BARACK OBAMA is meeting Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel for the first time. They will be talking about various things, but one goal of American foreign policy that the president will raise is the creation of a separate Palestinian state alongside Israel—the famed two-state solution to peace in the Middle East. Lately, however, there has been much talk of a one-state solution to this intractable problem. What’s going on? In fact this is an old idea dressed up to look new. Some Jews argued for a single binational state in the Holy Land long before Israel was created. Today, for those in Israel and abroad who find the idea of a state where everybody has to share ethnicity or religion antiquated, a single state sounds enticing. Those Israelis who abhor the idea of giving up any territory to the Palestinians, meanwhile, like the idea because it sounds as though they get to hold on to what they have. And to some outsiders, the one-state solution is appealing because the negotiation that might lead to separate states is so hard and has made so little progress.

People who talk of a one-state solution can thus mean completely different and incompatible things. On the hard right of Israeli politics it means expelling Palestinians to some third country (Jordan is frequently mentioned, though the Jordanians have no interest in this). For those on the left who favour a single state, it means a multi-ethnic, multi-confessional country in which a Palestinian Muslim might one day become prime minister. These two sides are not about to agree.

At some point in the future, demography will force Israel to choose between being a predominantly Jewish state or being a democracy, because Palestinians within Israel are reproducing at a faster rate than Israeli Jews. The only way to avoid this choice is to create a separate, viable state for Palestinians. Which suggests that people will revert to talking about a two-state solution before long.

(Photo: AFP)