Trump prepared to drop two-state solution
US president says he can live with whatever plan is acceptable to both Israelis and Palestinians
IN A radical departure from Washington’s long-held position in favour of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he could “live with either” a one- or two-state solution, during his first press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Aside from Trump’s non-committal statement on his support, or lack thereof, for the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, the press conference in Washington DC further cemented the tight relationship between the new US administration and the Israeli government, nonetheless revealing some disagreements between the two heads of state.
The most notable moment of the half-hour long press conference was Trump’s response to a question regarding his administration’s position on the two-state solution, a day after a US official said that the country was not necessarily committed to the policy as the sole way out of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“I’m looking at two-state and onestate, and I like the one that both parties like,” Trump said, eliciting laughter from Netanyahu. “I can live with either one.
“I thought for a while that the two-state looked like it may be the easier of the two, but honestly if Bibi, if Israel and the Palestinians are happy, I’m happy with the one they like the best,” Trump added referring to Netanyahu by his nickname.
Netanyahu, on the other hand, sidestepped questions about his position on the two-state solution, saying that he wanted “to deal with substance… rather than deal with labels”.
Netanyahu, who has repeatedly called for peace talks without preconditions, restated his government’s two prerequisites for negotiations: Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, and that “Israel must retain the overriding security control over the entire area West of the Jordan River”.
“Otherwise we will get another radical Islamic terrorist state in the Palestinian areas exploding the peace,” Netanyahu said, in one of a number of statements during the press conference in which he equated Palestinian resistance to the Israeli occupation – carried out by both secular nationalist and Islamist movements – with extremist Islamist groups operating elsewhere.
Netanyahu went on to blame Palestinians’ so-called rejection of such conditions for the ongoing conflict in the region.
“This persistent rejectionism is the reason we don’t have peace,” he said.
However, Palestinian officials have repeatedly recognised Israel’s right to exist, and the Palestinian Authority has carried out security co-ordination with Israel over the years.
Netanyahu did not elaborate on how Israel’s insistence on maintaining “security control” in the West Bank would differ from the nearly 50-year military occupation of the Palestinian territory.
Netanyahu has in the past proclaimed that he would not be willing to enter negotiations with Palestinians which would grant them an autonomous sovereign state, saying that “what I am prepared to give the Palestinians is not exactly a state with every authority but rather a ‘state-minus’.”
While members of the international community have rested the solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on the discontinuation of illegal Israeli settlements and the establishment of a two-state solution, a growing number of Palestinian activists have criticised the two-state solution as unsustainable and unlikely to bring durable peace given the existing political context, proposing instead a bi-national state with equal rights for Israelis and Palestinians.
Trump maintained an optimistic view of his administration’s ability to obtain a peace accord between Israelis and Palestinians, emphasising his support for bilateral negotiations. “Peace requires that nations uphold the dignity of human life and be a voice for all of those who are endangered and forgotten,” Trump said, without seemingly including Palestinians or citizens of countries included in his contested “Muslim ban” in this statement.
“The United States will encourage a peace, and really a great peace deal, and we will be working on it very, very diligently,” the US president said. “But it is the parties themselves who must directly negotiate such an agreement.
“(Netanyahu is) a smart man, great negotiator, and I think we’re going to make a deal. It might be a bigger and better deal than people in this room might understand. That’s a possibility,” Trump said, turning to the Israeli prime minister, who replied: “Let’s try.”
“He doesn’t sound too optimistic, but that’s okay,” Trump added, to laughter from the audience.
Netanyahu, however, seemed to take Trump off guard by bringing up the possibility of involving other Middle Eastern countries in negotiations, despite having repeatedly called for bilateral talks in the past.
“For the first time in my lifetime, Arab countries in the region do not see Israel as an enemy, but increasingly as an ally,” Netanyahu said.
“I believe that the great opportunity for peace comes from a regional approach, from involving our newfound Arab partners in the pursuit of a broader peace and peace with the Palestinians,” Netanyahu added.
Trump’s response raised questions about whether the US president had been made aware of the fact that Israel was considering such multilateral negotiations.
Following Netanyahu’s unexpected statement, Trump doubled down on an earlier comment calling for both Israelis and Palestinians to compromise.
“I think that the Israelis are going to have to show some flexibility, which is hard to do. They’ll have to show the fact that they really want to make a deal,” he said. “I think our new concept that we’ve actually been discussing for a while is something that allows them to show more flexibility than they have in the past because you have a lot bigger canvas to play with. I think they’ll do that.”
On the issue of illegal settlement expansion in the occupied Palestinian territory, Trump appeared to backtrack on his previously emphatic support, as the two leaders seemed at odds on the matter.
“As far as settlements, I’d like to see you to hold back on settlements for a little bit,” he told Netanyahu.
The prime minister, however, reiterated his government’s belief that “the issue of settlements is not the core of the conflict, nor does it really drive the conflict” – despite the international community’s condemnation of illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem as being one of the main hurdles to the establishment of a two-state solution.