The One-State Solution’s Unavoidable Hamas Dilemma
In recent years, a growing number of academics and political observers have questioned whether the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can be resolved through the traditional two-state framework. They contend that the modern state of Israel, however democratic it may have been at its founding, has ultimately come to institutionalize Jewish dominance over Palestinians. As evidence, they point to Israel’s continued occupation of East Jerusalem and the West Bank, the expansion of Jewish settlements in these areas, and the resulting displacement of some Palestinian residents. The solution, according to these advocates, is not the creation of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel, but rather the replacement of Israel with a single democratic, binational state.
Such a state would likely result in a Palestinian demographic majority through a combination of current population growth trends and proposed right-of-return measures. At the same time, however, civil and political rights would be distributed equally among Jewish and Palestinian citizens. The expectation is that a shared democratic framework would encourage political cooperation between Jews and Palestinians in place of ethnic rivalry. In this framework, Jews would be able to live freely and safely without recourse to displacement or dominance of non-Jewish communities.
The vision of Jews and Palestinians coexisting within a single state after decades of displacement, war, and mutual distrust already faces enormous obstacles. But it becomes even less likely when accounting for the enduring influence of Hamas. Hamas was founded in 1988 on a platform that not only rejected the two-state solution, but also contained explicit and deeply conspiratorial antisemitic language. It blamed Jews for a host of global political catastrophes, including the French Revolution and both world wars, and invoked the “Day of Judgement” when “Muslims fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees.”
Although Hamas later attempted to soften aspects of its public language, such as by substituting “Zionist entity” for “Jews” in a 2017 updated document, its subsequent behavior showed no corresponding evolution. On October 7, 2023, Hamas militants crossed into southern Israel and killed over 1,000 people, the overwhelming majority of them Jewish civilians, including entire families. Just as significant, however, is the documented extent of popular support for Hamas and its actions among Palestinians. According to the October 2025 survey data collected by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, a solid majority (59%) of Palestinians in the West Bank endorsed the October 7 attack, as did nearly half of those in Gaza (44%). Moreover, Palestinians in both territories expressed greater support for Hamas (44%) than the comparatively moderate Fatah organization (30%) in a hypothetical future election.
These findings pose a significant challenge to the viability of a binational state proposal. A democratic binational state depends not only on constitutional guarantees of equal rights, but also on the willingness of Jews and Palestinians to coexist as members of a common political community. When substantial portions of one population continue to support an organization committed to the destruction of another, formal guarantees alone are insufficient to protect minority rights. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine Jews feeling secure as a minority in a state where Hamas remains a significant force in Palestinian public life and many Palestinians approve of its deadliest assault on the Jewish community to date. Until proponents of a binational state explain how this reality would fundamentally change, their proposal will remain aspirational rather than practical.
