ANALYSIS: Among UK Jews, opposition to Palestinian political autonomy is vanishing

Among Western governments, the belief that a two-state solution between the Israelis and Palestinians is the only solution to one of the bitterest conflicts on earth has become diplomatic orthodoxy. For decades, this has also been the dominant viewpoint in many diaspora Jewish communities. In Britain, however, that latter point is no longer true. New polling from the Institute of Jewish Policy Research shows that just 49 percent support the idea that “a two-state solution is the only way Israel will achieve peace with its neighbours in the Middle East’. In other words, it is no longer the majority view within the UK’s Jewish community.

As is often the case with polling, the results are less straightforward than they seem. On the one hand, it is now accurate to say that most UK Jews no longer explicitly support a two-state solution. On the other, it is still accurate to say that more UK Jews support a two-state solution than any other option -the same survey shows 41 percent opposing, with 10 percent in the middle who are unsure one way or another.

Those on the community’s right wing who vehemently oppose a two-state solution on ideological grounds would no doubt view this second point as clutching at straws. For many of them, the narrative in the numbers is a simple one, and runs as follows – 15 years ago, more than three-quarters of British Jews supported a two-state solution. Now, after years of Palestinian terror – in particular, the horrors of 7 October, that support has crumbled away as people realise that the Palestinians exercising national autonomy or any form of power would lead to disaster for Jews in the region.

That narrative does not survive a proper look at the numbers. The polling also shows 34% of British Jews agreeing with the statement: ”A shared bi-national Israeli-Palestinian state is the only way to achieve peace.”

More than a third of British Jews, in other words, specifically support a bi-national option instead – in other words, a single state, in which both Israelis and Palestinians have distinct identities and rights, are equally represented at different levels of power, and where neither is perceived as dominating the other. That means that the percentage of UK Jews who specifically oppose a two-state solution because they don’t believe the Palestinians should have any say in the future of the country is at most 17 percent – and that includes 10% of people who have not expressed an opinion one way or the other.

Even among Progressive Jews, where denominational support for a bi-national state appears highest (36%), 49% still oppose it.

Far from there being a growing number of British Jews concluding that the Palestinians cannot have any national representation – that number appears lower than ever.

Support for a two-state solution is still the official position of various key communal organisations, like the Board of Deputies and Progressive Judaism  – based on this polling, it seems highly unlikely that this will be shifting anytime soon.

Even among Progressive Jews, where denominational support for a bi-national state appears highest (36%), 49% still oppose it.

All this, of course, does not alter facts on the ground. Israelis – who are, after all, far more directly impacted than Jews thousands of miles away, are much less supportive of the concept of either a two-state or bi-national solution. And forces within the Israeli government are openly trying to do all they can to ensure that Jewish control over the West Bank – not to mention Gaza – is fully entrenched.

It is perfectly possible that some people here have pivoted to supporting a bi-national, one state solution because they have come to the conclusion that a two-state solution is untenable due to the Israeli government’s own behaviour, although there is no data to prove that point.

Either way, however, support for a bi-national state, which was once a fringe position among British Jews, now appears to be a major force. At least among the UK Jewish community, it is not support for a two-state solution which can be said to be dying, but rather the ideological position that the Palestinians should have no state at all.