The two-state solution remains viable. That is the message sent out this weekend
by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Nodding to Palestinian demands
to use the pre-1967 lines as a basis while at the same time ensuring that a
strong majority of the 327,000 Jewish settlers presently living in Judea and
Samaria would stay put, David Makovsky, a former Jerusalem Post editor and
senior fellow at the institute, presented options for resolving the territorial
aspects of a two-state scenario, complete with maps and statistical data. It is
based on a land swap that would grant the new Palestinian state Israeli lands
adjacent to the Gaza Strip, the Sinai Peninsula, and parts of the West Bank, in
return for leaving up to 80% of the settlers in place.
The plan comes at
a time when prospects for a negotiated two-state solution are deadlocked. To the
familiar “core” obstacles of the disputed status of Jerusalem, the gulf on the
issue of Palestinian refugees, and disputes over border demarcations and
security arrangements, are added the complication of a split Palestinian
leadership: Hamas in Gaza and Fatah in the West Bank. Unable to make peace among
themselves, one wonders how the Palestinian people can possibly resolve its
differences with the Jewish state.
Hateful incitement against Israel,
officially sanctioned by the Palestinian Authority, and an integral part of a
Hamas’s very being, further exacerbates the situation, and underlines the
widespread Israeli concern that the Palestinians have yet to internalize
fundamental Jewish sovereign rights in this region. In addition, the Palestinian
leadership has taken the Obama administration’s lead in insisting on a complete
Israeli building freeze over the Green Line, including in blocs in the West Bank
that would remain under Israeli control in any future deal and in consensus
neighborhoods in east Jerusalem, as a precondition for a return to the
negotiating table.
While President Mahmoud Abbas claims he has ruled out,
at least for the time being, the option of a unilateral declaration of
statehood, the Palestinian Authority he leads continues to seek and garner
recognition from countries around the world for precisely such “a Palestinian
state within the pre-1967 borders.”
On top of all this, a fateful date is
looming. A one-year goal to reach a comprehensive peace agreement was set before
the start of the short-lived direct talks in September of last year. The
objective at the time was to calm Palestinian worries that the negotiations
would continue ad infinitum. But if no significant headway is made by the
September 2011 deadline, there are concerns about the possibility of a third
intifada. In fact, this seems to be one of the few points of agreement between
the sides.
Last year Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman warned against
setting a deadline for precisely this reason, while over the weekend both Abbas
and chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat warned that a protracted deadlock
in talks could lead to a popular uprising.
IN THIS bleak diplomatic
environment, the Washington Institute’s reassertion of the viability of a
two-state solution is potentially promising. As Makovsky told the New York
Times, “The idea here is to bring the two-state solution down to earth.” But it
can be potentially dangerous as well. Agreeing to borders before solving the
refugee problem, which is not addressed in the institute’s initiative, would
likely be disastrous. The two-state solution is an inherently Israeli interest
precisely because, assuming it is wisely negotiated, it would ensure that Israel
remains both Jewish and democratic. A Palestinian “right of return” to today’s
Israel involving potentially millions of Palestinians – the offspring of those
who left or fled during the War of Independence – would, by contrast, spell the
end of Jewish sovereignty.
If Israel is to negotiate the borders of a new
Palestine, wrenchingly conceding territory, this can only be done as part of a
wider equation in which the Palestinians abandon the demand for a right of
return. It would be for a new “Palestine” to represent the solution for
Palestinian refugees, just as Israel built a thriving nation absorbing Jewish
refugees from the Middle East and North Africa.
Another issue not
addressed by the institute is security. Hamas’s takeover of Gaza, and the
relentless salvoes of mortar and rocket fire directed at nearby Israeli
residential areas, underlines the potential danger of a misconceived pullout
from the West Bank. That’s why Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s 2009 Bar-Ilan
University speech, in which he endorsed a two-state solution, highlighted that a
Palestinian state must be demilitarized. Here at least, unlike on the
refugees, however, there have been some positive signals from the PA.
The
Washington Institute’s initiative should be appreciated as a sincere attempt to
help implement a two-state solution. A breakthrough on the territorial issue
might indeed encourage progress on the other core disputes.
But those
core issues cannot be resolved in isolation from each other. Either they are all
solved in a viable framework, or none of them is.