By Ted Belman (First published by American Thinker)
The peace process reached an impasse over four years ago if not a decade ago. The PA has refused to negotiate without receiving major concessions in advance. Pres Obama was not able to kick start negotiations even though he came out in favour of a settlement based on ’67 lines plus swaps. Nor could Israel do so, notwithstanding her ten month settlement freeze.
The prestigious Herzliya Conference which just took place in Israel, included a panel discussion on the question, is the impasse breakable”.
A keynote to the discussion was delivered by Tzipi Livni who will be Israel’s Justice Minister and chief peace process negotiator. The tenor of her remarks was that it is very much in Israel’s interest to achieve a final status agreement and that she was dedicated to the task. But most Israelis disagree.
Most experts on the panel agreed that a final status agreement will not be reached in this generation yet they were not prepared to abandon efforts to achieve one. They believe that so long as Israel continues to build settlements such an agreement won’t be achieved in any generation. Thus great pressure is put on Israel not to take unilateral action i.e., build settlements, arguing that it is proscribed by the Oslo Accords. Not so. They proscribe taking unilateral actions which “change the status of the territories”. Certainly the action by the PA to get recognition from the UN as a state is clearly such an action but building settlements isn’t.
The discussion focused on what should be done in the interim to manage the conflict and preserve the status quo. Danny Ayalon, Israel’s former Dep Min of Foreign Affairs made a novel suggestion that Israel should recognize the Palestinian State that he and Israel was vehemently against when the UN did so, in exchange for a recognition by the PA of Israel as a Jewish state. The chances of such a deal being cut are negligible. The PA wouldn’t entertain it because it equates such a recognition with giving up on the “right of return”. The PA has also stated it is against any interim agreements. We must remember that staying with the two state solution has lost opportunity costs.
No one, except Dani Dayan, former Chairman of the Council of the Jewish Communities in Judea and Samaria, discussed the impasse and whether it can be broken. There was an unspoken assumption that Israel would have to make major concessions to break the impasse.
Dayan put them back on their heels by arguing that PM Olmert, who was desperate for a deal and was one of the most moderate Israeli leaders was not able to reach a deal with Abbas, who is recognized, so we are constantly told, as a great moderate leader. Livni, who conducted negotiations during the Annapolis Process, likewise did not succeed. Conditions will never be as good as they were then, what with the Islamic winter and the bloodbath in Syria.
Although these experts kept making reference to recent polls that suggest that most Israelis want peace, they ignored other aspects of the polls (here and here) that show what Israelis reject the concessions expected of them.
Israelis by large majorities are not willing to share Jerusalem, give back the Golan or uproot the settlement blocs including Ariel and Maaleh Adumin. A plurality of Israeli Jews (45%) are even against creating a Palestinian state.
The impasse exists because keeping these assets including defensible borders are more important to Israelis than “peace”. The Palestinians on the other hand have no incentive to cede Jerusalem or the right of return. Nor do they have economic necessity. They are unwilling to compromise to get their state. All though money is tight for them, they can always count on the US and the EU providing them with their needs, no questions asked. Furthermore they can always count on the EU, the UN and the US pressuring Israel to make the necessary concessions and not them. The status quo for them, contrary to their propaganda, is just fine.
In effect, paradoxically, this PA support insures that the impasse will not be broken. But for western support of the PA, the problem would have been long solved.
Thus if the west wants to find a solution it should do two things.
1. Accept Israeli construction east of the fence. The window of opportunity is fast closing for the two state solution to be possible. That is, a solution based on dividing Jerusalem. With such construction, the window will close within a year or two at the most. Thus the PA would be forced to cut a deal on Israeli terms if they wanted a state.
It is unlikely they would do so preferring to shift their battleground to achieving a bi national state. Israel would never accept such a state so such a battle would be fruitless.
The interests of Israel and the PA mitigate against an agreement, and they are not the only actors. Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, Hezbollah, the refugees would be against it. Abbas would be assassinated and Hamas would take over the new state of Palestine. An agreement would not bring peace but renewed violence and terrorism.
