United States President Donald Trump’s abrupt ending of America’s long-established commitment to a Palestinian state is a major shock. There is a real danger that this will encourage the right-wing government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to misuse any American relaxation of policy to continue doing nothing about the Palestinians. Netanyahu and his political acolytes see nothing wrong with the present disastrous status quo of endless occupation and statelessness, in which Israeli troops run rough shod over the Palestinians.
Desperate Palestinian commentators have taken some comfort from Trump’s off-the-cuff comment to Netanyahu that he will have to “hold back on settlements [colonies] for a little bit”. But it would be a serious mistake to base any long-term hope on Trump’s comments, which may change next week. Netanyahu insisted that Jewish colonies were “not the core of the conflict” and made no public commitment to reduce colony-building in the occupied West Bank. He later said that he hoped to “reach an understanding” with Trump on colonies, which matters since last week Netanyahu announced the building of the first new colony in more than 20 years.
One important aspect of Trump’s statement was a clear commitment that any deal has to be acceptable to both sides. Trump used his ignorance of foreign policy to refuse to get boxed into one answer, but said that the Israelis and Palestinians “themselves ultimately to decide on the terms of any agreement”, which would require compromise on both sides. That means that both Palestinians and Israelis would have to be party to an agreement that would have to be full and fair to both sides.
The American-Israeli discussions have raised the interesting prospect of a one-state solution because Trump said “I’m looking at two states and one state, and I like the one both parties like”. There is increasing interest in this option as Palestinians recognise that the two-state solution is almost impossible to implement. The colonies would have to go, while Israel insists that any future Palestine would be demilitarised and remain divided by the current occupation borders.
The one-state solution would mean that Palestinians would become Israelis in a new unified state. The major hurdle is Israeli fears of losing Israel’s Jewish character that Netanyahu recently sneaked into law and has now made a fundamental point in his negotiations. Palestinians can never agree to that, so the likely outcome is continued occupation.
