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Paradigm Lost: From Two-State Solution to One-State Reality
Why have Israelis and Palestinians failed to achieve a two-state solution to the conflict that has cost so much and lasted so long? In Paradigm Lost , Ian S. Lustick brings fifty years as an analyst of the Arab-Israeli dispute to bear on this question and offers a provocative explanation of why continued attempts to divide the land will have no more success than would negotiations to establish a one-state solution.
Basing his argument on the decisiveness of unanticipated consequences, Lustick shows how the combination of Zionism's partially successful Iron Wall strategy for dealing with Arabs, an Israeli political culture saturated with what the author calls "Holocaustia," and the Israel lobby's dominant influence on American policy toward the Arab-Israeli conflict scuttled efforts to establish a Palestinian state alongside Israel. Yet, he demonstrates, it has also unintentionally set the stage for new struggles and "better problems" for both Israel and the Palestinians. Drawing on the history of scientific ideas that once seemed certain but were ultimately discarded, Lustick encourages shifting attention from two-state blueprints that provide no map for realistic action to the democratizing competition that arises when different subgroups, forced to be part of the same polity, redefine their interests and form new alliances to pursue them.
Paradigm Lost argues that negotiations for a two-state solution between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River are doomed and counterproductive. Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs can enjoy the democracy they deserve but only after decades of struggle amid the unintended but powerful consequences of today's one-state reality.
Basing his argument on the decisiveness of unanticipated consequences, Lustick shows how the combination of Zionism's partially successful Iron Wall strategy for dealing with Arabs, an Israeli political culture saturated with what the author calls "Holocaustia," and the Israel lobby's dominant influence on American policy toward the Arab-Israeli conflict scuttled efforts to establish a Palestinian state alongside Israel. Yet, he demonstrates, it has also unintentionally set the stage for new struggles and "better problems" for both Israel and the Palestinians. Drawing on the history of scientific ideas that once seemed certain but were ultimately discarded, Lustick encourages shifting attention from two-state blueprints that provide no map for realistic action to the democratizing competition that arises when different subgroups, forced to be part of the same polity, redefine their interests and form new alliances to pursue them.
Paradigm Lost argues that negotiations for a two-state solution between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River are doomed and counterproductive. Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs can enjoy the democracy they deserve but only after decades of struggle amid the unintended but powerful consequences of today's one-state reality.
232 pages, Hardcover
Published November 15, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
November 12, 2023
Prof Ian Lustick, an American political scientist, expert on Middle East and himself of Jew origin, offers a scathing critique on Israel's role for the failure of the two-state solution in this relatively easy-to-digest piece.
His stance is very clear: "Israel has repeatedly torpedoed all opportunities for a peace settlement. The option of peace based on a two-state framework never got a decent chance, first and foremost, because of Israel’s decisions and policies."
From the outset, the 'Iron Wall Strategy' devised by Zeev Jabotinksy had an immediate and lasting impact on the Zionist movement, where the ultimate objective was to crush the Arabs. The manufacturing of 'Holocaustia' had ingrained irrational fears in every Jewish souls, obstructing dialogue and compromise. The grip of Israeli lobby on the US foreign policy had resulted in more extreme positions by the Israeli government, more illegal settlements and more territorial expansions, rendering the two solution no longer possible in every sense.
So what are the alternatives? The author offers no concrete solution (this is not even the objective of the writing), nor did he pretend to know one. But there is today one state, the State of Israel, between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. The present one-state reality may offer us the much-needed solution, only if we are able to forgo the two-state paradigm that had collapsed in front of our own eyes, and start to work on a more viable plan that can ensure justice and peace to the region.
His stance is very clear: "Israel has repeatedly torpedoed all opportunities for a peace settlement. The option of peace based on a two-state framework never got a decent chance, first and foremost, because of Israel’s decisions and policies."
From the outset, the 'Iron Wall Strategy' devised by Zeev Jabotinksy had an immediate and lasting impact on the Zionist movement, where the ultimate objective was to crush the Arabs. The manufacturing of 'Holocaustia' had ingrained irrational fears in every Jewish souls, obstructing dialogue and compromise. The grip of Israeli lobby on the US foreign policy had resulted in more extreme positions by the Israeli government, more illegal settlements and more territorial expansions, rendering the two solution no longer possible in every sense.
So what are the alternatives? The author offers no concrete solution (this is not even the objective of the writing), nor did he pretend to know one. But there is today one state, the State of Israel, between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. The present one-state reality may offer us the much-needed solution, only if we are able to forgo the two-state paradigm that had collapsed in front of our own eyes, and start to work on a more viable plan that can ensure justice and peace to the region.