The most realistic alternative is for Israel to have sovereignty over the land from the Mediterranean to the Jordan, Gaza excluded, and the Arabs to have autonomy only where they live just as they do now.
2. Unwind UNRWA. Insist that all the refugees as currently designated be resettled, as all other refugees are, in other countries. Maintaining their status as aggrieved, stateless persons is one of the biggest impediments to breaking the impasse. No one really expects Israel to take them in nor do they expect “Palestine” to take them in. To do so would be extremely destabilizing for all concerned.
Yuval Zaliouk attended the AIPAC conference this year and had this to say:
- “My only criticism of the Conference was the lack of discussion about the TSS (Two States Solution). AIPAC does not support one policy or another. However, it is clear to me that at least half of the delegates at the Conference were against the TSS, yet all one could hear from the stage was support of that debunked idea. Clearly, AIPAC’s leaders decided not to have even one speaker who is against TSS. By this decision, AIPAC went against its own policy of not to appear partisan.
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“Like a broken record, almost all speakers repeated the TSS mantra. To use a metaphor, it felt like they were beating a dead horse. When a horse is wounded, one shoots it out of its misery. The TSS has been dead for quite a while, yet all the speakers were desperately trying to resuscitate it.”
Similarly the speakers at the Herzliya Conference repeated the mantra. This must change. All options must be on the table. New paradigms must be considered. The two-state solution must be buried.
@ catarin:
Ahhhhhhhhh You have returned. Maybe I gave a little backbone. Never ignore your combantent. They will percive weakness.
@ Bernard Ross:
What you mean is, What” two state solution” ,there is no two state solution and never will be, give it up Prof,peace gomes at the barrel of a gun.
I am listening to Classic Rock, while I cook for St James Joyce Day, and Fleetwood Mac is singing ” If You Don’t Love Me Now,then you never will” sounds like the two state solution. Every thing good is in classic rcck
A major reason why the Jews should reject additional negotiations with the Arab Muslims:
Both the PA and Hamas are teaching their school children to hate Jews. They plan to wage constant jihad on Israelis, generation after generation. Go to hell, ugly Muslims! I don’t know if another people on Earth today is as destructive as these ignoramuses are. Well, maybe other sects of Islam.
I still think an effort should be made to identify descendents of Muslims who came to Israel to find work after Israel became a state, and deport the hell out of them. Make them move back to Islam countries where they can bask in their stupidness.
Nature abhors a vacuum. So too does humanity when it comes to seeking to address existential challenges. Sometimes what fills that vacuum is good and sometimes it is evil, but life is not static so things change as circumstances, challenges and opportunities change.
The TSS paradigm was first introduced indirectly in 1922 when under pressure from Arabs and the British State Department/government crystal balling where Britain’s own interests long term might be best served, unilaterally in breach of the terms and raison d’etre of Britain’s Palestine Mandate, decided to give 78% of the territories, mandated for a Jews, to the Hashemite Arabs that had with Britain’s acquiesence in 1921 begun to exert some authority in those territories. The remaining 22% of the mandated territories were expected to be divided between Arab communities in that area and the Jews.
Since those early years, in spite of Arab Jew hate based rejection of the idea that Jews should have any self governing authority in the region, the British, with the concurrence of other Western nations, held fast to the belief that the Arabs would ultimately come around to the naescent TSS notion.
We have witnessed 3 failed Arab instigated genocidal wars to rid the region of Jews. Israel in defeating those Jew hating Arabs, especially in 1967 when Israel gained control of Gaza, J & S, did not teach Arabs anything in so far as their religous, political and cultural Jew hatred was concerned. True, Jordan’s King Hussein and Egypt’s Pres. Anwar Sadat did make peace with Israel, not because they so much wanted to, but for the sake of their own political survival and the survival of their respective nations, they had to. Other Arab nations refused to make peace and have bided their time, waiting for the moment an opportunity to destroy Israel might come to the fore that they could seize upon.
As for the stateless Arabs displaced by the previous wars coming to invent themselves as a stateless nation of people called Palestinians, they too, in spite of speaking of peace and seemingly making making moves to that end, have time and again proven beyond doubt that they want to ultimately see Israel and the Jews gone.
