In Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a two-state solution is dead. By Padraig O’Malley. Boston Globe, August 11, 2015.
With His Head In the Sand. By Matti Friedman. Wall Street Journal, August 9, 2015.
The Left’s Cognitive Dissonance on the Palestinian Authority. By Evelyn Gordon. Commentary, August 14, 2015.
Review of Padraig O’Malley, The Two-State Delusion: Israel and Palestine. By Peter Beinart. New York Times, August 18, 2015.
Peace Between Israel And Palestine: Is It a Delusion? Padraig O’Malley Explores. By Annie Shreffler. WGBH News, August 18, 2015.
Two-State Delusion: Israel and Palestine. By Padraig O’Malley. Video. WGBH Forum Network, August 5, 2015. YouTube.
The Two-State Delusion: Israel and Palestine – A Tale of Two Narratives (w/ Padraig O’Malley). Interview by Michael Brooks. Video. Majority Report. Sam Seder, August 25, 2015. YouTube.
Strenger:
Irish conflict researcher Padraig O’Malley says that neither side has the will to reach the two-state solution, and he is probably right.
The
world has grown tired of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Twenty-two years
after the historic signing of the Oslo Accords on the White House lawn, the
very term “peace” is fraught with despair, ridicule and anger both among
Israelis and Palestinians, and with tiredness of those who have spent much time
and energy to reach this elusive goal.
Many
accounts have been written about the failure of the peace process, often by
those who have played a role in it like Shlomo Ben-Ami, the foreign minister
under Ehud Barak, Dennis Ross, who was senior negotiator for the United States,
as was David Aaron Miller. These books appeared between 2006 and 2008, and none
of them exuded optimism.
As time
went by, the accounts and analyses became more bitter and desperate. Benny
Morris, the left-wing doyen of the so-called New Historians, who unearthed
Israel’s role in the birth of the Palestinian refugee problem, has made a
radical right-turn and no longer believes that Palestinians want peace. And
Sari Nusseibeh, president of Al-Quds University and long-time peace activist
wrote his depressing What Is a Palestinian State Worth? in which he calls on fellow Palestinians to cease
fighting for two states: Israeli Jews, he believes, are too traumatized to give
up control over the West Bank, and Palestinians should just insist on civil
rights and a life with dignity.
Both
Morris and Nusseibeh buried the two-state solution, each thinking the other
side was responsible for its demise.
It is
therefore of great interest, even though depressing, to read an account written
by someone who is not part of the conflict, and who comes to the same
conclusion – but without blaming either side exclusively. Padraig O’Malley’s
life has been about peace. Born in Dublin, educated there, then at Tufts, Yale
and Harvard, he has spent decades involved in the Northern Irish peace process
that ultimately led to the Good Friday Agreement. In parallel he spent
thousands of hours documenting South Africa’s transition to democracy, and serves
as Professor of International Peace and Reconciliation at the University of
Massachusetts Boston.
He has
been an observer of and involved in intractable conflicts for more than 40
years, and has been trying to bring his vast experience to the Middle East as
well; first to Iraq, and from 2010 to 2014 he travelled Israel, the West Bank
and Gaza to get an in-depth understanding of the Israel-Palestine conflict,
interviewing more than 100 people on both sides.
The
result is his book The Two-State Delusion,
a detailed analysis of the conflict, and particularly of the demise of the
peace process between Israel and the Palestinians. The book is extensively
documented, including a huge bibliography and the detailed and very impressive
list of Israeli and Palestinian interviewees on both sides; he has spoken to
many of the central players in the various stages of peace negotiations, but
also to many of the peace process’s implacable enemies, like the leadership of
Hamas.
O'Malley’s
conclusion is obvious from the book’s title: He thinks that neither side has
the will to reach the two-state solution, and that the Israel-Palestine
conflict is there to stay indefinitely. Toward the end of the book he relates
that friends who had read the manuscript told him that he couldn’t simply
publish the book without any indication of hope and advice. In response he
writes:
“But
why should I be so presumptuous as to dare to provide a vision for people who
refuse to provide one for themselves, not just in the here and now, but in the
future, too? For people who have no faith in the possible? Who themselves
believe the conflict will take generations to resolve? Who are content to live
their hatreds? Who are so resolutely opposed to the slightest gesture of
accommodation? Who revel in their mutual pettiness? Why delude you into
thinking that there is a magical bullet?”
Of
course, such a conclusion will lead readers from both sides to seek bias, but
they are bound to come up empty-handed: O’Malley is remarkably balanced in his
analysis of the reasons that make him so pessimistic, and his diagnosis is as
interesting as it is depressing. He believes that both Israelis and
Palestinians are so addicted to their respective narratives that they are both
incapable and unwilling to do what it would take to reach the two-state
solution.
The
Jewish-Israeli narrative is dominated by the fear of annihilation. Israeli Jews’
collective memory is shaped by the history of persecution and suffering
culminating in the genocide that largely destroyed European Jewry in the
Holocaust; the memory of three wars from 1948 to 1973 in which Israel’s
existence was indeed at stake; the memory of terror attacks from the early
Fedayeen to the second intifada; and most lately the various wars with Hamas in
Gaza. Israelis, O’Malley concludes, are deeply convinced that the Palestinians’
ultimate goal is to erase the State of Israel.
The
Palestinian narrative is one of humiliation and dispossession, and O’Malley’s
Palestinian interviewees return to the same refrain of “humiliation, indignity,
dispossession and disrespect, leaving little room for other issues to become
part of the dialogue. So while the Palestinian national narrative is invariably
cast in terms of the Nakba and the occupation, a subnarrative is daily life in
occupied territory.” O’Malley comes to the conclusion that Palestinians cannot
really accept Israel’s existence, because the Nakba and the question of
refugees is central to their narrative and their identity.
O’Malley’s
book is a refreshing departure from the blame game in which Israelis and
Palestinians and their respective international champions try to make the other
side responsible for the peace process’s failure. And it diverges from the
tendency to find the trick that will do the job, and comes to a conclusion as
intellectually compelling as it is dismaying: “. . .on a deeper level it seems
that the impasse relates to human nature and the nature of social structures
that have been the source of the two people’s habits/addictions, not the least
of which is an impenetrable adherence to national narrative.”
Reading
O’Malley, I am divided between two of my identities and roles. As an Israeli
who believes that anything but the two-state solution is bound to have a
catastrophic outcome for Israel, and who has written this endlessly and ad
nauseam, I cannot but recoil from his conclusion.
When I
try to take analytical distance and look at the facts and at O’Malley’s
arguments from an academic point of view, I am afraid that he is right. In the
past I have argued that the human need for meaning can be so strong, that it
often overrides reason and pragmatism, sometimes with catastrophic
consequences.
The
idea of the two-state solution is based on the model of sovereign nation-states
and based on the value of self-determination of national groups. It is not a
religion, but the only pragmatically workable model that has so far been
offered – and it has the advantage that the 1967 borders are recognized by
international law, which means that they can serve as a reasonable basis for a
final-status agreement.
But the
Middle East is not governed by the logic of modern international law, nor by
political pragmatism, but is disintegrating into a war of cultures, religions
and meaning-systems rather than moving toward pragmatism. One state after
another disintegrates into warfare between religious and ethnic groups.
Organizations like Al-Qaida and Islamic State dream of the reestablishment of
the caliphate, Saudi Arabia and Iran are theocracies, and most other Middle
Eastern states that have not disintegrated are autocracies of some form – and
the Israel-Palestine conflict reflects this wider reality.
Palestinians
are deeply divided: While Fatah seems to aim for a liberal democracy, Hamas is
committed to Sharia as the law of the future Palestine (which for them includes
Israel, whose legitimacy they deny). Israel is, despite all criticisms, a
functioning liberal democracy within the 1967 borders – but we must not forget
that even here there are substantial groups seriously calling for Israel to
become a Jewish theocracy.
O’Malley’s The Two-State Delusion provides an
impartial, empathic but relentlessly objective look at our reality. His idea
that both Israelis and Palestinians are so addicted to their meaning-systems (“narratives”)
that they are willing to slide into a chaotic abyss is chilling, but seems
strongly supported by recent history and current facts.
Like O’Malley, I wonder whether I should not end on a rousing battle cry for political will, prudence and the need for a vision for the future. But then again, such calls are coming to sound more and more hollow. There may be moments where only chilling clarity can liberate us from the cacophony of political rhetoric and allow us to fully face our situation.
Like O’Malley, I wonder whether I should not end on a rousing battle cry for political will, prudence and the need for a vision for the future. But then again, such calls are coming to sound more and more hollow. There may be moments where only chilling clarity can liberate us from the cacophony of political rhetoric and allow us to fully face our situation.
