President Prabowo is wrong: The two-state illusion must end

In a recent statement, Indonesia’s President Prabowo Subianto declared his government’s willingness to recognize Israel—if Palestine is recognized as an independent state. He reaffirmed what has become a tired refrain in international diplomacy: that the only path to peace in the region lies in the so-called “two-state solution.” But with respect, this vision belongs not to the present, but to the distant past. The two-state solution is dead, that is if it ever truly lived. What remains now is the painful clarity of a single, unavoidable conclusion: justice in Palestine will only come through a single state from the river to the sea without Israel as we know it.

The promise of two states has long been used to pacify international outrage, delay accountability, and maintain the status quo. It has never been a genuine offer of freedom for Palestinians. It was always a diplomatic mirage, a deflection, not a destination. For decades, world leaders have endorsed this plan while enabling Israel to destroy its very possibility: building settlements on stolen land, displacing entire communities, besieging Gaza, and enforcing an apartheid regime across the occupied territories.

Today, there are over 700,000 Israeli settlers living illegally in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. That number grows each year. These are not temporary anomalies; they are permanent facts on the ground, backed by military force and a legal system designed to privilege Jewish Israelis over indigenous Palestinians. No Israeli government, whether led by Netanyahu or anyone else, has shown the political will to reverse this reality. On the contrary, they have entrenched it. What “state” is left for Palestinians? Scattered enclaves surrounded by checkpoints, walls, and armed settlers? A Bantustan with no control over its borders, airspace, or resources?

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This is not a hypothetical. It is the lived experience of millions of Palestinians.

President Prabowo is not alone in invoking the two-state solution. Many world leaders do so, sincerely or cynically, because it sounds reasonable. It preserves diplomatic respectability while offering no concrete demands on Israel. But sincerity is not enough. Neither is idealism. Any solution must reckon with reality. And the reality is that there is no space: geographically, politically, or morally for a separate, viable Palestinian state alongside Israel.

Even more urgently, there is no moral parity between the colonizer and the colonized. The two-state framework treats the conflict as a tragic misunderstanding between equals. It is not. It is a system of domination, of apartheid, occupation, and ethnic cleansing. Israel is not a democracy with security concerns. It is a settler-colonial regime founded on the displacement of other people, sustained by violence and enforced by military law.

In this context, what does it mean to propose “two states”? It means legitimizing the entity that has spent over 75 years erasing Palestine. It means rewarding a regime that has never recognized the right of return for Palestinian refugees. It means abandoning the millions of Palestinians who live within Israel’s 1948 borders as second-class citizens or in exile. It means asking an oppressed people to accept permanent partition of their homeland in exchange for a pseudo-sovereignty over fragmented ruins.

There is no justice in that. And there is no peace without justice.

Instead, we must confront the future honestly: There will be one state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. The only question is what kind of state it will be. Will it be an ethno-nationalist apartheid state, where Jews rule over Palestinians through coercion and exclusion? Or will it be a state built on equality for all, regardless of ethnicity or religion, a decolonized Palestine?

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The answer cannot be found in negotiating tables set by colonial powers. It must come from the Palestinian people themselves. And increasingly, they are rejecting the illusion of two states. Polls show growing support, especially among youth, for a single state. Civil society movements across the globe from the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign to the calls for arms embargoes and International Criminal Court investigations recognise that the struggle is not for borders, but for liberation. It is time the world caught up.

President Prabowo’s conditional openness to diplomatic recognition of Israel reflects a desire to play a constructive role on the world stage. But true leadership requires more than balancing symbolism. It demands moral clarity. If Indonesia wishes to honor its longstanding support for Palestinian self-determination, it must say clearly what many are afraid to admit: the two-state solution is a fiction, and clinging to it only prolongs Palestinian suffering.

Instead of asking whether Palestine will be recognised alongside Israel, we must ask whether Palestine will replace Israel not by expelling its Jewish inhabitants, but by transforming the land into a single state where all peoples, including Jews, live as equals under the law. That is not extremism. It is the inevitable result of rejecting apartheid.

There is no two-state solution. There is no peace in partition. There is only one path forward: a free, sovereign, and undivided Palestine without Zionism, without colonialism, and without apartheid.

And yes, without Israel.

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The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.