Donald Trump’s short-lived suggestion the US could back the “one-state solution”, involving a bi-national Palestinian-Israeli state, instead of the internationally accepted “two-state solution”, alarmed Palestinians, Israelis and the international community.

A day later, Trump’s UN ambassador Nikki Haley reaffirmed US’ endorsement of the “two-state solution”, based on the “land-for-peace” formula laid down in UN Security Council Resolution 242 of November 1967.

The “two-state-solution” trade off has been in fashion for decades and clarified by the 2002 Arab summit, which proposed full normalisation of relations with Israel in exchange for full Israeli withdrawal from Arab territories occupied in 1967.

The international community has, however, done nothing to halt the 140-year Zionist drive to colonise all of Palestine, or end the imposition of a hostile occupation on Palestinians.

Speaking on France24 satellite channel, Palestinian activist Mustafa Barghouthi recently reminded viewers that the notion of a bi-national Palestinian state had been put forward by Palestinians.

Indeed, it had been floated in February 1969 by the Palestinian parliament-in-exile meeting in Cairo, which adopted a resolution stating that the PLO’s political aim was the establishment of a “free and democratic state in Palestine for all Palestinians whether they are Muslims, Christians or Jews”.

This stand was proposed by Fateh, headed by Yasser Arafat, who became chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) during that gathering.

If Israel had agreed at that point, Israelis and Palestinians might have formed a two-canton state: one in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza for Palestinians, and the other within Israel’s 1948 borders for Israeli Jews and, perhaps, Palestinian citizens of Israel.

There could have been a federation between the two cantons. The two peoples could have coexisted reasonably without being caught up in war after war after war, without colonisation.

Determined to assert its destiny as a Jewish state, Israel rejected this option and accelerated colonisation of the lands conquered in June 1967.

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