End of the Road For "Two-State Solution"

Donald Trump repeatedly promised a new relationship between the United Sates and Israel and is taking crucial steps to keep that promise. To understand why the U.S.-Israeli relationship matters and what the change means for the future, it seems useful to review the central issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

We could start, as some Israelis do, with God's promise of the land to Abraham or with the emergence of the 19^th Century Zionist slogan “A land without people for a people without land.” Or with the 1948 war and what the Palestinians term the nakba (catastrophe) that created hundreds of thousands of refugees. But it may help shorten what is already becoming a very long essay by beginning with June 6, 1967.

Land For Peace

On June 5, 1967 Israel was a small Jewish, democratic state surrounded by well-armed neighbors. On June 11, Israel was the dominant military force in the Middle East: Syria, Egypt and Jordan had lost their air forces and seen their ground forces chewed up and spit out. Israel now occupied all the land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, expanding the land they controller by about 25% and finding themselves in control of a large number of Arabs who were technically either citizens of Jordan or refugees from the first Arab-Israeli war in 1948. The psychological reality was that most of these people had come to think of themselves as “Palestinians” rather than Jordanians (whom they saw as a rather uncultured bunch of Bedouins who lived East of the Jordan and were ruled by a monarchy the British had imposed.)

Israel, Egypt and Jordan accepted a Security Council resolution calling for Israeli withdrawal from occupied territory, respect for the territorial integrity and sovereignty of all the states in the region, and negotiations leading to a permanent peace. This established the “Land For Peace” idea, that Israel would withdraw its armed forces from the West Bank as peace treaties were negotiated with its neighbors. Israel at that point had no intention of permanently occupying mot of the West Bank.

What’s in a word? The UN works with two official languages: English and French. The English text of Resolution 242 calls for “Withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict” but the French text calls for “Retrait des forces armées israéliennes des territoires occupés lors du récent conflit.” The difference is the specific article that makes it “the territories” … the English version is ambiguous enough to allow for some readjustment of Israel's pre-war borders; the French version isn’t. 

Really? So What? At one point in the middle of the country, Israel is slightly more than 10 miles wide. There has always been a real danger that the country cold be cut in half in a war. The English text would legitimize a peace deal that moved the border east to a defensible position; the French version would not.

Settlements

The image of the settler, a plow in one hand, a book of poetry in the other, with a gun on his back is deeply embedded in Israeli culture. Beginning in the 1920s, idealistic young Jews from around the world moved to what was then British-controlled Palestine and set up Utopian communities … the kubbitz. Even though most Jews who came to Israel did not live on a kibbutz or share the Utopian values of the people who did, the image of the settler, like the American cowboy, is a powerful icon.

The pattern of settlement changed after the Six-day War. There was a concerted effort to build Jewish suburbs around Tel Aviv and Jerusalem to provide security and to prevent those areas from being included in a land for peace deal. Very soon the settlement program took on an additional dimension. In order to create what Prime Minister Menachem Begin referred to as “facts on the ground,” the government began to actively encourage settlement deeper and deeper into the West Bank. This was part of a larger shift in positions, as the new government represented a much more conservative and nationalistic perspective. The West Bank went from “occupied territory” to “administered territory” to “Judea and Samaria” … that is, an integral part of Biblical Israel. Settlements went from suburbs protecting especially vulnerable parts of Israel and potential bargaining chips in peace talks to an integral part of Israel and important political constituency.

This transformation was fueled initially by religiously motivated Jews from North America and western Europe who felt it was their duty to migrate to Israel and build new communities. It gained momentum and reached a critical mass with the demise of the Soviet Union. Hundreds of thousands of Russian Jews, many of them direct victims of anti-semitism, were now free to leave Russia and move to Israel. Expanding existing settlements, creating new ones, or turning a blind eye to unauthorized, ostensibly illegal, settlements became a major response to the challenges of accommodating a sudden influx of new Israeli citizens.

The physical result has been a proliferation of settlements across the West Bank, linked by roads whose use is restricted to Israelis, whose citizens are heavily armed and feel themselves under constant threat from local Palestinians. The political effect has been the emergence of a highly nationalistic, socially conservative, religiously influenced movement that adamantly rejects any notion of trading land for peace, and does not necessarily share the democratic and more secular values of the majority of Israelis.

Like the United States, Israel is a deeply divided society. Unlike the United States, the Israeli political map features a large number of parties, none of which has enough seats in parliament (the Knesset) to form a majority. Benjamin Netanyahu has become the second longest serving Israeli Prime Minister by skillfully combining a large conservative party with several smaller, more right wing parties, to maintain a majority.

Jerusalem

Like many ancient cities, Jerusalem has historically had various “quarters” where people of different ethnic, national or religious persuasion tended to live together. At the end of the 1948 war Israeli forces controlled most of Jerusalem but Jordanian forces held the eastern section, known as the Arab Quarter, which included the area known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary.

It is impossible to overstate the religious significance of this hill. For Jews, this is the spot where Solomon erected the Temple that served as the centerpiece of Jewish worship and culture until it was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE. The foundation of that Temple, the Wailing Wall, remains at the foot of the hill, the most sacred site in contemporary Judaism. On top of the hill are the Dome of the Rock (whence, Muslims believe, Mohamed was transported to heaven), and the Al-Aqsa Mosque, a center of Islamic worship for the last 1200 years.

When Israeli troops captured all the of Jerusalem in the Six-Day War, it was far more than occupying land. One immediate consequence was that Israel had to undertake the thankless and delicate task of accommodating competing religious interests in the holy sites and maintaining order among sometime fractious pilgrims. The other was the opportunity to treat Jerusalem as a single city, not divided between Israel and Jordan.

