Former Middle East Minister Peter Hain: one-state solution 'back on the agenda'

Former Welsh Secretary and Middle East minister Peter Hain is tonight set to make a speech at Swansea University where he will claim that a one-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians is “back on the agenda”.

According to a report in Wales Online, Hain will not explicitly endorse calls for a binational or single state, but will however raise serious doubts about the feasibility of a two-state solution, asking:

Instead of living in constant fear of the enemy within as well as without, might it be more fruitful for Israel to seek a settlement legislating for the rights of Palestinians and Arab-Israelis within a new common state to end the conflict?

Hain will cite Israel’s “relentless expansion into Palestinian territories” as a key reason for the difficulty of achieving two-states, as well as the failure of “a reliance on the US to deliver Israeli cooperation”.

The senior Labour party figure will also point to growing support amongst Palestinians for “the one-state option”, and points to “a number of different campaigns for the creation of a single democratic, secular state for Jews and Arabs, made up of Israel, Gaza and the West Bank”.

Hain notes the “difficult and complex questions” about alternatives to the two-state model, but wonders that if they are “successfully answered”, whether “a common state solution [could] more easily resolve the deadlock than the two-state solution I and many others have long-favoured?”