October 25, 2023
The author, who is a political science distinguished chair at UPenn, makes a forceful argument for the acknowledgment of the failure of a two state solution and pushes for an acceptance of the one state reality, focusing on equality for all and citizenship for all. He dives into the politics all the way from the formation of the Zionist movement until the trump era, and asks us to read history and analyze it outside of our current framework for understanding both current reality and possible solutions. I’m currently trying to read a lot of theory/memoirs/history that help me better understand a path out of violence and despair in Israel and occupied Palestine, and this read definitely helped both my understanding of how we got here as well as ways to think about where we will go from here. It’s a little hard to find, I had to get it on an inter-library loan from UNC Pembroke, but I suggest looking for a copy of you’re interested in diving deeper than news articles into understanding our current reality and possible future.
November 18, 2020
Anyone looking (as I was) for a conceptual analysis and critique of the Two-state framework in the Israeli-Palestinian context, such as its conflation of political autonomy and territory derived largely from post-WW1 ideals about self-determination, will be left rather disappointed by this book by revered scholar Ian Lustick. Lustick has written elsewhere (and more competently) on the conceptual issues of a Two-state solution, like in his article 'Two State Illusion' (https://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/15/op...), which I found much more engaging than the present study. This book nonetheless has some useful points of analysis, but something about its overarching argument leaves me a little uncomfortable. This feeling I hope I can convey by looking a little further into the work itself.
Paradigm Lost is less a look at the content of any proposals to bring about a Two-state solution (or the erroneous assumptions underlying, and potentially problems arising from them - such as the rhetorical conflation of territorial sovereignty and peace) than it is an investigation into why such proposals have never received the serious backing of successive Israeli governments. As such, Lustick pins the blame for failure of a TSS to emergence on three key elements: the exclusionary policies of successive Israeli governments towards Palestinians living within the borders of the former Mandatory Palestine (which he traces back to Jabotinsky's Iron Wall concept), the thematic prevalence of what Lustick calls 'Holocaustia' in Israeli political rhetoric, and the strength of the pro-Israel lobby on US policy.
To be fair, Lustick does recognise the blame for failure to achieve a TSS does not land exclusively at the door of Israeli politicians. He agrees it is 'certainly true that Arab and Palestinian elites were at times inept, ambiguous, or insincere in their proposals for peace with Israel. They were certainly never united' (p.9), though this aspect is of lesser importance to him than the points raised above. And also to be fair to Lustick, the first point - and crucial to it is understanding firstly (although he doesn't mention this) the military rule under which Palestinians in Israel found themselves under after 1948, and secondly the banning of all Palestinian political activity post-1967 by Israel, except for the Village League policy that attempt to co-opt certain Palestinian elites into working with the government - is quite agreeable. Undoubtedly ,these hindered the ability of an organic Palestinian political culture within Israel-Palestine itself and contributed greatly to the fractured political landscape of Palestinian politics during the past 50 years and the inability to draw together an effective solution for sustained peace in the region. Pro-Israeli figures will likely dispute the importance of this point, perhaps deferring to the often-disagreeable manner with which pro-Palestinian figures configured their rhetoric. But this is whataboutism, and besides the point.
Lustick's second premise is more disquieting. By 'Holocaustia', he refers to a way that Israeli political rhetoric perceivably draws thematically on the memory of the Holocaust in its discourse around those deemed to be Israelis enemies - most importantly, in our case, Palestinians. In a topic so emotive and sensitive, it is imperative to speak with absolute clarity as to quite what we're saying here, and unfortunately Lustick isn't as careful as he should be in these sections. But there is a need to set out what he is and isn't saying for risk of the book being misconstrued: he argues that the inability of Israeli leaders to make serious headway towards an equitable solution the conflict is at least partly the result of the way in which memories of the absolute and indiscriminate horror of the Holocaust is evoked by politicians and in national discourse. He is not making a value-judgement on this. Whether he determines (or not) that Israelis are right or wrong to do this is not relevant. Rather, he is arguing that the rhetorical evocation of the Holocaust in general discourse has created a hegemony in which ambivalence towards non-Israelis is the norm, and Israelis enemies are associated with the Nazis.
