A recent meeting on Capitol Hill, sponsored by a Washington think tank, brought together Knesset members and congressmen to form an “Israel victory caucus” to advocate a new approach to the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Drawing on their ideas, Jonathan Tobin suggests what the current U.S. government can do to break with the failed tactics of its predecessors:
[President] Trump’s team is likely to embrace an “outside-in” strategy [for renewing the peace process] in which Arab states, principally the Saudis, will use their influence and money to pressure the Palestinians into finally accepting a two-state solution. In return, the U.S. would get the Netanyahu government to agree to terms that are likely largely to resemble past plans floated by the Obama, Bush, and Clinton administrations. Trump may think the missing ingredient for peace has been the absence of a master dealmaker, but this scheme has no more chance of working than the efforts of his predecessors.
The reason is that the essential element for peace is still missing. The Palestinians are still stuck in a mindset that rejects Israel’s legitimacy. The Palestinian Authority (PA) won’t accept a deal that ends the conflict for all time no matter where Jared Kushner, [the American chief Middle East negotiator Jason] Greenblatt, and the Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman draw the borders between the two states, how much of Jerusalem the Palestinians receive, how many descendants of the 1948 refugees are allowed to “return” to Israel, or even how much money is thrown at them. That’s because the Palestinians’ national identity as a people is still inextricably bound up in a futile century-old war on Zionism that [they] have been taught to think they will eventually win.
At various times, the PA has declared a willingness to accept peace. Yet every such gesture has been undermined by its cradle-to-grave incitement that promotes a culture of hatred for Israel and Jews, and makes new rounds of bloodshed inevitable. The history of the last 24 years of negotiations since the Oslo Accords shows that peace is impossible so long as the Palestinians still hold onto hope of eventually winning this war. As with every other conflict, this one will be settled only when one side admits defeat, and that is something no one, not even a Trump team that appears to be more realistic about Palestinian behavior and intentions than past administrations, seems willing to force them to do.
Read more on Jewish News Service: http://www.jns.org/latest-articles/2017/11/17/time-for-a-peace-process-paradigm-change