The Palestinian Contradiction: Why the Two-State Solution Buries the Balfour Declaration's Failure
The two-state solution does not resolve the central injustice of the past century; it merely administers its aftermath. It is a political attempt to resolve a foundational contradiction engineered by the Balfour Declaration: the promise of a national home for one people built upon the denial of another people's political existence.
The Declaration offered a state to one group while vowing only to protect the "civil and religious rights" of the indigenous majority—a people it never recognized as a nation. A century later, the two-state solution asks the victims of this colonial contradiction to legitimize its outcome by accepting a fractured "statelet" on the shattered fragments of their own homeland. This is not justice; it is the offer of a consolation prize for the political rights stolen from them generations ago. It is the attempt to formally bury the Balfour Declaration's failed mandate by having its victims preside over the funeral.
-Whalid Safodien
The Feather Pen