With some caution, I can see the argument I think Lustick is trying to make. And, as he himself asserts, this is a topic that has been receiving increased attention amongst some Israeli scholars as well. Certainly, zero-sum attitudes amongst both Israelis and Palestinians have arguably been the largest hinderance to peace. But when anti-Israel rhetoric has too often fallen into antisemitic tropes, indeed the rhetoric of some Palestinian political leaders has itself at times also born the marks of abominable antisemitism - regardless of how representative they actually are of general Palestinian public opinion - the Israeli anxieties over negotiations can perhaps be understood as the result of more than just the rhetoric of their hawkish Premiers.
The third section, on the influence of pro-Israel lobbyists in the US is another topic wrought with dangers and one that too often slips into antisemitic tropes in the public discourse. Lustick paints a detailed picture of the disproportionate influence these lobbyists have on Congress, and the disproportionate budget spent in Israel's interest. What often gets ignored in general discussions on this issue however, and what Lustick greatly underplays until later in the chapter, is that the efforts of these lobbyists only succeed - in large part - in tandem with US colonialist foreign policy that sees Israel as *its man* in a region of enemies. In other words, the pro-Israel lobby's success comes thanks to a US legislature willing to entertain it - the US holds most of the power in the relationship.
Indeed, later in the chapter, Lustick implies as much as he details an instance where President Bush Sr conditioned an aid package to Israel on its desisting from extending settlements into the West Bank, leading - not without furore - to Israeli acquiescence towards attending the Madrid Peace Conference. This renders the earlier parts of the chapter, in which he seems to paint pro-Israeli lobbyists as highly influential on US foreign policy a little incoherent.
There are other bright spots, for instance the allusion to Likud's shoring up working-class Mizrahim support base as a result of encroaching neoliberal policy, and the final two chapters offer perspectives on the current impasse and divergent approaches to overcoming it (including Oren Yiftachel's "two countries, one land" project, which Lustick doubts offers any effective remedy to the current roadblocks in the way of any solution). He also lambasts the international deference to the two-state framework and its reluctance to go beyond it in searching for peace in Israel-Palestine.
In spite of its issues, it is nonetheless refreshing to find at least one scholar refusing to cling on to the outmoded (but irritatingly resilient) notion that peace and justice can be achieved by simply drawing lines on a map. And perhaps Lustick's book can be amongst the first in a flourishing of critical works looking into the TSS and its alternatives.
Paradigm Lost is less a look at the content of any proposals to bring about a Two-state solution (or the erroneous assumptions underlying, and potentially problems arising from them - such as the rhetorical conflation of territorial sovereignty and peace) than it is an investigation into why such proposals have never received the serious backing of successive Israeli governments. As such, Lustick pins the blame for failure of a TSS to emergence on three key elements: the exclusionary policies of successive Israeli governments towards Palestinians living within the borders of the former Mandatory Palestine (which he traces back to Jabotinsky's Iron Wall concept), the thematic prevalence of what Lustick calls 'Holocaustia' in Israeli political rhetoric, and the strength of the pro-Israel lobby on US policy.
To be fair, Lustick does recognise the blame for failure to achieve a TSS does not land exclusively at the door of Israeli politicians. He agrees it is 'certainly true that Arab and Palestinian elites were at times inept, ambiguous, or insincere in their proposals for peace with Israel. They were certainly never united' (p.9), though this aspect is of lesser importance to him than the points raised above. And also to be fair to Lustick, the first point - and crucial to it is understanding firstly (although he doesn't mention this) the military rule under which Palestinians in Israel found themselves under after 1948, and secondly the banning of all Palestinian political activity post-1967 by Israel, except for the Village League policy that attempt to co-opt certain Palestinian elites into working with the government - is quite agreeable. Undoubtedly ,these hindered the ability of an organic Palestinian political culture within Israel-Palestine itself and contributed greatly to the fractured political landscape of Palestinian politics during the past 50 years and the inability to draw together an effective solution for sustained peace in the region. Pro-Israeli figures will likely dispute the importance of this point, perhaps deferring to the often-disagreeable manner with which pro-Palestinian figures configured their rhetoric. But this is whataboutism, and besides the point.
Lustick's second premise is more disquieting. By 'Holocaustia', he refers to a way that Israeli political rhetoric perceivably draws thematically on the memory of the Holocaust in its discourse around those deemed to be Israelis enemies - most importantly, in our case, Palestinians. In a topic so emotive and sensitive, it is imperative to speak with absolute clarity as to quite what we're saying here, and unfortunately Lustick isn't as careful as he should be in these sections. But there is a need to set out what he is and isn't saying for risk of the book being misconstrued: he argues that the inability of Israeli leaders to make serious headway towards an equitable solution the conflict is at least partly the result of the way in which memories of the absolute and indiscriminate horror of the Holocaust is evoked by politicians and in national discourse. He is not making a value-judgement on this. Whether he determines (or not) that Israelis are right or wrong to do this is not relevant. Rather, he is arguing that the rhetorical evocation of the Holocaust in general discourse has created a hegemony in which ambivalence towards non-Israelis is the norm, and Israelis enemies are associated with the Nazis.