Jerusalem quickly became defined in Israeli law as “the eternal and undivided capital” of Israel. Because Israel acquired east Jerusalem as the spoils of war, the rest of world has not recognized the city as the lawful capital of Israel. Tel Aviv remains the recognized capital and home to the embassy of every country with whom Israel has diplomatic relations.

Over the past century the principle that states cannot acquire territory by conquest has become deeply entrenched in international law and politics. For example, the United States was able to build a broad coalition of states to enforce the principle when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait and The United Nations General Assembly condemned Russia’s annexation of Crimea and legitimized the sanctions imposed by the United States and Western Europe.

While the Palestinian Authority has its administrative headquarters in Ramallah, the widespread expectation is that some day East Jerusalem will be the capital of a Palestinian state.

Refugees and the right of return

The 1948 war between Israel and its Arab neighbors created over 700,000 refugees. The United Nations assumed responsibility for their well-being and has maintained camps in the West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. There are somewhere between 30,000 and 50,000 people still living from the initial 70,000. By definition, if your father or grandfather was a refugee, then you have that status as well. Thus there are approximately 5,000,000 people in the Middle East, many of them still living in camps, who can claim a right to return to ancestral homes and land in Israel. While everyone recognizes that none of the refugees is going to return to Israel, Palestinian negotiators have consistently proposed that they be given some form of compensation for lost property.

The Two-State Solution: a Possible Dream

Most dispassionate observers have seen logical resolutions to the major issues of land and settlements, Jerusalem, and the rights of refugees. After years of diplomatic efforts, the Israelis and Palestinians seem to have reached a breakthrough in the Oslo Accords of 1992. 1) The Palestinians would recognize Israel as a sovereign state with a right to exist in secure borders. The two sides would negotiate the return of almost all of the West Bank and Gaza strip to the Palestinians, with some border adjustment to allow Israeli settlements as a defensive buffer around Tel Aviv. To further address Israeli concerns about national defense and security, any Palestinian State would not have a standing military; 2) The final status of Jerusalem would be negotiable, making East Jerusalem as a Palestinian capital possible; 3) Israel would negotiate some form of compensation for refugees who would give up their right to return and all other claims.

The expected result would be two states, Israel and Palestine, with secure borders, mutually beneficial strong economic ties, with Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and East Jerusalem the Palestinian capital.

Twenty-five years later, the Israelis, the Palestinians, and students of the Middle East have a variety of explanations (and point a variety of accusatory fingers) for why the promises of the Oslo Accords were never met. A lack of political will at crucial moments, the emergence of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and shifting internal political priorities have all played a part. Most of the explanations from sources other than staunch Israeli partisans, include the dramatic expansion of settlements as an important factor.

The Two-State Solution: An Impossible Dream

Despite all the obstacles and frustrations, successive American Presidents have continued to try to promote negotiations for a two-state solution. Because America provides several billion dollars a year in military assistance to Israel and American citizens provide additional billions in aid to various Israeli organizations and projects, the United States has to be taken seriously and has been able to use carrots and sticks to initiate negotiations about negotiations, if not always discussions of the core issues. No one else can influence Israel. The United States has never been an “honest broker,” even-handedly seeking the middle ground. It has always leaned toward the Israeli perspective. But because of the close ties to Israel and ability to exert some influence, the Palestinians have understood that America is the only game in town and the only hope of movement toward a settlement.

There are a number of aspects of the current environment that make a two-state solution more mirage than attainable dream: The weakness of the Palestinian Authority; a pessimistic Israeli public; an Israeli government whose key members are at best indifferent to an independent Palestinian state and at worst are actively opposed; and the fact of the settlements.

Even if Netanyahu's governing coalition, which relies on small parties whose base is the activist settlers, were to be replaced by a more centrist regime, the prospect of reaching an agreement that would require evacuation of some current settlements is a potential nightmare for any Israeli government. There have already been public clashes between settlers and the army when courts have ordered the removal of unpermitted and illegal settlements and noisy confrontations when police have tried to stop demolition of Palestinian homes or confiscation property within existing settlements. The spectacle of Elisa soldiers forcibly removing tens of thousands enraged settlers so Palestinians can take over their territory has to be a nightmare for any Israeli politician.

President Trump's campaign rhetoric, his hyperbolic reaction to the United States' abstention on the UN Security Council vote condemning Israeli settlements, and his promised appointment of an outspoken supporter of settlements as ambassador make it clear that the United States will not actively pursue a two-state solution. Indeed if the administration goes ahead and moves the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem it will be an unequivocal signal to the Palestinians and the rest of world that not only will the United States forgo any initiatives toward peace, but has actively allied itself with the factions in Israel least responsive to the Palestinians. “Leaning” has now given way to whole hearted embrace.

If Not Two-States, Then What?

I don't know. In the short run – the next four or five years – the status quo may be sustainable. There may well be another intifida, an uprising in the West Bank, but, as Israel has demonstrated in the past in both West Bank and Gaza, it will exert overwhelming force when it feels it has to. The Palestinian Authority is dependent on Israel for its finances and security; it will not provide any leadership to a protest.

In the longer run, Israel's basic existential dilemma remains: Israel cannot be a democratic state if it treats the Palestinians as colonized non-citizens; but it cannot be a Jewish state if it includes the Palestinians as citizens.

The population of Israel is approximately 8,000,000 people, of whom 75% (6,000,000) are Jews and 2,000,000 Arabs. There are roughly 2,800,000 Palestinians. So today there are 6,000,000 Jews and just under 5,000,000 Muslim or Christian Arabs in Israel and West Bank. The birth rate in Israel is 18.3/1000; in the West Bank it is 26.7/1000 …. in a few years Jews will be a minority in a combined Israel and West Bank. Those who insist on a narrow cultural and religious definition Jewishness already are a minority.