Hamas makes no secret of its intent to never make peace by recognizing Israel and to never rest until Israel is destroyed. The PLO and successor PA and Fatah under Arafat and now Abbas, make no secret of their intent that if they can manage to reach a TSS, it will not be a peace solution, but rather it will advantage them by using their new independent state as an advance staging ground to carry on their war to destroy Israel.
Though Arafat’s/Abbas’ TSS agenda is beyond dispute, Western U.S. led powers refuse to incorporate that agenda into their thinking as they continue to push for the realization of the elusive TSS.
Does the West believe that if the Palestinians can somehow come to a TSS agreement with Israel that they will adjust to their new found situation, open their eyes to see that peace is better than war, not only for Israel, but even more so them and with that abandon their objectives of destroying Israel, whether or not they retain their Jew hatred?
It seems so, even for Israel’s pro TSS advocates that see it as imperative that the GOI must push to get the Palestinians to a final status TSS.
Since 1922, the TSS paradigm has evolved, undergoing many variations, each prompted by changing circumstances, but the core TSS notion has survived intact.
The world thus has become enured to the TSS peace paradigm. Any talk of peace by Western powers, including by Israel appears to be trapped within the box of the TSS peace paradigm.
For the West to suddenly accept that the TSS is dead and cannot be rescuscitated and that a new peace paradigm must be conceived, would leave the West in a state of panic. So too would the Mid East Muslim nations, including the Palestinians because they too would have no known paradigm to react to and which they have so effectively fended off, while disingenuously claiming they embrace the paradigm.
It is one thing to call for a new peace paradigm that is reality based, but exactly what paradigm is that? No one has presented any alternate paradigm that has been viewed as acceptable, let alone feasible regardless of how cogent the arguments for such new specific paradigm are presented.
Both the West and the Arabs/Palestinians fear the unknown. They find comfort in holding fast to the certainty of concept and objective that the TSS affords, even though that certainty includes knowing consciously or intuitively that, barring a cataclysmic change of circumstances, such as the end of Jew hatred in the region, that the TSS cannot come to fruition.
They also know consciously or intuitively that even if a TSS could be forced upon Israel and the Palestinians, it would not bring peace. At most, assuming all things remain roughly the same, a TSS would only bring a period of calm for the forces on the Palestinian side to gather themselves to continue their war to destroy Israel and for Israel to gear up all the more to defend herself.
Until a viable, feasible new peace paradigm can be conceived to replace the TSS, which the West can comfortably embrace and which provides as much, if not more of the comfort of hopes the TSS affords, regardless that the hopes between the WEst and the Palestinian-Arabs materially, if not antithetically differ, the West and the Palestinian Arabs will hold fast to the certain comfort that the known quanitity of the TSS affords.
At this time, the chances of a new peace paradigm being conceived, offered and accepted are no better and perhaps less than the chances that pushing the TSS will bring peace.
That is for now, no chance at all.
CuriousAmerican Said:
Of course not. On the contrary. Totally opposite.
The evil hatred and vile prejudice of most Pals is inconscionable.
PA depicts a world w/o Israel: http://www.palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=449
@ thomas:
http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/3758.htm
@ CuriousAmerican:
I agree with you.
Arabs are imposible, their paradigms, religión, Muslim or Christian compels them to victimhood and assigning guilt to Jews. It’s ridiculous. Intellectually dishonest, morally a cowardice.
Pals are only the spearhead of the Muslim “conquest” (war on everyone) : http://www.memri.org a greater set compared to http://www.palwatch.org
I agree; but let’s be fair.
If you are on this board, you probably want the destruction of Palestine.
These may not be morally identical matters, but they are functionally similar in that both sides want the other side to disappear.
PAY THEM TO LEAVE!
who is nuts to believe that it is posible to make peace with these ppl and reward them with a state? http://www.palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=8638
It’s ridiculous to believe Arab Palestians want peace with Israel. They wish the destruction of Israel as a Muslim commandment. Decades have been spent by Arabs to demonstrate they will never make peace with Jews: http://www.palwatch.org
The most practical thing at this point is to support Naftali Bennett. His idea for annexing Area C and remaining in militarily in Area A&B of Judea and Samaria is the best possible answer currently going. Their is no perfect solution. Ted is correct the public must be educated on annexation.