With some caution, I can see the argument I think Lustick is trying to make. And, as he himself asserts, this is a topic that has been receiving increased attention amongst some Israeli scholars as well. Certainly, zero-sum attitudes amongst both Israelis and Palestinians have arguably been the largest hinderance to peace. But when anti-Israel rhetoric has too often fallen into antisemitic tropes, indeed the rhetoric of some Palestinian political leaders has itself at times also born the marks of abominable antisemitism - regardless of how representative they actually are of general Palestinian public opinion - the Israeli anxieties over negotiations can perhaps be understood as the result of more than just the rhetoric of their hawkish Premiers.
The third section, on the influence of pro-Israel lobbyists in the US is another topic wrought with dangers and one that too often slips into antisemitic tropes in the public discourse. Lustick paints a detailed picture of the disproportionate influence these lobbyists have on Congress, and the disproportionate budget spent in Israel's interest. What often gets ignored in general discussions on this issue however, and what Lustick greatly underplays until later in the chapter, is that the efforts of these lobbyists only succeed - in large part - in tandem with US colonialist foreign policy that sees Israel as *its man* in a region of enemies. In other words, the pro-Israel lobby's success comes thanks to a US legislature willing to entertain it - the US holds most of the power in the relationship.
Indeed, later in the chapter, Lustick implies as much as he details an instance where President Bush Sr conditioned an aid package to Israel on its desisting from extending settlements into the West Bank, leading - not without furore - to Israeli acquiescence towards attending the Madrid Peace Conference. This renders the earlier parts of the chapter, in which he seems to paint pro-Israeli lobbyists as highly influential on US foreign policy a little incoherent.
There are other bright spots, for instance the allusion to Likud's shoring up working-class Mizrahim support base as a result of encroaching neoliberal policy, and the final two chapters offer perspectives on the current impasse and divergent approaches to overcoming it (including Oren Yiftachel's "two countries, one land" project, which Lustick doubts offers any effective remedy to the current roadblocks in the way of any solution). He also lambasts the international deference to the two-state framework and its reluctance to go beyond it in searching for peace in Israel-Palestine.
In spite of its issues, it is nonetheless refreshing to find at least one scholar refusing to cling on to the outmoded (but irritatingly resilient) notion that peace and justice can be achieved by simply drawing lines on a map. And perhaps Lustick's book can be amongst the first in a flourishing of critical works looking into the TSS and its alternatives.
April 14, 2021
The Palestine issue is one of the burning issues since the birth of Israel in 1948. There are debates whether a Jewish state was legitimate or not. But there is another question: why can't there be peace in the region? Because Israel is now established, it has become a reality, so what is next? Should there be a perpetual fight or a settlement can happen between Israel and the Arab states? This book offers you the answer to these questions and also the background of various other peace agreements between the two parties.
August 11, 2025
Lustick analyzes (correctly in my opinion) the doomed prospects for the so-called Two State Solution (TSS) which dominates Western discourse on Israel/Palestine. Instead, he calls for a single democratic state with equal rights for Jews, Arabs, and others in I/P. This book is short, and it discusses the revisionism of Jabotinsky and his infamous "iron wall" approach to Israeli national security and views on "the demographic issue" for a Jewish state, then turns to discussion of Israel's uses and abuses of Holocaust history to legitimize particular policies harmful to the Palestinians. He then turns to AIPAC and other pro-Israel lobbyists in the US, and finally to rise of the Settler movement and Likud in Israel, and his main arguments for why a single state paradigm (the One-State Reality, or OSR) is moral and necessary.
March 9, 2024
A compelling and pragmatic paradigm within which the rights of Palestinians could be recognized. An important book that becomes more prescient by the day.
March 6, 2025
The two state solution looks more dead now than ever sadly
March 13, 2025
If you want to understand the present reality of Palestine and the pscyhe and strategies of the Israeli government, and you want to read only one book, start here. The author is an Jewish American political scientist and dedicated his professional life to study and write about the Middle East. The book expands on the history and political currents in Israeli culture and politics in a fair but justifiably critical manner. I learned a lot from it. Kudos!
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews