The death of the two-state solution has long been heralded by political commentators and analysts. Now, however, the vision of having an independent Palestinian state exist side by side with Israel appears more quixotic than ever. After winning the recent parliamentary elections despite numerous corruption charges, Benjamin Netanyahu seems poised to take on his fourth consecutive term as Israel’s prime minister. Only a few days before the vote, “Bibi” Netanyahu had promised to annex Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank — a slap in the face for two-state advocates. President Trump, who has promised to unveil his “deal of the century” after the election, has remained silent.
However, the two-state solution, for want of feasible and fair alternatives, remains the only viable and sustainable option on the table. The status quo is unconscionable for Palestinians, while an alternative one-state solution is unpalatable to Israelis. The two-state plan has failed not because of the fundamental irreconcilability of both positions, but from a lack of trust and imaginative leadership. Now, more than ever, the United States, Israel’s number one ally and sponsor, must bring both sides to the table and pressure the next Israeli government to end the occupation.
Out of Options
The current occupation is cementing a blatantly unjust imbalance of power that systematically favors Israeli settlers over Palestinian natives. Israel routinely uses excessive force against Palestinian protesters, severely restricts Palestinians’ freedom of movement through checkpoints and border walls, and arbitrarily detains suspects of minor criminal offenses. Even if Israel’s military bureaucracy attempts to uphold the rule of law, Israeli soldiers will naturally value their lives and those of their fellow citizens over those of their Palestinian counterparts. Turning fear into hatred and hatred into violence, the occupation bears the blame for converting young Israeli soldiers into killers and Palestinian boys into terrorists.
In response, some have called for a “one-state solution” with equal rights for all citizens between the Mediterranean Sea and the river Jordan. According to a recent survey, a third of Americans support the establishment of a single democratic state. Though attractive in theory, this option is unattainable in practice. For examples of the failed cohabitation of different ethnic and religious groups, Israelis need not look further than Lebanon, Syria, or Iraq. Additionally, Israeli Jews, bearing massive trauma from centuries of persecution and the horrors of the Holocaust, continue to face threats of annihilation from countries in the region and would never accept the possibility of becoming a minority within their own country. By necessity, Israeli Jews are obsessed with security.
The Deal Still Stands
The obstacles to the two-state solution itself are not insurmountable — the basic plan has been sketched out in countless peace negotiations. Israel would annex parts of its settlements in a fair exchange of land and retain some military warning stations close to the Palestinian-Jordanian border. The new Palestinian state would be demilitarized, at least for a long period of time, but it would likely receive East Jerusalem as its capital. Palestine would grant the right of return to Palestinian refugees, while Israel might repatriate a demographically insignificant refugee population and accept partial responsibility for the 1948 exodus.
Settlements in the West Bank, which are illegal under international law but have proliferated in recent decades, are often regarded as the greatest impediment to a peaceful resolution to the conflict. In the past, religious Zionists flocked to the lands of “Judea and Samaria” to connect to the Jewish people’s biblical roots and secure Jerusalem against the Jordanian frontier. Today, however, the motivations are more mundane. Israel’s skyrocketing housing prices and financial incentives created by successive Netanyahu administrations have led more and more people to settle in the West Bank. Israeli settlers should be faced with a fair choice. They can accept the authority of the Palestinian government that must afford the economically productive settler minority the same rights as those that Israel grants its sizable population of Arab Palestinians. Their other option is resettlement — in the 1990s, Israel took in huge numbers of Russian immigrants, so it should be able to do the same now for parts of its native population.
America’s Responsibility
Independence for the West Bank would ideally be coupled with a lasting solution for Gaza. According to the United Nations, 38 percent of Gazans live in poverty and 54 percent are food-insecure while electricity continues to be a rare commodity. Israel, Egypt, and the de facto Hamas government are, to varying extents, all responsible for the blockade that has led many people to call Gaza “the world’s largest open-air prison.” In a form of collective punishment, Israel refuses to abandon its blockade over Gaza as long it is ruled by a terrorist government intent on destroying its state. While Hamas deliberately targets Israeli civilians and has been accused of using human shields, Israel continues to accept many civilian deaths as collateral damage in its military operations. According to the United Nations, 194 Palestinians have been killed and 29,000 wounded since the beginning of the 2018 Gaza Border Protests.
Still, the United States and its allies have refused to criticize Israel’s use of excessive military violence. Israel, which gets more U.S. foreign aid than any other country, has requested a record-high $3.8 billion in 2019. In the past, American presidents have successfully used their leverage to force Israel to withdraw from occupied territories in Lebanon and the Sinai while repeatedly pushing for peace negotiations. This time, the United States needs to up the ante.
Pro-Israel and Pro-Palestine
At the same time, the United States must reaffirm its fundamental support for Israel’s right to exist — a durable solution should add Palestine to the map but not weaken Israel. Aside from Egypt and Jordan, no Arab country recognizes Israel’s right to exist. Their double standards for Israel’s actions and those of ruthless dictators in Syria or Saudi Arabia reveal a vicious nationalism that prevents them from accepting a large Jewish presence in the Middle East. The United States should use its clout with its Arab allies to facilitate Israel’s regional integration as part of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
Building trust with the Palestinians will be difficult but essential for any negotiations. The Trump administration’s funding cut for the United Nations’ Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA and its announcement of the embassy move to Jerusalem has added insult to injury of decades of pro-Israeli bias. The United States should support courageous groups of Palestinian peace activists while calling out the dangerous tendency of sizable sectors of the Palestinian population to condone terrorist attacks against innocent Israeli civilians. Lastly, the United States should help provide a new “Marshall Plan” for a newly independent Palestinian state. Currently, the unemployment rate in the Palestinian territories is the highest in the world. Former Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, who was assassinated in 1995, once said, “peace [can’t] become viable unless the man on the street in Gaza and Jericho sees that peace gives new hope to his daily life.”
Israelis and Palestinians remain doomed to live on the same tiny piece of land. As famous Israeli author Amos Oz explained, both need an “unhappy compromise” to learn to “unhappily coexist.” Hatred and fear will likely fester for a long time. If policymakers can come together to stop the occupation, blockades, terrorism, and war, however, the idea of peace will eventually gain traction among both Israelis and Palestinians. America’s special relationship with Israel affords it a special responsibility to work towards lasting peace in the Middle East — to revive the two-state solution before it is too late.
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