The political stalemate in Palestine and Israel over the two-state solution has finally provoked Palestinians from the occupied territories to declare a strategic change in direction of the one-state solution.

Palestinian activists from different political persuasions and careers paths have made a declaration for a democratic state for all its citizens on the 65th anniversary of the Nakba. One of the founders of the new Popular Movement for One Democratic State, a veteran leader of Fatah, said that it is much different than the PLO’s call for a secular democratic state which Israel has often attacked as an attempt to negate the existence of Israel and the Jewish people.

In an exclusive interview with Al-Monitor, Radi Jarai said that this democratic movement has absolutely no limitations on its citizens between Jews and Palestinians. “We will respect the Israel law of return 1951 and will also defend the Palestinians’ right of return.” Jarai, who spent years in an Israel prison, said that the democratic state that he and his friends are calling for can be “a refuge for Jews and Palestinians.”

Jarai said that without such a one-state idea, born of the deadlock in the political process, Palestinians are bound to continue to live in an apartheid situation for years to come: “Look around, there are racist laws for Arabs and Jews, subsidizing settlements for Jews and separate roads.”