Born dead: The New York Declaration for two states
Seventeen countries, the European Union, and the Arab League last week endorsed the New York Declaration, a 17-page document outlining “tangible, time-bound, and irreversible steps” to implement a two-state solution between Israel and Palestine, in line with the Arab Peace Initiative adopted at the 2002 Beirut Summit.
I was at the Beirut Summit in 2002, reporting for The Daily Star, when Arab League member states agreed on a plan they believed could foster peace and establish two states – Israel and Palestine – living side by side.
Saudi Arabia’s original draft was straightforward: land for peace. If Israel withdrew to the 1949 armistice line, enabling a Palestinian state, all 21 league members would normalize relations with Israel. However, three regimes – Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, and Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi – undermined the draft by inserting a clause that ensured its failure.
In his memoirs, Amr Moussa, former Arab League Secretary-General, recounts what I witnessed firsthand. Syria’s Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa met with his Saudi counterpart and insisted on adding a clause to the Arab Peace Initiative: “Attain a just solution to the Palestinian refugee issue in accordance with UN General Assembly Resolution 194.” This clause guaranteed Israel’s rejection.
The same clause appears as Article 14 of the New York Declaration: “Upon reaching a just solution to the Palestinian refugee issue in accordance with UN General Assembly Resolution 194, UNRWA will transfer its public services in the Palestinian territories to empowered and equipped Palestinian institutions.”
Adopted in 1949 by the UN General Assembly, whose resolutions are non-binding, Resolution 194 stated that “refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date” and that “compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property.”
Initially, the word refugees in the resolution referred to approximately 700,000 Arabs who left the territory that became Israel during the 1949 war, as well as about 70,000 Jews displaced from the West Bank and East Jerusalem. In the following years, nearly 700,000 Jews were expelled from Arab countries, primarily Iraq and Egypt.
Israel viewed this mutual displacement as a population exchange – just like the 15-million-person swap between India and Pakistan in 1947. Israel resettled displaced Jews within territory delineated by the 1949 armistice line.
Arab countries, except Jordan, prevented Palestinian assimilation. The UN established UNRWA to resettle Palestinian refugees, but as resettlement efforts faltered, UNRWA became the de facto provider of housing, healthcare, education, food and provisions for Palestinians. UNRWA also maintained a registry, adding new births and removing the deceased.
As of 2025, the original 700,000 Palestinian refugees registered with UNRWA have grown to 5.9 million, still classified as refugees, though nearly five million have gained citizenship in other countries.
Applying UNGA Resolution 194 to these 5.9 million, a process that Palestinians call the “right of return,” would effectively end Israel as a Jewish state.
The two-state solution implicitly envisions a Jewish Israel and an Arab Palestine. Arab governments demand that Israel dismantle settlements and relocate approximately one million Jews from the West Bank and East Jerusalem to within the 1948 armistice line, creating a Jew-free Palestine. At the same time, Arabs insist that Israel accept UN General Assembly Resolution 194, which Palestinians interpret as granting a “right of return” for 5.9 million registered refugees to Israel.
Under the New York Declaration and the Arab Peace Initiative, Jews would leave Palestine while Palestinians would move to Israel.
Given current birth rates and demographic trends, Resolution 194 guarantees that Israel would become majority Arab within a few years. Some Palestinians describe this potential shift as a victory, often describing it as “the power of the womb.”
If Israel accepts the New York Declaration, within a decade, both Israel and Palestine could become predominantly Arab nations. Israel could then join the Arab League, or even merge into Palestine by decision of Israel’s Arab majority.
This is why successive Israeli governments across political spectra have opposed two-state solutions that include the “right of return.”
Israel rarely voices this concern publicly. When American presidents pressed Israel to accept a two-state plan, Israel agreed but requested Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state (not simply recognizing the existence of Israel). The Palestinian Authority consistently refused, arguing that Israel’s Jewish character was not their decision to make, in other words, insisting on UNGA Resolution 194.
If Palestinians and Arab states recognized Jewish nationhood, Israel would likely reciprocate by recognizing an Arab Palestine. At that point, establishing a Palestinian government capable of addressing security threats to Israel – present and future – would become a procedural matter.
