One-state solution

The one-state solution is a proposed approach to the Israeli–Palestinian peace process. It stipulates the establishment of a single state within the boundaries of the former Mandatory Palestine, today consisting of the combined territory of modern-day Israel (excluding the annexed Golan Heights) and Palestine. The term one-state reality describes the belief that the current situation of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict on the ground is that of one de facto country. The one-state solution is sometimes referred to as the bi-national state, owing to the hope that it would successfully deliver self-determination to Israelis and Palestinians in one country, thus granting both peoples independence as well as absolute access to all of the land.

Various models have been proposed for implementing the one-state solution.

Though increasingly debated in academic circles, the one-state solution has remained outside the range of official diplomatic efforts to resolve the conflict, as it has historically been eclipsed by the two-state solution. According to the most recent joint survey of the Palestinian–Israeli Pulse in 2023, support for a democratic one-state solution stands at 23% among Palestinians and 20% among Israeli Jews. A non-equal non-democratic one-state solution remains more popular among both populations, supported by 30% of Palestinians and 37% of Israeli Jews. A Palestinian poll in September 2024 revealed that only 10% of respondents supported a single state that would provide equal rights for both Israelis and Palestinians.

The "one-state solution" refers to a resolution of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict through the creation of a unitary, federal or confederate Israeli–Palestinian state, which would encompass all of the present territory of Israel, the West Bank including East Jerusalem, and potentially the Gaza Strip and Golan Heights. Depending on various points of view, a one-state solution is presented as a situation in which Israel would ostensibly lose its character as a Jewish state and the Palestinians would fail to achieve their national independence within a two-state solution, or as the best, most just, and only way to resolve the conflict.

The area between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River has been controlled by various national groups throughout history. A number of groups, including the Canaanites, the Israelites (who later became the Jews), the Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Jews, Romans, Byzantines, Umayyads, Abbasids, Seljuk Turks, Crusaders, Mamluks, Ottomans, the British, Israelis, Jordanians, and Egyptians have controlled the region at one time or another. From 1516 until the end of World War I, the region was controlled by the Ottoman Empire.

From 1915 to 1916, the British High Commissioner in Egypt, Sir Henry McMahon, corresponded by letters with Sayyid Hussein bin Ali, the father of Pan Arabism. These letters were later known as the Hussein–McMahon Correspondence. McMahon promised Hussein and his Arab followers the territory of the Ottoman Empire in exchange for assistance in driving out the Ottoman Turks. Hussein interpreted these letters as promising the region of Palestine to the Arabs. McMahon and the Churchill White Paper maintained that Palestine had been excluded from the territorial promises, but minutes of a Cabinet Eastern Committee meeting held on 5 December 1918 confirmed that Palestine had been part of the area that had been pledged to Hussein in 1915.

In 1916, Britain and France signed the Sykes–Picot Agreement, which divided the colonies of the Ottoman Empire between them. Under this agreement, the region of Palestine would be controlled by Britain. In a 1917 letter from Arthur James Balfour to Lord Rothschild, known as the Balfour Declaration, the British government "view[ed] with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people", but at the same time required "that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine".

In 1922, the League of Nations granted Britain a mandate for Palestine. Like all League of Nations Mandates, this mandate derived from article 22 of the League of Nations Covenant, which called for the self-determination of former Ottoman Empire colonies after a transitory period administered by a world power. The Palestine Mandate recognized the Balfour Declaration and required that the mandatory government "facilitate Jewish immigration" while at the same time "ensuring that the rights and position of other sections of the population are not prejudiced".