Israel-Palestine: A Single State Solution is Idealism

I feel that self-professed Marxists and Marxist-Leninists who advocate for a single-state solution right now with regards to Israel-Palestine really haven't grasped the problem materially or dialectically.

To address the problem correctly and come to the correct conclusion, material conditions must be analysed and bought to the fore. Two states currently exist, Israel and Palestine. They are locked in an imperialist struggle. This is the real, material situation of this continuing and devastating conflict. The primary contradiction here is imperialism.

To bring forth the material reality of a two-state solution would necessitate the ending of imperialist struggle. This would be "the negation of the negation". By that, we mean something new and different is possible from there on out as previous material relations have passed into and become history; the old has been sublated by the new. It is only at this point does a single state start to become a real possibility, if at all.

The first thing that needs to occur for a single-state solution to become possible is the full international recognition of Palestine as a sovereign state based on UN resolutions. To suppress Israel's imperialism, unilateral and multilateral sanctions must be pursued against Israel's state and institutions until real progress is made. This is the two-state solution which is rooted in the real and current situation in the area. This is the negation of the negation - a substantial change in social relations that allows new ones to arise. A two-state solution is a precondition for a single-state solution.

But we must remember that the ending of imperialism doesn't necessarily mean the beginning of socialism, which is, of course, another precondition for the abolition of states and hence a precondition for a single state in Israel-Palestine.

Other contradictions developed from new social relations will rise to the surface and will need to be dealt with in time. The internal class struggle of each state may finally blossom or the social and cultural differences between these two states and peoples, for example.

But my point is this: A single-state solution is so far removed from the current material situation that it can't be considered anything but an ideal.

The reason why some people find this idea offensive today is because of its implications.

What are those implications?

The forcible merging of two states into one necessitates the merging of two peoples who currently hold disdain for each other. Or it implies the complete destruction of one or the other state - clearly an offensive proposition to both Israelis and Palestinians alike. 

Both would be disastrous. 

We cannot bend reality to our will, we can only proceed from material conditions currently in play; the conditions for moving forward result from real premises that are now in existence.

So, in short, a two-state solution is what is possible when we consider today's material conditions. A single-state solution is what might be possible if we consider the possibilities of certain futures that may or may not occur.

But what this really boils down to is the difference between materialism and idealism. The materialist solution is the one that is currently possible and rooted in concrete material conditions. The idealist solution is unrelated to reality.

And friends and comrades, as much as we may hope otherwise, a single-state solution is currently and, for the foreseeable, will remain a fantasy.