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Challenging the two-state solution [1]
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Date: 2025-06-01
On May 31, an article from the Middle East Monitor was reprinted in Professor Juan Cole’s blog Informed Comment with the title China, the ASEAN Nations of S.E. Asia, and the Gulf take up Palestine at Summit. Written by Dr. Muhammad Zulfikar Rakhmat, an Indonesian professor, the article poses a challenge to China, ASEAN, and the Gulf Cooperation Council which met recently in Kuala Lumpur to discuss their Middle East policies.
The article by Dr. Rakhmat begins:
At the 2025 ASEAN-GCC-China Summit in Kuala Lumpur, leaders from Asia and the Arab world gathered under the glow of diplomatic language and cautious optimism. The joint statement from the summit acknowledged key developments — including the International Court of Justice’s advisory opinion deeming Israel’s occupation unlawful, and praised efforts like Qatar’s ceasefire mediation and China’s facilitation of Palestinian national unity.
But Dr. Rakhmat was not satisfied with the rhetoric at Kuala Lumpur and presents his views for what should be happening in Israel and Palestine.
What the world demands now from ASEAN, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), and China is not more resolutions or symbolic affirmations. What’s needed is action — concrete, coordinated, and consequential — to finally bring Israel’s aggression to an end and to fundamentally reshape the path toward Palestinian liberation.
The two-state solution is a “mirage,” says Dr. Rakhmat. He explains:
For over three decades, the international community has clung to the mirage of the two-state solution — a diplomatic fantasy that has become more illusory with each new Israeli settlement, each new demolished Palestinian home, and each fresh cycle of violence. Even as the Kuala Lumpur statement “supports efforts toward a two-state solution,” this language fails to reckon with the ground reality: the possibility of a viable, sovereign Palestinian state alongside Israel is not just dwindling — it is dead.
Dr. Rakhmat calls the two-state solution “a fig leaf, used to deflect pressure while maintaining a status quo that benefits Israel and shields its allies from accountability.”
It is time to move beyond this illusion and toward a serious reimagining of the future — one that guarantees equal rights, dignity, and self-determination for all who live between the river and the sea.
Dr. Rakhmat says that for years the Palestinian issue has been “diplomatically dominated” by Western powers — led by the United States,
but today, as the influence of the West wanes and a multipolar world emerges, a new axis of influence — stretching from Southeast Asia to the Gulf to Beijing — has a historic opportunity to lead where Washington has failed.
Dr. Rakhmat notes that several ASEAN and GCC countries, as well as China, maintain active trade, diplomatic, and in some cases military relations with Israel. He writes:
Ending these ties — whether they are economic partnerships, arms deals, or covert intelligence collaborations — is the most immediate, measurable, and moral step these countries can take. The message must be clear: there is a cost for apartheid and aggression. If Israel continues to defy international law and human decency, it must face real political and economic isolation — not just from Europe or North America, but from the rest of the world.
Dr. Rakhmat urges:
Beyond merely scaling back ties with Israel, ASEAN, the GCC, and China must take the lead in forging a new global coalition grounded in justice, legality, and accountability. It also requires stepping in where the West has retreated: bolstering financial and political support for UNRWA, which continues to face deliberate defunding campaigns aimed at dismantling essential humanitarian aid.
Dr. Rakhmat also considers an upcoming international conference on Palestine, co-chaired by Saudi Arabia and France. This he says “must be more than just another forum for recycled positions.”
It must set in motion a post-two-state framework: one that centers decolonization, addresses the right of return, and ensures democratic rights for all residents of the land — whether in Gaza, the West Bank, or within Israel’s 1948 borders.
Dr. Rakhmat says “a world without US hegemony is not just inevitable — it is already in motion”:
The question is whether this new world will be one in which emerging powers perpetuate the same old injustices under new names, or whether they will finally act on the values they claim to uphold.
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