ISRAELI Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu must have been taken aback when US President Donald Trump said he wanted a two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the first time as president he has supported such an outcome. Not only is Netanyahu a sworn enemy of two states but since taking office in 2017, Trump has not offered to give the Palestinians the time of day, let alone a state. He declared Jerusalem the capital of Israel; moved the US embassy to Jerusalem; canceled the hereditary right of return for Palestinian refugees; cut all aid to the UN agency on Palestinian refugees, accusing it of “anti-Israel bias” as well as direct aid to the West Bank and Gaza, including suspending $25 million in aid for hospitals that serve Palestinians in East Jerusalem; withdrew from the Human Rights Council over its criticism of Israeli policies and threatened retaliation for Palestinian referrals of Israelis to the International Criminal Court; shuttered the PLO’s offices in Washington; and revoked the visas of its top envoy to the US and his family members.
After taking office, Trump broke conventional US commitment to a two-state solution as the only viable option, saying he could “live with” whichever option both parties agreed to. Now, at a meeting with Netanyahu in New York on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, he said he believed a two-state solution “works best”.
Netanyahu reportedly said he was not surprised by Trump’s stance, however, he said he expected Trump to accept the Israeli interpretation of a two-state solution, which means continued Israeli security control west of Jordan, that any future Palestinian state must be demilitarized and must recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people — all the conditions that prove he is not sincere about peacemaking. A two-state solution must be based on the 1967 borders, before the Israeli military occupied Gaza and the West Bank. Under Netanyahu, Israel has rejected the two-state solution as the pathway to a resolution. It has created conditions, almost impossible to reverse, that make the establishment of a Palestinian state impossible.
In this regard, Trump says he plans to unveil his peace plan in next three or four months. He had vowed to succeed where his predecessors failed in solving the conflict, but his proposal dubbed the “deal of the century” reportedly offers Palestinians a provisional government without Jerusalem, while keeping major Israeli settlements that have spread across vast parts of the West Bank. What the US is proposing is a Palestinian statelet — with its capital in Abu Dis, a suburb of East Jerusalem. But as Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas told the General Assembly, the Palestinians want all of East Jerusalem as their capital, not some village in East Jerusalem.
Even though Trump acknowledged his preference for two states for the first time as president, he and Netanyahu have undermined the two-state solution. Israel is attempting to close off all options for a dignified, independent national existence for the Palestinians. It will have to give up the privileges and control that have allowed it to rule the Palestinians for more than seven decades. Palestinians have been doing all they can to escape Israeli oppression, while Israelis have no intention of giving up on the privileges that this system of oppression grants them.
To that end, Trump signaled that his Jerusalem declaration would require Israel to “do something that will be good for the other side”. It has yet to be determined what this “something good” will look like.
Until we know, what is important is to stop the suffering of Palestinians, which cannot be done without reconfiguring the relations between Israelis and Palestinians. This means forcing Israelis to rethink how life for both nations would look like if they are to live side by side.
