Reckoning With Israel’s ‘One-State Reality’

For decades, most discussions of Israel and Palestine were framed around the eventual creation of a two-state solution. That effort has been dead for years. What has emerged in its place is what the political scientists Marc Lynch and Shibley Telhami call the “one-state reality.” Their book on this — edited with Michael Barnett and Nathan Brown — came out before Oct. 7, 2023.

Since Oct. 7, that reality has become further entrenched: There’s been a record pace of settlement construction in the West Bank. Israel now occupies more than half the territory of Gaza. And Israel’s push into Lebanon has displaced more than a million people.

So what does it mean to reckon with Israel’s one-state reality — to see the facts on the ground rather than the frames of the past?

Shibley Telhami is the Anwar Sadat professor for peace and development at the University of Maryland, College Park. Marc Lynch is the director of the Project on Middle East Political Science at George Washington University. Lynch is the author, most recently, of “America’s Middle East: The Ruination of a Region.”

Mentioned:

“Israel’s One-State Reality” by Michael Barnett, Nathan Brown, Marc Lynch, and Shibley Telhami

The One State Reality by Michael Barnett, Nathan J. Brown, Marc Lynch and Shibley Telhami

Israel’s Religiously Divided Society, Pew Research Center

Summary of a Year of Terror, Expulsion, and Annexation — 2025 in the Settlements, Peace Now

Book Recommendations:

Justice for Some by Noura Erakat

Wars of Ambition by Afshon Ostovar

The Second Emancipation by Howard W. French

Mayors in the Middle by Diana B. Greenwald

Israel by Omer Bartov

Tomorrow Is Yesterday by Hussein Agha and Robert Malley

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.

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