The long looked-for two-state solution: A truism or wishful thinking?

In the eyes of many around the globe, myself included, a two-state solution leading to an independent, sovereign Palestinian state on the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital and based on international law and relevant UN resolutions, is the only feasible solution that can meet the insistent demands of the decades-old Middle East conflict.

From a historical standpoint, to be sure, every UN resolution, since the formation of this conflict, recognises, without doubt, the rights of the Palestinians to a future of peace, stateliness and solemnity, which certainly are the only possible path to a comprehensive, just and ever-lasting peace.

The question that I find intellectually worthy of being asked in this perplexing regard is: For how long would a city holy to a little more than half of the world’s people, such as Jerusalem, keep facing dangers together with its multifaith heritage and identity? And for how long can the international community accept a status quo of a decades-old, continuing political, religious and human calamity? Palestinians have been put out of place for decades and, even worse, their identity has always been denied. 

It is about time the international and global community does its utmost to oppose all attempts to change the Holy City’s Muslim and Arab Christian character, and face the challenges of peace and stability threats, in a region where many people are denied the promise of affluence and prosperity and where war continues to intimidate and prevent them from living safely and peacefully. For a world without peace is a world without harmony, without reconciliation and goodwill and tranquility and serenity and hope, so to speak! 

The decades-old denial of an independent, viable and peaceful Palestinian state, that does not recognise the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people to a life of peace and armistice, based on international law and a two-state settlement, is a sure path to a long-lasting conflict in the entire region that would cripple any attempt towards an indestructible peace that can survive. This denial would allow one of the world’s most challenging regions to be trapped in a vicious circle of endless upheavals and malevolent  relinquishment of reconciliation and mutual understanding.

Our nations, in the end, need to work with, not against, each other to have a long ill-fated peace process see the light of the day, as it rejects illegal violations and land seizures to preserve the region’s stability and territorial integrity in order for them to attain mutual respect and trust and strengthen plural response to one of the most politically complex-in-demands crises in human history ever, in my view.

For a certainty, the civilised world cannot address common global crises, unless our efforts worldwide are united and put together to reach factual and tangible peace and affluence. The alternative that can develop out of the absence of a fair, nondiscriminatory, unbiased two-state settlement, the sad reality is, would be chaos, disorder, confusion, commotion, turmoil and mess.

For that, let us make our choices cultured, sharp-witted and bright, it is to be hoped!