forced Jewish pilgrims to surrender their passports in exchange for a three-month visa.  However, large numbers of pilgrims simply forfeited their deposit or passport.  Jewish settlers purchased land through proxies, whether Arab or indigenous Jews, who enjoyed the rights of citizens.  By the outbreak of World War I, the Jewish population had more than tripled, creating a critical mass for the Zionist movement.

1917 -1920:  The Balfour Declaration and The First Arab Revolt

Although a significant number of Zionists had emigrated to Palestine while it was under Ottoman rule, the Zionist project truly gathered momentum with the publication of the Balfour Declaration in November 1917, a date which closely coincided with Britain’s capture of Jerusalem from the Ottomans and the establishment of British rule.  The one-sentence Declaration, contained in a letter from British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour to Lord Walter Rothschild, stated simply that England viewed “with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people,” and that it would use its best efforts to achieve that object.

Whatever was the “view” or official policy of the British government, the military administration on the ground did not share it and had no interest in implementing it.  While some officers were philosophically opposed to the creation of a Jewish state, the more pragmatic reason for most was that the soldiers in charge had the burden of pacifying a region that was still overwhelmingly Arab.

As set forth in David Fromkin’s seminal book, A Peace to End All Peace, The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East, the attitude of the British administrators influenced policy among the Arabs of Palestine which, in 1917 also included what is today’s Jordan.  According to Fromkin, there was initially no consensus concerning the future of Palestine among them.  For example, at a 1919 congress convened by the anti-Zionist Moslem-Christian Society, fully 20% of the delegates refused to condemn Zionism.  Furthermore, one of the leading Arab families of Jerusalem, the Nashshashibis (Raghib al-Nashashibi became Mayor of Jerusalem in 1920), advocated a conciliatory policy toward the Zionists.

However, in a pattern familiar to anyone today, the British on the ground weakened the position of the moderates.  Army intelligence helped engineer the accession of Amin al-Husseini to be Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. He would prove to be the most hardline opponent of any compromise with the Jews.  As Fromkin writes: “If even British officers argued that Arab leaders should make no concessions, how could pro-conciliation Arab leaders persuade their followers that concessions had to be made?”

Palestinian Arabs responded to the Balfour Declaration with violence.  Initially, they engaged in sporadic attacks against Jewish settlements, killing one of the founders of the Jewish Legion that had fought with the British in World War I, Joseph Trumpledor.  In response, Jews began to arm themselves.  Vladimir Jabotinsky, who had also served with the British, anticipated further violence and sought arms from the British for self-defense.  When they refused, he purchased them illegally.  Jabotinsky would become a pivotal figure in the formation of Israel, a counterpoint to the better-known David Ben-Gurion.  He initially helped establish the Jewish defensive paramilitary organization, the Haganah, before breaking away to establish his own political party, the Revisionists, which sought to establish a Jewish state over all of Palestine by force, as Jabonitsky believed Arabs would never agree to a negotiated settlement.  Its military wing was the Irgun, which after 1944 was led by Menachim Begin, the founder of the Likud party.

Widespread violence eventually broke out in 1920, as Arab mobs rioted for three days, killing several Jews and injuring hundreds.  According to Fromkin, all of the deaths occurred in the Old City of Jerusalem, protected by the British.  No deaths occurred in New Jerusalem, protected by Jabotinsky’s forces, a lesson for the future.  At a court of inquiry convened to investigate the origins of the riots, military officials blamed the Jews.  Jabotinsky was arrested for gun-running and sentenced to 15 years hard labor, a sentence that would be later commuted as part of a general amnesty.  The riots of 1920 would cause Britain to reconsider its Palestine policy.

Thus occurred, arguably for the first time, a pattern that would play out repeatedly up to this very day.  Official government policy favoring the Jews was undermined by the equivocation – if not hostility – of those tasked with implementing it.  This hostility encouraged Arab hardliners, who augmented said      hostility with acts of violence.  Jews successfully defended themselves but were criticized, or otherwise suffered adverse consequences, for doing so.  Pressure was placed on the Jews to make concessions, not the Arabs.  Most importantly, Arab violence achieved its objective of affecting Western (then British) policy.  However, those adjustments failed to satisfy the Arabs.  From their perspective, there would be no discussion of any two-state solution.

1921:  The Cairo Conference – Winston Churchill Takes Charge

Britain’s strategy in the Middle East subsequent to the end of World War I was initially plagued by native uprisings and resistance to British rule throughout the Middle East, from Egypt to Iraq.  Britain’s response was hampered by the overlapping responsibilities of numerous departments in the British government that precluded a coherent strategy.  To remedy that problem, supervision of the mandate territories, namely Iraq and Palestine, was given, in January 1921, to a newly created department within the Colonial Office.  The man appointed to oversee the Colonial Office was none other than Winston Churchill. 

