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Argument: Israelis/Palestinians are too intermingled for two-state solution

Issue Report: Two-state solution to Israeli-Palestinian conflict

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In October 2005, Nusseibeh, then president of al-Quds University in Jerusalem, said: “For two decades, all of us who gathered here were the leading proponents of the establishment of a Palestinian state to exist alongside Israel, the so-called two-state solution. But continued expansion of Jewish settlements has rendered the notion of an independent Palestinian homeland in the West Bank and Gaza unworkable, and the one-state solution looks more realistic. Some of the Palestinians-about 1.5 millions Arabs who live in Haifa, Lydia, Nazareth, and Um El Fahim-are Israeli citizens who elect candidates to the Knesset and enjoy other civil rights. Then there are about 250,000 Arabs in East Jerusalem who are residents of Israel but don’t have Israeli citizenship. And of course, there are close to 3.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, under military occupation, who need permits to visit family members in neighboring villages.”[1]

Diana Buttu, a legal adviser to the Palestinian Liberation Organization, said in an October 2002 interview, “One cannot unscramble an egg”, in reference to a two-state solution.[2]