Anti-Israel Leaders Seek One-State Solution Erasing Jewish State

WASHINGTON, D.C., Millions of anti-Israel activists marched through cities this weekend, coordinating actions from the American capital to London, Paris, Madrid, and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. They chanted familiar refrains like "Free, free Palestine" and "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free." For the first time, however, three anti-Israel leaders communicated frankly in exclusive interviews with Fox News Digital. They acknowledged a specific goal: one state called "Palestine" covering modern-day Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza. This vision includes a Palestinian "right of return" to the new country. It also grants equal political, voting, and citizenship rights for Palestinians alongside Jews currently living in Israel.

Most significantly, their described political vision means Israel would legally cease to exist as a separate Jewish nation-state. Under this plan, Jews would be quickly overwhelmed demographically. The current population of Israel is about 10 million people. This group includes roughly 7.8 million Jews, 2 million Palestinian Arabs who are mostly Muslim, and 200,000 from other communities. Estimates place another 10.2 million Jews worldwide. There are about 5.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. Another 8 million Palestinians live in the diaspora, totaling approximately 13.5 million people.

The candor of these leaders exposes the political conclusion activists have advanced for years on streets, through sympathetic media outlets, and in legal forums. They argue Israel is a "settler colonial" state practicing "apartheid" and "genocide." Consequently, they believe it should not continue to exist as its current Jewish state form. Israeli leaders fiercely reject these allegations. They dispute accusations of "genocide" and "apartheid." They maintain that Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people with equal civil and political rights for all citizens, including Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Advocates for Israel note critics rarely apply the same historical lens to Arab and Muslim-majority states. Many of those nations emerged from empire collapses, wars, and upheavals that displaced millions, including Jews expelled from their countries. These states often restrict minority rights today.

In Chicago, Hatem Abudayyeh, a Palestinian-American founder of the U.S. Palestinian Community Network and a Muslim, said the new nation would be "one democratic secular state of Palestine." Jewish Israeli-born community leader Miko Peled, who founded the Palestine House in Washington, D.C., stated "the proper name would be Palestine." Maryland congressional candidate Sam Husseini, a Palestinian-American Christian, floated another name for this vision: "1948." This marks the year Israel declared independence and Palestinians commemorate as the "Nakba," or catastrophe. He said even Israeli Jews would one day accept the name "Palestine."

Their answers provide a striking interpretation from inside a movement where activists traditionally dance around demands with euphemisms about "liberation." Media outlets often obscure their exact answers even when transparency is possible. On Washington, D.C.'s First Avenue SE, Fox News Digital asked Olivia DiNucci, local coordinator for CodePink, what her group sees as a solution to the conflict. CodePink is a far-left nonprofit. In her work there, DiNucci disrupts hearings, restaurant meals, and town halls. She shouts at lawmakers and policymakers who support Israel. When asked if "Palestine" includes modern-day Israel, she spun around and walked away.

Later, she posted a message on social media, saying she was asked "gotcha questions." This weekend, protesters signaled their position with certainty, explicitly rejecting the two-state solution that has dominated international diplomacy for decades. In New York City, the Party for Socialism and Liberation circulated video of protesters marching through the streets chanting: "1-2-3-4. Occupation no more. 5-6-7-8. Israel is a terrorist state." Then came the point: "We don't want no two state!"

In London, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign promoted a 15-second video of a woman with a megaphone shouting: "There is only one state!" "Palestine, '48!" protesters responded. "Say it loud, say it clear!" she continued. "Palestine, you make us proud!" Back in Washington, D.C., protesters carried signs declaring, "LAND YOU HAVE 2 KILL FOR IS NOT YOURS," a message that challenged Israel's claim to the land itself, while a banner proclaiming, "THE FIGHT FOR LIBERATION IS OURS," framed the struggle as one for the territory. The demonstrators yesterday didn't address the Hamas attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, but many have called them justified.

The one-state demand is being amplified within a powerful protest infrastructure. The broader "red-green" alliance brings socialist and communist groups together on the streets with Palestinian and Muslim activist organizations, while organizations including the Democratic Socialists of America and nonprofits in the network funded by Neville Roy Singham, an American-born tech tycoon living in Shanghai, help organize, promote and amplify anti-Israel demonstrations. Singham has poured $278 million into a pro-communist network, including CodePink, the People's Forum, the Party for Socialism and Liberation, BreakThrough News and the ANSWER Coalition, which have become major organizing, media and logistical hubs for the protest movement. The result is a powerful infrastructure amplifying slogans such as "Free Palestine" and "from the river to the sea," even when the organizations and activists doing the amplifying don't themselves explicitly spell out the one-state political vision described to Fox News Digital.

From Chicago, Abudayyeh told Fox News Digital that the U.S. Palestinian Community Network advocates for one democratic state across the territory that today encompasses Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. "Our points of unity, from the very beginning of our existence, included one democratic secular state of Palestine," he said. "And for decades and decades, we've been saying that...the only true solution that can bring peace and justice to all that live there is ... one democratic state," which includes the West Bank, Gaza and "1948 Palestinian territories," a term used to describe the land that Israel claimed as a nation in 1948. This can only happen, he said, if "the racist system of Zionism is dismantled." The ADL, a leading Jewish organization based in New York, describes Zionism as a "movement for the self-determination and statehood for the Jewish people in their ancestral homeland, the land of Israel." Abudayyeh said the new state would include a "right of return" for Palestinian refugees and their descendants. "Our points of unity from day one included the right of return," he said. Activists from a U.S.-based network of groups called "Al-Awda: The Palestine Right to Return Coalition" joined the protest in Los Angeles and posted a message online: "OUR PEOPLE WILL RETURN, PALESTINE WILL BE FREE!" If all of our refugees, who have the internationally recognized right to return to Palestine, are able to return, and the system, the racist system is dismantled, then all the people there can live in peace and justice, Abudayyeh told Fox News Digital.

