ISRAEL - One-State Future?

A recent poll found that roughly half of American Jews under 35 support resolving the conflict by creating a single binational state spanning Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, with a government elected by both Jews and Palestinians. The Jewish Voter Resource Center poll, released May 21, found that among non-Orthodox Jews under 35, support was slightly higher.

The majority of Palestinians, for their part, see the idea as a surrender of their dreams of statehood and are deeply skeptical that they would ever be allowed full rights, power and dignity under such an arrangement.

In his 2021 book “Haifa Republic,” the Israeli-German philosopher Omri Boehm proposes a binational constitutional state encompassing Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. Under his plan, Jews and Palestinians would remain distinct national communities, but the state would belong equally to both peoples.

In their 2025 book, “Apartheid to Democracy: A Blueprint for Peace in Israel-Palestine,” Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man and Sarah Leah Whitson propose a transitional government of Israelis and Palestinians, which would lay the political and legal groundwork for a shared democratic future.

-www.jta.org, 12 July 2026

Commentary: Here we must recall that all agreements, conferences, and resolutions have not worked to date. Thus, it seems impossible to work in the future.

According to Encyclopedia Britanica: “The 1995 Oslo II Accord (formally the Israeli Palestinian Interim Agreement on the West Bank and Gaza Strip) was signed on September 28, 1995. It expanded Palestinian self-rule by dividing the West Bank into Areas A, B, and C, and established election for the Palestinian National Authority.”

After the enthusiastically proclaimed Accords, things actually turned in the opposite direction.

Leading many tour groups throughout the land of Israel, we can testify to the former, relatively good relations between Palestinian Arabs and Jews. Sightseeing and shopping in Bethlehem were a given; the same for Jericho. Privately, we even traveled in an Israeli rental car to Gaza, driving all the way into the midst of Gaza City. Those days are long gone. What’s the reason? The bitter hatred of Palestinian Arabs against Palestinian Jews.

While many peace-seeking organizations and leaders are doing a fantastic job, we need to realize this is more than Arabs against Jews and Jews against Arabs.

Let’s look at Scripture: Amos 3:3 reads, “Can two walk together, except they be agreed?” That is one reason for the continued failure to create a one-state Israel.

But there is more. This is not limited to Jews and Arabs, nor to the Middle East, but includes all 200-plus nations of the world. The real reason is given by the prophet Joel: “I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land” (Joel 3:2).

All the great negotiators, politicians, and experts in the field do not realize that the land cannot be divided.

The Berean Study Bible reads, “…my inheritance Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, as they divided up my land.”

This should confirm that the Arab-Jewish conflict will only be solved by God’s sovereign interference.

(See The Case for Zionism, Item #2327, $14.99.)