Oren Yiftachel tells N1: A power-sharing confederation in a common homeland is the only path to Israeli-Palestinian peace

Speaking to N1, Yiftachel said the international community has allowed Israel to expand settlements in the West Bank and maintain a siege over Gaza, making a viable Palestinian state territorially fragmented and nearly impossible to build.

He argued that continued colonisation and land confiscation — alongside the oppression of Palestinians both under occupation and inside Israel — has pushed the classic two-state framework further out of reach.

While the one-state idea is often presented as a democratic alternative, Yiftachel said it faces two major obstacles: Palestinians will not give up their right to self-determination, and Israel’s current political system makes equal citizenship “impossible” in practice.

“If Israel annexes the West Bank and Gaza, Palestinians will remain second- or third-class citizens,” he warned, pointing to restrictions on Palestinian family reunification as proof that full equality is not on the table.

A political model with a Bosnia reference

As an alternative, Yiftachel proposed a two-state confederation, a model based on separate sovereignties combined with shared space and freedom of movement.

While outlining this vision, he referenced Bosnia and Herzegovina’s complex post-war structure — not as a confederation, but as an example of how divided societies can function through layered governance and legally guaranteed freedom of movement.

“We can engineer a system that is possibly a bit like Bosnia,” Yiftachel said, explaining that Jerusalem could function in a manner similar to Sarajevo, as an open city shared by different communities, while collective rights would remain anchored in specific territories.

Under the confederation approach, Palestinians would exercise sovereignty in the West Bank and Gaza, while Israeli Jews would retain sovereignty within Israel’s internationally recognised borders. Both peoples, however, would have access to the wider land they regard as their homeland.

Yiftachel stressed that his proposal would be grounded in international law and said the concept is gaining traction amid the humanitarian catastrophe and ongoing violence in Gaza.

“Ethnocracy” beyond Israel

In the same interview, Yiftachel, the scholar who coined and pioneered the influential concept of “ethnocracy”, said the model is not limited to Israel, but describes political systems that preserve a thin democratic facade while concentrating power in the hands of one dominant ethnic group.

“My theory of ethnocracy is international. It’s not just Israel,” he said, listing examples such as Sri Lanka, Iran, Estonia and Northern Ireland.

According to Yiftachel, ethnocracies often appear democratic on paper: they may have elections, legislation and formal rights. But in practice, he argued, power is distributed in a deeply unequal way because the state becomes identified with one ethnic group, while minorities are systematically marginalised.

He said this can include reduced citizenship, restricted rights, or exclusion from key areas such as land ownership, planning, economic development and national infrastructure.

From ethnocracy to apartheid

Yiftachel warned that Israel-Palestine is moving beyond ethnocracy toward an apartheid-like system.

“Ethnocracy is losing its relevance because we are moving to an apartheid system,” he said, arguing that millions of Palestinians live without citizenship, while others hold what he described as “second-rate” or “hollow” citizenship.

He stressed that such a trajectory risks deepening violence and instability rather than producing a single democratic state.

Bosnia as a reference point for difficult transitions

Yiftachel also said ethnocracies do not all develop in the same direction, arguing that some states can expand equal rights over time through struggle and reform.

“Some like Estonia… and also maybe Bosnia, are democratizing,” he said, describing such processes as difficult but possible.

However, he warned that when dominant groups feel untouchable, the outcome can be the deepening of oppression and the institutionalisation of unequal rights.