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Grim Prospects for a Palestinian State

(Tablet) Benny Morris - Starting with the Israeli handover of West Bank cities and Gaza to the Palestinian Authority in the mid-1990s, the Palestinians, ever-so-slowly and inefficiently, have built pre-state institutions of governance - most recently and competently under the leadership of Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. During the past few years Western observers have noted substantial improvements in Palestinian taxation, infrastructure, and economic development, and in the functioning of the (American- and European-trained) security services. Indeed, under Fayyad, the West Bank is a largely peaceful place, with residents even paying traffic tickets, and militants of Hamas and other organizations largely inactive. However, "negotiations" are unlikely to lead to a peace treaty or even a "framework" agreement for a future peace accord due to a set of obstacles that I see as insurmountable, given current political-ideological mindsets. The first is that Palestinian political elites are dead set against partitioning the Land of Israel/Palestine with the Jews. They regard all of Palestine as their patrimony and believe that it will eventually be theirs. They do not want a permanent two-state solution. Hamas, which may represent the majority of the Palestinian people, openly repudiates a two-state solution. The secular Palestinian leadership is more flexible on the tactics. They express a readiness for a two-state solution but envision such an outcome as intermediate and temporary. This is why Fatah's leaders, led by PA President Mahmoud Abbas, flatly reject the Clintonian formula of "two states for two peoples" and refuse to recognize the "other" state, Israel, as a "Jewish state." They hope that this "other" state will also, in time, be "Arabized," thus setting the stage for the eventual merger of the two states into one Palestinian Arab-majority state. It is hard to envision any circumstances under which the current Obama-initiated direct Israeli-Palestinian peace talks can succeed. Politically, the two contending leaders have little room for maneuver and, at least on the Arab side, little will to concede anything. Abbas might sign off on "an end to the conflict" - and most likely be assassinated by Arab extremists in consequence - but a majority of Palestinians, and certainly a large minority of them, would continue the struggle, rendering the agreement no more than a wind-blown piece of paper. The writer is a professor of history at Ben-Gurion University.
2010-12-09 09:37:33
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