In the past two years there has been far more effort put into attempting direct negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians, than looking at how the negotiations would come out with a positive result.
Direct negotiations are not a solution but a tool, and a tool that has failed for the past 18 years.
I am not going to play the blame game - it is pointless and will convince no one who is not already convinced of the righteousness of their own position to do anything but stop reading, or send this article around to other supporters of their position.
Instead I want to focus on the international community. The continued existence of this conflict makes no sense to those who believe all that is needed is a rationally created series of gives and takes by each party. I know this, as every permutation around the final status issues has been mooted and spelled out.
In the past few weeks The Atlantic has even published a series of special reports titled 'Is Peace Possible' and has great videos demonstrating the options and solutions to each of the intractable problems in the conflict.
The solutions exist, and the ability of the leaders of each group to deliver the necessary compromise come and go, depending on the political winds blowing through each society. We have yet to reach an occasion where there are leaders in place in both groups at the same time who have the necessary credibility to deliver a deal.
If this problem is not one of finding a rational solution, it must not be a rational problem.
Though the conflict flows around the poles of power and rights, essentially, all who know it well enough recognise that this is a conflict of two narratives which refuse to deal with each other.
This is where the parties involved really need help. Although, both groups want to live in peace, and both want a better future for their children than they have had, both are incapable of 'losing.'
Losing here is not giving up a particular parcel of land or rights, but accepting the fact that you were wrong and they were right. The narrative that hangs on the deal is currently what is drowning it.
The international community in general is not a good place to try and find a meeting place for conflicting narratives. It is a dysfunctional family of nations with scars, alliances, feuds and hostilities all of its own.
Yet the parties on their own will never reach a place where they will be able to look at the other and accept that they do not hold 100% of the truth of history. The trust does not exist and the urgency of the situation is not conducive for it being formed.
The outsiders to this conflict will continue to bash our heads against brick walls, until we realise that the solution to this mess requires an interlocutor that can speak to both parties, but not be absorbed by either. Few, if any non-state actors have the ability to touch this conflict and not be infected by its partisan nature.
If states are going to mediate this conflict, as I feel they must, then they must also move beyond just a rationally acceptable model, and try and form a narrative framework which demonstrates that no one holds the truth in this conflict.
In order to break out of the death spiral both populations are in, the international community needs to make both of them lose, in order to free them from a contest neither can win.
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Mira Sucharov: Progressive Jews Can Love Israel; Religious Jews Can Love Peace
I suspect the poster refers to the partition plan proposed by the UN General Assembly on the 29 Nov. 1947. If so, the poster should be aware of the fact that the General Assembly can only propose, not resolve. And, that which was proposed by the General Assembly was contrary to the UN Charter, Article 80, 1945.
Thus, if we are to try to resolve once and for all the conflict, we should focus on the corpus dubbed 'international law', according to which of course 77% of "Palestine" - a territory, not a nationality/state, mind you - was already handed over to the Arabs in 1921; and, the rest, 23% of the territory which presently includes the accumulation of Israel-WestBank-Gaza, to the Jews.
The refusal to adhere to international law in this context tells a lot about the thrust of those opposing it...!!
The poster is obviously confused, the region of Palatine, west of the River Jordan, was designated for the founding of "Independent Arab and Jewish States" NOT a single 'Jewish State'.
The Jews of course accepted this partition plan and established the nation state of Israel in some of the designated territory, the remaining designated territory is Arab territory.
This is confirmed by the Israeli Supreme Court, the Court determined that the Palestinian West Bank and the Gaza area are lands seized during warfare, and are NOT part of Israel. (see the June 2005 ruling upholding the constitutionality of the Gaza disengagement).
Like the Syrian Golan Height the Palestinian territories of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem are held by the State of Israel in 'belligerent occupation'.
Of course, for Jews this is the worst possible outcome (and there's no difference between the two "solutions") -- hence the Palestinian Arab narrative leaves them with absolutely no incentive to deal.
Achieving peace between Israel & Arab STATES, on the other hand, has been eminently possible -- & peace has endured. In fact, without Nasser's malignant influence, peace (or at least nonbeligerence) between Israel & Jordan/West Bank would have been achieved in the 1960s. Jordan was ALREADY the independent Palestinian state.
The conclusion is clear: there's still a need for territorial compromise; but any feasible solution MUST involve Jordan+West Bank+Gaza.
The conflict, to be sure, has a local dimension, but the conflict has been and continues to be, fundamentally an Arab Israeli conflict, and more specifically, a Muslim-Arab - not a Christian-Arab, not a Druze-Arab, mind you!! - conflict with the idea of, and then with the reality called the nation-state of the Jewish people on any parcel of land in the Jewish people's homeland.
Relying on objective framework in finding a peaceful accommodation between Arab and Jew, between the Muslim-Arab world and the nation-state of the Jewish people, Israel, must therefore be based on international legality.
Legally, "Palestine" was already divided between Arabs and Jews. The Arabs, in 1921, were handed over 77% of it by the ruling British and set up their state that subsequently came to be known Jordan. The Jews, legally, based on the San Remo Conference, 1920; the League of Nations decision, 1922; and the United Nations Charter, Article 80, 1945; were assigned the rest, 23% of "Palestine", to be the "national home for the Jewish people".
The international community, having passed these international laws, should now stand by and enforce them instead of falling into the trap of "narratives" and political expediency.
Now, let's re-define those "two sides" because things are shifting. It's Israel (aided and abetted by the US and Canada) on one side and the rest of the world on the other.
Really? The entire world? In what way? Way over stated, IMO.
Although it is not possible for both sides to be right. It is possible for either side to be wrong and the other right. But isn’t it far more likely, that both sides are wrong? A way to determine if this is so, would be to test the narrative. If each side can first decide on an suitable champion, capable of precisely presenting their claim. Then bringing together those two individuals, and testing their versions should be simple. For surely. The fact that no such persons can be identified, conclusively demonstrates the confusion existing in the minds of those two peoples. All human narratives are flawed. If you doubt that, then simply test them.
Of course each side can be right, when what is right and wrong is subjective and in the eye of the beholder.