Biden wants two states for peace in Israel and Palestine
The Palestinian cause of the Cold War: After the Second Intifada, Israel will not tolerate a political horizon for the Palestinians
Moderate Democrats have applauded Mr. Biden for his support of Israel, but he is in danger of losing some members in his party who think the Palestinian cause is an extension of the racial and social justice movements that took place in the summer of 2020.
A raw emotional divide over the conflict is convulsing liberal America, from Capitol Hill to Hollywood, in labor unions and liberal activist groups.
Liberal Democrats are demanding that Biden break with the long-standing American policy of not doing anything to stop the fighting.
Representative Bonnie Coleman of New Jersey was one of the co-sponsors of the cease-fire resolution. We understand that war and violence don’t result in positive outcomes.
It was found that no of those were acceptable to a majority of both Israelis and Palestinians.
“When I talk to Israeli officials, I don’t get any sense that part of the strategy is providing a political horizon for Palestinians,” he added, “which is what a peace agreement would ostensibly be.”
“As a fundamental proposition, it’s hard to have productive peace talks when both parties aren’t willing or able to reach an agreement,” says Alterman.
There hasn’t been much change since the millennium. The collapse of the 2000 peace process fueled the Second Intifada.
At the same time, Israeli settlements continued to proliferate in the West Bank — on occupied land that the Palestinians hoped would be part of their state.
And that has continued in the years since. Between 2012 and 2022, the population of Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank grew from 520,000 to more than 700,000.
The deal raised expectations for a two-state solution. The agreement was torn apart after a series of events, including a 1994 attack on a mosque by an American Jewish settlers and Rabin’s assassination in 1995.
In it, Israel officially recognized the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people and a partner in future negotiations, and the PLO renounced terrorism and recognized Israel’s right to exist.
The PLO’s leader, Yasser Arafat, and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin were brought together in 1993 by a U.S. President Bill Clinton to negotiate an agreement known as the “Olo Accords”.
“What started off in the U.N.’s mind as a 50-50 split of Mandatory Palestine, after the 1948 war — which was initiated by the Arab armies — it was more than 50 percent for Israel. He says after 1967, it was more than 100 percent for Israel. Israel is the only country that’s hard to draw on a map.
Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, says there was a two-state solution baked into Israel’s creation.
The current occupation of the West Bank and Gaza is home to 5 million Palestinians. The 2005 withdrawal of Israeli troops and settlers from Gaza was not endorsed by the Israeli government and is still considered an occupied territory.
Israel gained control over four times its original size, taking over the Sinai Peninsula, the Golan Heights, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
The partition plan was rejected by the Arab community, in part due to concerns about how much land and access to resources it would get. But the plan was embraced by the Jewish community as legal justification for the establishment of Israel.
Jewish proponents of the Zionist movement began moving to Ottoman Palestine — which was predominantly Arab — in the late 19th century, seeking safety from European antisemitism in their ancient homeland. Many people followed suit after the Holocaust.
The borders would be drawn in one way or another. Most international diplomacy favors Israel reverting to a version of its pre-1967 borders, without a consensus on how that would account for the Palestinians living within those borders or the Jewish Israelis beyond them.
Ross said that Israelis and Palestinians aren’t going anywhere. “Somehow, given that, we have to find a way towards coexistence, and obviously, we’re not there now.”
Dennis Ross, who was the chief U.S. negotiator at the 2000 Camp David summit between Israeli and Palestinian leaders, told NPR that as heartbreaking as the situation is in the Middle East right now, eventually “there needs to be a day after.”
It has been held up by failed peace talks, as well as logistical questions, Israeli settlements and attacks by the Palestinians. The two-state solution has seen a decline in support from both Palestinians and Israelis. Hamas’ attack on Israel seems to have a negative impact on its prospects.
The president said on Wednesday that there is no going back to the status quo before the crisis is over.
Israel continues to respond to Hamas’ unprecedented attack on its people, bombarding Gaza and preparing for a ground offensive. Humanitarian groups and some foreign leaders are calling for a cease-fire. What prospects are there for peace in the future?
