Photo credit: NASA Earth Observatory
Old paradigms are no longer viable.
Despite being one of the most complicated geopolitical conflicts, the international community has consistently approached, the Israeli-Palestinian – or rather the Jewish-Arab conflict in a disappointingly outdated, rigid and simplistic approach that threatens Israel’s long-term security. In fact, it is tragic how little innovation there has been in even considering other frameworks that can be employed to achieve a sensible détente, leading to peace and security – or at least realistic co-existence.
The international community has been intractably committed to establishing a Palestinian state throughout Judea & Samaria as the sole “holy grail” to resolve this complex conflict – the current “Two State Solution”. A non-negligible part of the conversation has been focused on playing hardball against Israel. That current Two State Solution has often been referred to as “the only way” to achieve peace, ignoring pragmatism, while completely discounting Israel’s security requirements. In Israel, the conversation has been mostly focused on managing the conflict with no long-term strategic objective that can serve as a compass for action.
That specific solution has thus tragically become the dominating doctrine, an irrefutable “religion” that rules out the possibility of any other solution to the conflict. That singular focus has helped promulgate a series of misconceptions, the most profound of which is that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict started in 1967 and is based on the Israeli-Jordanian and Israeli-Egyptian armistice lines, rather than two clashing religious and national narratives. It also contributed to the false notion that the Jewish people are foreign occupiers in its own ancestral homeland, simply because of this 19-year Jordanian occupation which virtually no nation recognized.
The strategy adopted thus far has been putting pressure on Israel to accept a long list of demands and unprecedented criteria, both in politics and in international law, that single it out and that it cannot accept if it were to survive for generations. These are often dubbed “internationally-agreed parameters”, feigning to fix an intractable and unquestionable consensus with strong foundation in international law. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. It was simply a method to root this solution as a conventional wisdom, signalling all members of the international community this consensus must be followed.
However, approaching the conflict through this narrow prism has failed to resolve it and has actually harmed both parties, largely due to the lack of much-needed sensible discourse. Israel cannot accept retreating to indefensible borders or relinquishing the holy sites in Jerusalem and in its historical heartland of Judea and Samaria, nor has any viable reason to do so.
The Palestinians are divided today into two different entities – Hamas in Gaza, where 2 million Palestinians are enclosed in a narrow 3.5-mile strip; and Fatah as the Palestinian Authority, an entity that in the post-Abbas age may collapse, and enjoys very little support from the local population.
IDSF-Habithonistim thus seeks to bring this sensible conversation back to the table.
We do not feign to mischaracterize or over-simplify the Israeli-Palestinian question, nor spin the international community into disregarding multiple “tough nuts” such as religion, narrative, demographics or citizenship.
Yet the old concepts have been demonstrative failures. It is time to incorporate fresh, out-of-the-box thinking that first and foremost prioritizes Israel’s national security needs and is based upon reality, not wishful thinking.
Reservoir of possible political frameworks
The following proposals are all based on the aforementioned principles, which we believe should be the blueprint of any future Israeli-Palestinian arrangement.
The IDSF does not endorse any of these proposals as set in stone. They provide viable alternatives vis-à-vis various scenarios that Israel may have to confront sooner or later.
The following proposals include the Palestinian Emirates plan, the Palestinian-Jordanian Confederation plan, the New State Solution, the One State Solution, and the Deal of the Century – whose principles are remarkably similar to those presented by Rabin in the Oslo Accords and during his last speech at the Knesset before his assassination.
The time has come to turn the page on the current two-state fallacy and move to new ideas while re-focusing the conversation, some of which are literally outside of the box as they seek solutions not limited to the borders of the very small land of Israel.
It is possible, even likely that the Israeli-Palestinian question be in a completely different place if only Israel switches from stalemate to initiative and strive to make the most out of the opportunities currently in place.