O’Malley:
One year has passed since the Gaza war between Hamas and Israel came to an end. An uneasy peace prevails. The 2014 war, however, changed the calculus of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. In retrospect, it was the final nail in the coffin of a two-state solution.
One year has passed since the Gaza war between Hamas and Israel came to an end. An uneasy peace prevails. The 2014 war, however, changed the calculus of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. In retrospect, it was the final nail in the coffin of a two-state solution.
During
the war, the Israeli public called for the demilitarization of Hamas — for the
IDF to destroy Hamas’s military brigades and force it to decommission its arms.
That didn’t happen. If the IDF had tried, it would have been met with pitiless
person-to-person combat and house-to-house searches, making the actual 2014
conflict look like children playing a toy war.
But
even if the IDF had, as a result of some remarkable phenomenon, demilitarized
Hamas, at best Israel would have bought itself a respite before it would face a
rearmed Hamas, which has undergone a rapprochement with Iran in the face of the
threat ISIS presents to both.
Given
the unfathomable levels of distrust that exist on both sides, Israel will never
sign off on a two-state solution, because in a Palestinian state there would be
free movement between Gaza and the West Bank, giving Hamas unrestricted access
to the latter.
Retired
General Michael Herzog, a veteran Israeli negotiator, told me that “no
government would ever contemplate leaving the West Bank until that threat of
Hamas or any other militant group to launch rocket attacks was removed.”
Otherwise, all of Israel would be exposed to attack.
Confinement
to Gaza limits Hamas’s offensive capacity to wage war; the strategic question
it faces is how to “break out” of Gaza. The only obvious way is to acquiesce to
a two-state solution that would give it freedom to move between a united Gaza
and West Bank. The contiguity of such a Palestinian state would require a
corridor, under Palestinian sovereignty, connecting the two parts of its
sovereign territory.
Hamas
would then be free to solidify its presence in the West Bank and find routes
for smuggling sophisticated mobile missiles, fitted with launchers and timers,
into the territory. Given the West Bank’s topography, such missiles could be
fired from numerous sites toward Israel’s population centers and infrastructure,
including Ben Gurion Airport. This would leave Israel vulnerable to missile
attacks from any number of places. Thus Hamas running loose in the West Bank
would be a much more elusive and lethal enemy for Israel.
A
crushing response against rocket attacks from tiny Gaza is not all that
difficult, but a crushing response against both Gaza and the much larger West
Bank would be another challenge entirely. Israel would face a highly mobile
Hamas, more difficult to pin down and more adept at asymmetric warfare.
Further,
a “demilitarized” Palestinian state — i.e., a state without a standing army —
could not guarantee that Hamas would not remilitarize. Given the prospect of
Hamas rearming, a two-state solution acceptable to Hamas would never assuage
Israel’s fears. Israel is more comfortable with the status quo: recurring bouts
of violence between itself and Hamas.
But for
the sake of argument, let’s say Hamas and other militant groups pledge to
demilitarize. Who would believe them? How would Hamas get unanimity among its
own factions, let alone bring other militant groups on board? Surely Israel
would insist on having an international body monitor the process. Would Hamas
agree to that? Would Islamic Jihad, or the ISIS-affiliated Salafi groups that
are an increasing presence in Gaza?
And
since nobody beyond Hamas has an exact account of its arms inventory, how would
the monitoring body know whether it was being given accurate numbers? How would
it actually verify demilitarization? Or preclude Hamas from rearming in due
time?
Those
realities frame Israel’s choice. One option is a militarized Hamas confined to
Gaza, a threat Israel can deal with. The other is a two-state solution with no
ironclad guarantee of a demilitarized Hamas, Islamic Jihad, or other jihadist
groups — and with those groups having access to the West Bank. The former is
unsustainable in the long run, but the latter is out of the question.
Given
these realities, what’s next? Last week, in an interview with Yedioth Ahronoth,
Israel’s most influential newspaper, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin proposed a
“borderless” Palestinian-Israeli “confederation” as a solution. The fact that
any president of Israel, particularly one who is a former member of Likud,
would make such a breathtaking statement is an indication that fresh thinking
is catching wind. Unfortunately, however, even a confederation would not negate
the concerns I have outlined. Perhaps nothing short of a catastrophic war will
be necessary to bring about the attitudinal changes a confederation would
require.
Another sad, but unforgiving reality.
Another sad, but unforgiving reality.