That's our position. It's always been our position. We're not going to abandon the five to seven million refugees that we have." Abudayyeh stood firm on the statement, refusing to waver from this stance. He explained immediately after what that commitment entails. "They have the right to go back to the homes and lands in which they were exiled," he said.

Abudayyeh clarified a point that often gets lost in translation. Abandoning refugees does not mean kicking current residents out of Israel, especially since most people living there now are Jewish. "It doesn't mean that we're going to kick people out," he insisted. "It just means that these folks have an internationally recognized right, and you will never get peace and justice there unless you uphold that right."

He made his case clear regarding the path forward. "I believe, very clearly, USPCN believes very clearly that there can be peace and justice as long as that system, that racist system of Zionism is dismantled," Abudayyeh said. "That's the essence of it." He drew a direct line to history to make his point stickier. Abudayyeh compared the Palestinian movement's objective to the international campaign against apartheid South Africa. "And we're getting close to having international consensus today on the question of Israel and Zionism, where Israel doesnt have the 'right to exist as a racist, Zionist, apartheid, white supremacist state.'"

"That's what we say," he continued with no hesitation. "We're adamant about that. We're clear about it. Unabashed." Fox News Digital then pressed him on a specific definition used by activists. They asked whether "Palestine" includes modern-day Israel when leaders chant "Palestine will be free" or "Free, free Palestine." The majority of the majority of the people, especially in the past period, have moved to that conclusion, Abudayyeh replied.

Husseini, a Palestinian-American journalist running for Congress in Maryland's 4th Congressional District, offered a similar one-state vision and an unusual proposal for what the country might be called. Standing on First Avenue SE, between the U.S. Supreme Court and the U.S. Capitol, Husseini told Fox News Digital that his long-term vision is "one person, one vote," coupled with a Palestinian right of return.

"Ultimately, long-term, I that it should be one person, one vote," Husseini said. He addressed the displaced directly. "Why aren't they allowed back into their homes? So I think that they should," he said of Palestinian refugees. "I mean, that includes myself. I don't know that I would actually move back there, but as a descendant of a Palestinian who was forcibly displaced, I should have that right or compensation."

Husseini offered another possibility for the country's name to get past the semantic debate. "I've often thought of a novel proposal because people get hung up on the names. Are they going to call it Israel or are they going call it Palestine?" Husseini said. He toyed with calling it 1948, having a country with a number signifying the year of this cataclysm, which should be the last gasp of imperialism. If the new state is called Palestine, he thinks a lot of Jews will say so long as they have equal rights and all are protected, will adopt the term Palestine.

Standing on Pennsylvania Avenue SE, the roar of the demonstrators getting closer as they marched from the U.S. Capitol to talks at the Palestine House of Freedom set the tone for Miko Peled's response. An Israeli-born Jewish activist, he was equally blunt about what a "Free Palestine" means to him. "Well, our vision, our mission, and our vision is to educate people to see that a free Palestine, which means a post-Zionist, post-apartheid Palestine with equal rights and the right of the Palestinians to return, is the best vision that will benefit everybody who lives there currently, which means Israelis and Palestinians," he said.

Asked whether that meant one state, he answered yes. "It's already one state, it's just an apartheid state," Peled said. "So that's our vision, to create a real democracy, free Palestine, with equal rights." Fox News Digital asked what that country would be called. "Well, historically the country was called Palestine for thousands of years and so it should be called Palestine," Peled said. "Israel is a new name.

They renamed the country 78 years ago, so the proper name would be Palestine," says Avraham Shlonsky. For him, that simple phrase carries a heavy historical weight and demands immediate recognition of the land's original identity.

Avraham Shlonsky is one of many Israelis who argue that the current name is an artificial construct imposed long after the British mandate ended. He points to 1948 as the turning point when borders shifted, yet the name stuck while the reality on the ground changed completely. This disconnect fuels a growing movement within Israeli society that refuses to accept the status quo.

For Peled, the familiar protest demand "Free Palestine" has a literal political meaning: One state with the new name "Palestine." He does not view this as mere symbolism or a rhetorical flourish. Instead, he sees it as a necessary correction of history and geography. The goal is to restore what was lost during that tumultuous period when names were swapped but memories remained intact for generations living there.

Critics dismiss these arguments as irrelevant noise in a world dominated by security concerns and diplomatic stalemates. Yet the persistence of voices like Shlonsky and Peled suggests something deeper is at play here, beyond simple politics or territorial disputes. They are calling for a fundamental reimagining of how nations define themselves after decades of conflict and displacement.

The potential impact reaches far beyond academic debates about etymology or historical accuracy. If communities can reclaim their true names, they might also heal old wounds that have festered since the mid-twentieth century. Some fear this could destabilize current alliances, while others believe it offers a path forward toward genuine reconciliation between peoples who share the same land but speak different languages of belonging.