One-State or Two-State, that is the Question.

The initial proposal of the Partition Plan drafted by the UN in the form of Resolution 181 in 1947 was the first notion of a two-state solution, following the mass migration of Jews that caused clashes between those seeking refuge from the antisemitic movement in Europe and the native Arabs that were being displaced by the thousands because of this migration.

The proposal was based on separating the region based on ethnicity, however the Arabs immediately rejected the draft as it was unbalanced, providing the Jews with 56% of the land when they only comprised approximately 15% of the population. The Jews were initially unhappy with the UN Resolution because Britain promised them the entire region, but decided to accept it as their first opportunity to establish a homeland.

The Jewish decision was heavily influenced by the strong Zionist movement within their ranks. Arabs always considered Zionism a threat to the demographics of the region, especially following Jabotinsky's original account of the colonial plan of the region in his 1923 essay "The Iron Wall".

In the essay, Jabotinsky describes the behaviour of a native people towards the prospect of being colonized, which lead to the blunt realization that it would be impossible to expect a "voluntary agreement" with the Arabs. He realized the only way to achieve a state where the Jews were the masters of the land rather than a people absorbed within the population as a minority, was to use force.

Jabotinsky questioned it himself; why would the Arabs want to concede an area they inhabit for a colonial entity that wants to enforce a majority of its own? Why would any native throughout history ever want that? The only real solution to achieve colonization as he saw it, would require a "transfer" of Arabs in order to make the migrants the majority of the region. Even under British occupation and before that under the Ottoman Empire, Arabs were ruled by the respective authority's security forces, but the demographics were never threatened.

When conflict ensued following the proposal, the Arabs were not able to hold their position and maintain their territories only to concede it, which resulted in redrawing armistice lines and demilitarized zones. While some Arabs even now refuse to acknowledge the defeats they faced and stubbornly mention a non-negotiable one-state solution, those who do, feel they can only approach the conflict with one compromise based on the last known legitimate truce regarding borders; the Armistice "green line" Agreement of 1949, or popularly known as the pre-67 borders.

The one-state solution isn't ideal for Israel since the Arabs outnumber the Jews. It would mean a pure democratic process where all people who have a claim on the land, displaced or otherwise, have equal rights to vote and that would result in Arab leadership. Israel would face the same fate as the South African democratic process which ended white minority rule.

Ironically Israel claim it is the "only democracy" in the Middle East, yet a pure democratic process inclusive of all its people would deny Israel's entire existence. Democracy and Zionism therefore are mutually exclusive.

Fortunately for the Zionist movement, the Arabs are divided and do not possess the unifying strength to overpower Israel with its powerful backing of the United States, and therefore cannot force a hand in making such a bold claim for the one-state solution. Arabs have no other option but to approach the negotiation table with the two-state concept.

However, just as the Palestinian Papers have revealed, neither the issues surrounding the Right of Return, nor the ever-changing "land swaps" seem acceptable for Israel to agree to any terms that would make the two-state solution viable, regardless of the extreme concessions made by the Palestinian Authority (PA) even on key issues surrounding Jerusalem.

That's because the two-state solution doesn't really work for Israel either, even if the PA agree to all of Israel's preconditions. Zionism, as Jabotinsky puts it, is the colonization of the region, and any final agreement for a two-state solution would put an abrupt halt on the ongoing growth of the "Jewishness" of the land.

The real answer for Zionism is to maintain the status-quo. As long as they are in a state of conflict and the Palestinians don't have an official state, the Israeli government believe that the occupied territory can be annexed by Jewish-only settlements since there is no "official claim" to the land, regardless of what could potentially be part of a future Palestinian state.

The key question that arise from this dilemma is how Israel can get away with building settlements that encroach on a potential future state of Palestine. Even the United States government - Israel's only ally - has admitted that the core issue preventing peace negotiations from resuming is the ongoing settlement activities. These settlements have been deemed illegal by International Law as per the 4th Geneva Convention which was drafted for the protection of civilians, stating that an occupying entity must maintain the identiy and integrity of the occupied people on the land it occupies.

"Might is right" is the unfortunate reality. While the United Nations was established never to allow such atrocities to repeat itself as witnessed during WWII, it is ironically the very mechanism Israel is using to maintain this current state of conflict. That is because the US have in fact been guilty of being Israel's "lawyer", rather than their "honest broker" due to the Israel lobby in the US.

While rest of the world acknowledges the illegal settlements, the US with Israel have been able to stop UN Resolutions being passed in order to avoid halting the settlement activities. The UN Security Council voted to "immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory", but the US have been able to prevent it using a very powerful weapon given to them by the UN; the veto.

It is the very contradiction of democracy on the international stage. The ability to cancel any vote made by the nations of the world with a single trump card that can be used at the discretion of any of the five permanent member nations to control the world's decision-making by playing their political games for strategic advantages. Incidentally, the concept of permanent members only exists because the five members were part of an alliance that were the victors of WWII, which is clearly a sign that the very foundation of the UN is already outdated.

Ultimately, the veto is the true power behind world decisions, not the voices on the UN Security Council.

The best way to rectify such a deadlock in the Arab-Israeli conflict, is to have a "majority" vote in the UN rather than a concept of a veto, where the definition of "majority" could be determined based on the weighting of a nation's contribution to the UN Security Council.

That would end Israeli occupation in a heartbeat and the building blocks of a viable solution could finally transpire, whether it is to establish one state or two.