Shaul Arieli is the left''s map man, the expert on drawing lines to divide.
He has an op-ed in Haaretz, home to the harried humanists and zeroed-out Zionists, entitled 1967: A starting point to peace.
He notes therein that
A common conception of time is also important in understanding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Three key years in the conflict, 1917, 1947 and 1967, mark three sets of events, each year with its own significance, on which in principle an agreement between Israelis and Palestinians can be based.
And explains
...the beginning of the conflict...designate[s] the Balfour Declaration as its opening shot. It is unique in how it created the national narrative of the two sides. The Jewish-Zionist side views it as international recognition of the right of the Jewish people to establish an independent state in the Land of Israel. The Arab-Palestinian side sees it as a historic injustice because it did not apply the principle of self-determination to the Arabs of Palestine, who constituted a decisive majority in the country at the time.
What is missing here (this is Haaretz, remember) is that he leaves out the key phrase "historical connection" adapted into the language of the San Remo decision and the League of Nations Mandate pronouncement. That counters the narrative of a supposedly "indigenous" people who possessed a national ethos which was not true. Indeed, the term "Arabs" is missing from all those fundamental documents. "Non-Jews" is what is employed and that was a direct recognition that Arab nationalism was not, I repeat, not to be fuilfilled in the area of Palestine. That country, and it originally extended east of the Jordan River, was intended to become the Jewish national home, even if borders were vague.
As for the rest, it goes like this a la Arieli:
...1917 was therefore the “big bang” that set the conflict in motion. 1947, despite its being the culmination of the process, is one of the consequences of 1917. That is all the more so regarding 1967. That year’s events stemmed mainly from the Arabs’ refusal to accept 1947 as an established fact. Even if 1967 created new possibilities for a settlement of the conflict through Resolution 242, which was adopted in the aftermath of the war, it is clear that it should not be viewed as the point of departure of the conflict, because the negotiations also concern mutual recognition with its origins in 1917, and the refugee issue from 1947...The different narratives cannot currently be bridged, due to the residue of the past and its consequences for the outcome of the negotiations.
And that is very true. Mordechai Nisan properly analyzes the insurmountability of achieving any agreement on the Arab side to anyy feasible compromise that Israel could male on the issues of the conflict stemming from this.
Worse, at least for the Arabs and their supporters, is that all the compromises that were made or agreed to by the Zionist movement in its modern historical development since 1917 were rejected and met with the continued violence which defines their Palestinianism which is not pro-"Palestine" but simply and crudely anti-Israel, anti-Jewish.
While for Arieli
...it is not possible to come to a final peace agreement without complete adoption of Resolution 242, which represents the 1967 conception. The 1967 war was a watershed in the conflict. It brought about fundamental changes that not only brought problems to the surface that required a solution, such as the “legacies” of the 1948 War of Independence - borders, security, Jerusalem and refugees.
I think the Arabs-who-refer-to-themselves-as-''Palestinians'' do not see it that way, do not think about it that way, do not conceptualize the conflict that way and certainly do not intend that any resolution "end" at 1967.
Arieli''s thinking, that
Bypassing the narratives can make it possible for the Palestinians to maintain the dream of the homeland, meaning all of Palestine of the British Mandate, from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River...
is not only irrational in light of the political reality but highlights the "ha-ha" quality of those in Haaretz who promote Zionist depression.
___________
P.S. And read Ilan Pappe on the need to go back before 1936 and why a two-state solution isn''t acceptable.
^