The people do not want 1.5 million Arabs but Area C only has about 40,000 whose status should be made resident after a background check and loyalty pledge to the state. If they do not agree to this they should be assisted in finding employment and residence in another country. For those wanting to stay under thsese terms, Citizenship could come 10 to 15 years later as in Switzerland. They must first learn Hebrew and agree to send their childeren to national service.
Work with Bennett and his people to start a large national movement for Annexing Area C. Get Israelis first and then the rest of the world used to the idea that the two state solution is an idea that is in the rubbish of history. This process needs to be a movement because their will be huge resistance in Europe.
@ Bernard Ross:The conference drew 250 in the first year, 500 in the following year and 1000 this year. Net year is expected to have over 2000. Bennett had as part of his platform, the annexation of Area C. There is not yet a majority of Israelis in support of annexation but we are getting there.
If Bibi came out in support of annexation the people will back him. Israelis are not yet prepared to give citizenship to another 1.5 million Arabs. More politicians and pundits have to get real about the futility of the peace process and the alternatives. The public needs to be educated.
@ Ted Belman:thanks ted, I must be getting senile. Did the annexation party get any seats and why wouldn’t more Israelis vote for them?
the problem as to why it is not actually realistic politically is due to there being no israeli govt willing to at least claim all of C. they appear to be struggling just to keep jerusalem, e1 and major seettlement blocs. But what about the large unpopulated areas, why are they deciding that these belong to the arabs and not the jews: no one lives there?
Bernard Ross Said:
There is a yearly conference on extending sovereignty.. The third Annual conference on Sovereignty
I agree so as to preserve the land under A&B for the future. What has eluded discussion is that there is a defacto functioning palestinian state in Gaza. It actually satisfies the criteria of a state with borders and soveriegnty. This is the only area where there is defacto agreement between Israel and palestine over land borders. If there is a state of palestine then its citizens have a palestinian passport some of them live in gaza and some live in Israel on the west bank as refugees or temporary residents. They can be treated as stateless refugees until they get palestinian or are given back jordanian passports. Israel can recognize palestine but deny that there borders extend beyond gaza. It can grant them autonomy as discussed but although they may own land the sovereign must be israel. what passports do gazans travel on now and why haven’t they declared a state. I think that they realize that if they do they lose the west bank. In time Jordan will be palestine and when pals take control there they will admit the west bankers and give them citizenship to cement their control in Jordan. Once Pals can go to Jordan the young ones will leave for a brighter future and the UNHRWA can change their approach to being wound down and providing one time emigration incentives. If a state is created on west bank then they get the land so israel must only consider autonomy and not statehood. Unless it accepts only the gaza borders.
Why isn’t any organization holding a conference which considers alternatives to the TSS? If so many Israelis seek an alternative isn’t there any org able to promote and put this on. Is putting on a conference rocket science? Must the dissenters always take their cue from the left and leave the left in charge of everything? Frankly, its getting pathetic to the point that i must wonder about this high percentage against the TSS. even a low percentage should be able to organize a conference: just hire someone to put it all together, nothing difficult here. The reason the left is so successful at keeping a dead horse in the limlight is that they are able to organize their way out of a paper bag.
I agree with the above from Ted with the following clarification. Israel annexes all of Area C of the West Bank. The 40,000 Arabs living their would not be given autonomy but would be living under Israeli law (their resident or potential citizen status to be determined). The PA would need to be destroyed unless it agreed to non-military autonomy in Area A with complete security cooperation. If the PA needs to be destroyed, Israel should seek local mayors/clan sheiks to head local autonomous city areas (Jericho, Arab Hebron, Nablus, Ramallah…) They could run their own affairs with complete human rights. Israel would be in charge of security and foreign affairs.
This is not perfect but is much better than the illusion of a two state solution which is no solution except for war on worse terms.