Zack Polanski, "What I see over and over again is politicians say they support a two state solution, and that's fine, other than, Benjamin Netanyahu has made it very clear that he doesn't support a two state solution" Laura Kuenssberg, "Do you support a two state solution?" Zack Polanski, "I support whatever the Israelis and Palestinians need to be able to live side by side with equal rights" "But I think the idea of a two state solution is for the birds, when we've got so many people running to be prime minister of Israel in the October election, who are saying that they don't support that either" "So if this Labour government want a two state solution, my question is, what are you doing to make that happen?" "Because the status quo right now is a one state apartheid state where Palestinians do not have the same freedoms as Israelis" "And to come back to your first question, that's racist" My view: Polanski is right to challenge the gap between the promise and the reality. Netanyahu has explicitly rejected the creation of a Palestinian state, and the main Israeli opposition has not offered a clear commitment to one either. The question is not merely whether foreign politicians endorse a two-state solution in theory, but how they respond when influential Israeli leaders reject it and settlement expansion continues to make it harder to achieve. That does not mean a two-state solution is meaningless or should be abandoned. It remains one possible way for Israelis and Palestinians to live with self-determination and security. But invoking it while doing nothing about the conditions that undermine it risks turning a peace plan into a slogan. If this is the government’s policy, it should say what steps it will take to protect the possibility of a Palestinian state and what consequences will follow if that possibility is further eroded. Polanski calls the current system apartheid. Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the Israeli human-rights organisation B’Tselem have each concluded that Israeli authorities’ treatment of Palestinians meets the definition of apartheid. Israel rejects that characterisation. The underlying question still demands an answer: how can there be lasting peace while Palestinians live under restrictions and unequal rights, without the freedom and security Israelis expect for themselves? Any vision of peace must include safety for both peoples. Israeli civilians must be able to live without the threat of attacks, rockets or hostage-taking. Palestinians must be able to live without occupation, displacement, bombardment or being denied equal rights and a political future. Neither people’s safety can be built on the permanent insecurity of the other. So the question for Labour is a fair one: if you support two states, what are you doing to make them possible?