There’s a lively debate on social media today over whether Israel could have avoided much international opprobrium had it simply continued to offer statehood to the Palestinians even after current and past Palestinian leadership rejected such offers.
At the center of this debate online was Matt Yglesias’s assertion that Israel and/or pro-Israel commentators ought to outline an endgame for the conflict that provides the Palestinians with self-determination. The responses continue to come in. Having witnessed Benjamin Netanyahu suggest that a division of Jerusalem could even be on the table as part of a solution that ends the conflict, I don’t actually think it’s reasonable to frame the question this way. But even if we did, and even if Israel reiterated its suggested endgames, what would that accomplish?
We know what end-game maps the Israelis have, in the past, offered or accepted as final-status agreements. The Clinton-era parameters are public, and so is the fully detailed map offered by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in 2008 to PA President Mahmoud Abbas, which was drawn up after extended personal negotiations between the two leaders.
We have, then, lots of proof that over the years, Israel would have accepted the two-state solution. What we don’t have is any proof that the Palestinian leadership would accept a two-state solution.
So here’s a radical idea: The Palestinian leadership should be asked to rectify this. Make an offer. Produce an acceptable map. It would be even better if the Palestinians were to announce that they were ready to end the conflict so long as specific and enumerated conditions were met.
As of now, we don’t know if the Palestinians would be willing to end the conflict, even if they stopped turning down statehood. The two are related: The Palestinian leadership most likely has never considered accepting a two-state proposal precisely because they would be expected to see it as a resolution to the conflict. Israelis understand this, and it accounts for some of the hesitation they have shown to continue offering the Palestinians a state: They want an end to the conflict and the Palestinians are unwilling to make such a promise.
October 7 made this clear not only to Israelis but to the world. Too much of the Palestinian public seemed most divided not on whether October 7 was good or bad but whether it was good or a hoax. The response from the “pro-Palestinian” industry globally was to support Hamas or, at the very least, only punish the Jewish state.
To top it all off, the October 7 attacks were aimed at torpedoing negotiations seeking a broad Arab-Israeli peace that would include a path to a Palestinian state. One of the two Palestinian factions was successful in sabotaging those talks and thus sabotaging the path to statehood.
Putting the onus on Israel, then, would only be understandable for someone born yesterday. Since no one born yesterday is on Twitter arguing over the Arab-Israeli conflict, there is a certain faux-naivete to this entire debate.
The Palestinians could disrupt their own unbroken pattern of rejectionism if they wanted to. And so they should: Mahmoud Abbas should make a speech, tomorrow if possible, and say explicitly that the Palestinians are prepared to consider the conflict resolved if they attain statehood through negotiations with Israel. In the same speech, Abbas should do what Olmert did for him and hold up a map of the two-state solution based on past negotiations.
If they really wanted to put Bibi on the spot, that would do it. The onus would then be on Israel to make a counteroffer—which is what Abbas would have done in 2007 were he negotiating in good faith.
Israelis have meticulously detailed and outlined “end game” maps. The Palestinians should take a turn doing so. If, that is, such a map exists.
Source:
www.commentary.org
