No simple solution for a deal in Middle East
The Trump Administration appears to be easing away from longstanding US support for Palestinian statehood as the preferred outcome of Middle East peace efforts, which may please some allies of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel.
But the alternatives are few, and each comes with daunting and combustible complications, including for Israel itself.
The idea of two states in the Holy Land — a Jewish Israel and an Arab Palestine — rests on a particular logic: There are two quite different peoples of roughly equal size living between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River; each wants their own nation-state to control and dominate numerically; each has shown tenacity toward this goal.
This would require Israel to let go of most and maybe all of the territory it captured in the 1967 war, when it completed its takeover of all the land that British colonisers abandoned in 1948. That includes the highly strategic West Bank, where there are now islands of Palestinian autonomy, scattered Jewish settlements and overriding Israeli military control; the eastern part of Jerusalem, which Israel has fully annexed and populated with Jews; and the coastal Gaza Strip, which was actually evacuated in 2005 and is now controlled by the Islamic militants of Hamas and blockaded by Israel and Egypt.
Over the years many and probably most Israelis have come around to the idea of a partition largely because they want to be considered a democracy and do not want all the Palestinian future citizens that would come along with the territory. For almost two decades, US policy has been to advocate a two-state solution.
But more than two decades of peace talks have failed to produce agreement on the details, and many on both sides consider it impossible without a major change in circumstances — massive global pressure on Israel, more upheaval in neighbouring Arab countries, perhaps tectonic shifts in the prevailing world order.
Ahead of yesterday’s White House meeting between President Donald Trump and Netanyahu, a senior US official suggested a two-state solution was optional, bringing condemnation from Palestinian officials. But many of them have for years been quietly preparing for an alternative strategy of a single bi-national state in the Holy Land. In his White House news conference with Netanyahu, Trump said he was hoping for a deal but could live with two states or one state — whichever the sides prefer. Here’s a look at the scenarios:
One state
For years this was the goal of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, and for many Palestinians it is indeed the preferred option: a single democratic state, not defined as specifically Jewish or Arab, in the area of British colonial Palestine. Many prefer it anyway to the twostate notion whereby even if Israel gives up all the land it captured in 1967 it retains almost 80 per cent of Palestine.
The problem is that almost no one in Israel is arguing for the true extension of full rights to Palestinians in the currently occupied territories because even with Gaza excluded it would leave Arabs constituting close to half the country’s population — and that is clearly the end of the Zionist dream of a Jewish state. This is why Israel never annexed the West Bank and why the more sophisticated nationalists profess to support a partition — albeit on terms the Palestinians aren’t likely to accept.
If the Palestinians formally drop the two-state strategy and demand incorporation into Israel it will put Israel in the awkward position of refusing to annex territories where it has been settling Jews for decades. Or it might annex the areas but continue to deny the Palestinians there Israeli citizenship, leading to an uproar among liberal Israelis. Down this path lie coercion efforts in the form of international sanctions on Israel or Palestinian violence.
Interim agreement
Many Israelis have concluded that a final peace agreement with the Palestinians is simply not possible because the Palestinians are asking for the moon as a result of a feeling that they hold the demographic cards.
It is not just about territory: the Palestinians still in theory demand a “right of return” to Israel proper for millions of descendants of Palestinian refugees living around the region and the world, which the vast majority of Jewish Israelis reject.
But perhaps a partial deal is