Palestine: The Two-State Solution Is Illegal

Zionism is the Jewish people’s right to self-determination … that’s not something that can be taken from me, and how dare you try and do that.

Dani Zborovsky, as quoted in Shiri Moshe, Ohio State University Student Leaders Overwhelmingly Reject Anti-Israel Boycott for Fifth Time, The Algemeiner (6 December 2018),

The "peoples" entitled to self-determination as a group do not include Jews. Rather, the right of self-determination belongs to the people of the world's former colonies and trust territories, one of which is the former Mandate Territory of Palestine. See the decolonization provisions of the U.N. Charter, Articles 73, et seq.

The applicable law is unambiguous:

States have consistently emphasized that respect for the territorial integrity of a non-self-governing territory is a key element of the exercise of the right to self-determination under international law. The Court considers that the peoples of non-self-governing territories are entitled to exercise their right to self-determination in relation to their territory as a whole, the integrity of which must be respected by the administering Power. It follows that any detachment by the administering Power of part of a non-self-governing territory, unless based on the freely expressed and genuine will of the people of the territory concerned, is contrary to the right to self-determination.

Legal Consequences of the Separation of the Chagos Archipelago from Mauritius in 1965, International Court of Justice (25 February 2019), pg. 38.

This language clearly covers merger and secession but the right to decide belongs to the whole population of a particular territorial unit. However, it is a very pragmatic view of the international community for preventing disorder because under a “speedy decolonization” it is almost impossible to consider every opinion of every ethnic group: who wants to unite with whom and who wants to secede. … The principle of self-determination prevails only under the condition that the term “a people” means the entire population of non-self-governing territory.

Vita Gudeleviciute, Does the Principle of Self-Determination
Prevail over the Principle of Territorial Integrity? 2:2 Int. J. Baltic Law (2005), pp. 57-58. Indeed, if Jews have a right to determine the form of their own government, then why not Mormons, Presbyterians, and Methodists? The world is awash with peoples who have no legal right as a group to their own form of government.

The "people" of Palestine did not in 1948 decide to carve off a portion of their territory to be governed by Zionist Jews. And just as the passage of time and changes in the situation on the ground did not warrant an exception in the Chagos Archipelago case, it follows necessarily that the nation of Israel was illegally formed, that it was and is up to all citizens of the former British Mandate Territory of Palestine as a group to determine the form of their government. If they desire a two-state solution or a single-state solution, that is up to them to decide, not to any group of outsiders who wish to impose their own solution.

We should be deciding how to enable a plebiscite on that issue in Palestine, not endlessly debating whether a two-state solution should be implemented. The two-state solution is the product of ignorance and mendacity justifying an apartheid system of government that deserves no further serious consideration. It is past time for the abolition of the illegal state of Israel and recognition of the nation of Palestine, to be determined by a vote of its people.

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RIGHTS: This brief's author, Paul E. Merrell, J.D., hereby waives all copyright and related or neighboring rights to this document, pursuant to the Creative Commons CC0 Universal relinquishment of rights found at http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/.