Almost immediately, Churchill convened a conference in Cairo, attended by his subordinates on the ground, in order to plan a strategy going forward.  That strategy involved placing Hashemites on the thrones of Iraq and a truncated Palestine which, under the League of Nations mandate, included both today’s Jordan and Israel.  The area west of the Jordan River was to continue under English rule.  The division of Palestine was intended as a temporary solution -- Abdullah, the Hashemite king of Transjordan was expected to leave that country if he was unsuccessful in dislodging the French from Syria.  By cleaving Palestine into two parts, Churchill believed that he had satisfied, at least for the short term, three objectives.  He satisfied the Arabs’ claim for a state, he attempted to appease Arab opposition to the Zionist project by delimiting their claims to areas west of the Jordan, eliminating from consideration approximately 75% of Palestine, a move bitterly opposed by Jabotinsky, and he bought time to fashion the two-state solution called for by the League of Nations.  Churchill’s maneuvers, however, had an unintended effect – by creating a separate polity in the western half of Palestine, Churchill engendered a new national consciousness.  No longer was this area part of a greater Syria, but it was its own entity.  Further, the dominant political force in this entity was no longer Abdullah, or the Arab coalition seeking a future for that greater state, who might have acceded to a small Jewish state.  Now the dominant political figure in the new Palestine was the hardest of hardliners, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Amin al-Husseini.

1921 to 1936:  Churchill First Attempts to Achieve the Two-State Solution

Churchill found, almost immediately, that negotiating a two-state solution would be far more difficult than he had imagined.  In 1921, he met with an Arab delegation in London, after further Arab riots.  Although personally sympathetic to the Zionist cause, Churchill had scaled back the British commitment even further, proposing to establish a mere Jewish “homeland” in Palestine, rather than a separate      Jewish state.  The Arab delegation refused even to consider this new and conciliatory offer as a basis for negotiation, offering no concessions whatsoever.  Fromkin writes of the meeting:

Dealing with Middle Easterners such as these was far more frustrating than had been imagined in wartime London when the prospect of administering the postwar Middle East was first raised.  In Churchill’s eyes, the members of the Arab delegation were not doing what politicians are supposed to do: they were not aiming to reach an agreement – any agreement.  Apparently unwilling to offer even 1 percent in order to get 99 percent, they offered no incentive to the other side to offer concessions. 

Addressing the delegation with words that remain as relevant today as they were over a century ago, Churchill said: “[I]t is not fair to come to a discussion thinking that one side has to give nothing and the other side has to give large and important concessions, and without any security that these concessions will be a means of peace.”

Despite the lack of progress, the latter part of the decade was calm.  However, in August 1929, Arabs staged further riots against Jews.  The catalyst was the Western Wall.  The British deemed the Wall Arab property and forbade Jews even from praying there, although muted prayers were tolerated.  There were several Jewish protests against these restrictions, punctuated when 300 youth, led by Jabotinsky, marched to the Wall.

The following week, thousands of Arabs came to Jerusalem, starting a riot that lasted three days.  As recounted in Oren Kessler’s Palestine 1936: The Great Revolt and the Roots of the Middle East Conflict, one hundred and thirty-three Jews were killed.  More significantly, the nature of the violence had escalated in a manner that would be familiar today:

The next morning, the Jewish Sabbath, saw atrocities unlike Palestine had ever known. A disabled pharmacist and his wife were murdered, their 13-year-old daughter gang-raped and also killed. Another couple survived by rolling in the blood of the others and lying still. Limbs, testicles, and eyes were cut from living people, some of them old men and children. Only one person died by bullet; the rest experienced blunter methods of execution.

After the riots, the British instituted a commission to investigate the causes of the riot, known as the Shaw Commission.  In its report, the Commission “lamented” the provocations of the Grand Mufti, but ultimately placed blame on Jabotinsky, exiling him permanently from Palestine.  The Commission’s report recognized that violence had begun with Arab attacks against Jews, and that Jewish attacks were in retaliation.  The report questioned whether any resolution was achievable between the two sides.

At the same date the Shaw Commission Report was issued, another report, the Hope Simpson Report, or White Paper, was also issued, limiting Jewish immigration. 

Once again, the pattern established in 1920 was repeated.  Official pro-Zionist policy was tempered by those charged with implementing it.  This encouraged Arab unwillingness to compromise, and their resort to violence.  Blame, once again, was placed upon the Jews, for their alleged provocation, and concessions were sought from them.  Once again, Arab violence achieved its objective of affecting Western (then British) policy.  Again, the adjustment to British policy was not enough.  From the Arab perspective, there would be no discussion of a two-state solution.