He says it’s too early to say where the current conflict will go, though many Israelis believe Israeli politics are more likely to move to the right than the left in the wake of Hamas’ attack, which killed some 1,400 people in Israel and resulted in more than 220 hostages taken.
That doesn’t mean Israeli citizens aren’t pushing for peace at all. Sally Abed is a member of Standing Together, an organization that aims to improve Arab-Jewish relations within Israel, and she’s also a Palestinian.
She told NPR that she doesn’t want to think that we needed to endure such loss in Israel. I hope we can actually see these wars differently now that we are on the dark corner, so that we have a different view on what our leadership actually stands for.
Does Israel Still Need a Two-State Solution for Israeli-Palestinian Peace? Revisiting the Promise of a “Confederal Solution”
A one-state solution, confederation, annexation and maintaining the status quo are alternatives to a two-state solution.
If you have a one-state solution with citizenship for all natural born residents of Mandatory Palestine, then you can’t have a Jewish majority. “A substantial line of thought [in Israel] is that it’s more important that Israel be Jewish than democratic.”
A poll conducted this year by the University of Maryland and Ipsos found that most Americans would choose a democratic over a Jewish Israel.
Omer is one of many who see the current reality as that of a single state. She points to the exclusionary practices and annexationist policies of the right-wing Netanyahu government, like a 2018 law that demoted Arabic as one of Israel’s official languages, and the recent findings of human rights groups in and beyond Israel that its practices toward Palestinians amount to apartheid.
The creation of a secular country in which Arabs would outnumber Jews is supported by some people. But some rightists and Israelis would prefer to see Israel annex the West Bank — either forcing out Palestinians or denying them the right to vote — which is illegal under international human rights law.
Some activists, like the A Land for All group, argue that a solution based on separation hasn’t worked in the past and that a confederal framework is the way to go.
Omer says there are “historical examples of life together in this space that is not within the paradigm of domination.” She acknowledges it’s difficult to imagine those kinds of possibilities in the present but says there is need for change.
She says that there is a lot you can see, but it depends on how the paradigm was before Oct. 7. All these contradictions can’t be sustained anymore.
Israel Ties Rooted in Long Career: ‘From His Gut to His Heart to His Head,’ Mr. Biden, the Prime Minister of Israel, tells him ‘Is it time to give up?’
“There needs to be a recognition and kind of naming, and then put in place mechanisms to redress — how can Palestinians be compensated for historical injustice they experienced — and then figure out ways of respecting Jewish citizens in the space through principles of equality and democracy,” Omer says.
Mr. Biden is popular in Israel more so than the country’s own leaders, according to a former adviser to the seven previous Israeli prime ministers. “This isn’t just from today; we’re looking at a history here,” Mr. Lipner said. He has been there for a long time.
Aides said Mr. Biden’s public embrace of Mr. Netanyahu gives him the ability to influence him in private. The president has spoken with the prime minister 10 times since Hamas assailants killed more than 1,400 people and seized another 200 as hostages on Oct. 7, in addition to flying across the world to hug Mr. Netanyahu and survivors of the attack.
Advisers said that Mr. Biden asked pointed questions in the private sessions. Why did you decide to do it this way? What comes next, have you thought about it? What have you done to ease the humanitarian crisis in Gaza?
“He genuinely feels that it’s not his place to tell another leader how to handle his own politics,” said Jonah Blank, who advised Mr. Biden on the Middle East during his Senate days. He will offer advice, but he will not do things like Tony Soprano.
The Holocaust Betrayed: How Blinken Described the World as a Manifestly Right Embedding in Nazi Inflation
“The world was wrong — failing to respond to Hitler’s atrocities against the Jews — and we should be ashamed,” he quoted his father saying in one of his memoirs.
The president feels a strong sense of betrayal from his gut to his head, according to Mr. Blinken. Other presidents may process the situation through an “intellectual policy prism,” he added. “But there’s something, as I’ve been able to witness it, that seems more visceral for him.”
