No settlement... except on the ruins of Netanyahu and Hamas

By Muhammad Al-Sammak

Since Israel imposed its presence in 1948 by military force and international pressure, the Middle East has never known such a large number of Palestinian casualties and the number of Israeli deaths. The region has never been farther politically and psychologically from peace or settlement than it is now.

However, US President Joe Biden, who placed all his electoral bets on the Zionist-American authority, repeats with a lot of hope (not confidence) that all of this has once again opened the way to a political solution based on the basis of two states: Israel and Palestine. But Palestinian-Jewish sentiments are far from today the principle of living together within the framework of two neighboring states. The bloody trench that was bulldozed by Israeli forces in Gaza is too deep to be filled and too weak to be restored.

A project for a solution based on a “one state” between the Israelis and the Palestinians, similar to the Lebanese formula, was proposed, but this project, which was difficult in the past, has now become impossible.

There are two complementary factors in drawing a picture of the tragic situation of the post-war period in Gaza. The first factor is the unprecedented violence committed by Israeli forces with premeditation and design. And the Arab inability to take any action to repel this violence or even to mitigate it. Therefore, President Biden's statement about the two-state solution is seen as a mere fig leaf to cover up Israeli brutality on the one hand, and Arab impotence on the other hand, and American involvement in covering up both matters.

The two-state solution: an old proposal

Basically, the idea of a two-state solution is not new. She is now a full century old, 77 years old. The United Nations adopted it in 1947, stipulating that Jerusalem would be an international city (internationalization is primarily a Vatican proposal because the Vatican did not want the holy Christian sites to be under the supervision of Israel). But the Arab group rejected this solution at the time because it refused in principle to recognize Israel.

The two-state solution was proposed again at the Madrid Conference in 1991, but without reaching a practical result. It was re-introduced in the Oslo Agreement (Norway) in 1993, but also without results, even though the agreement set a time period, five years, to implement the agreement, which the current Netanyahu government (which includes a group of extreme religious extremists) made of it merely “toilet paper.” ".

Before that, a series of failures continued from Camp David to Taba to the “path to peace” drawn by President Bush and adopted by former US President Barack Obama. However, it collapsed completely in 2014. Can President Biden, a devout Catholic, bring it to light again on the anniversary of the birth of Christ, peace be upon him?

Since Israel imposed its presence in 1948 by military force and international pressure, the Middle East has never known such a large number of Palestinian casualties and the number of Israeli deaths.

The tables turned on October 7

If the miracle is achieved and a Palestinian state is established from Gaza and the West Bank, this will mean that this state is based on an area of only 22 percent of the historical Palestinian land. Under the current project, Israel has the right to maintain a number of large settlements in the West Bank in exchange for granting the proposed Palestinian state lands in other locations, which is called a land exchange. As for the Palestinian refugees, the project stipulates allowing a part of them to return to the new Palestinian state, or to return to their villages in Israel. But what return can be achieved after the torrents of blood that poured in Gaza and the West Bank, which made Palestinian-Israeli coexistence impossible?

Hence, the events that began on October 7 turned the situation upside down and made implementable proposals impossible, unless the nature of authority in Israel and Gaza both changed.

There was a project for a solution based on a “one state” between the Israelis and the Palestinians, similar to the Lebanese formula, but this project, which was difficult in the past, has now become impossible.

For this reason, the settlement projects are now being reconsidered on the basis of changing the Israeli (Netanyahu) and Palestinian (Hamas) political leaders, so that matters turn to elements that are more capable of dealing positively with the settlement proposals that require a retreat from the Israeli and Palestinian sides. As for how this is done, who is responsible for ensuring and implementing it, and who pays for it and bears its consequences, it is until now in the world of the unseen. Neither Hamas nor Netanyahu is willing to voluntarily give up authority or an alternative ruler. Therefore, after Gaza, it is expected that unrest and turmoil will explode in the institutions of power in both Israel and Palestine, and the results resulting from these “programmed” oscillations are supposed to open the way to a settlement that will not be a speck of ash in the eyes, as happened with previous settlement projects.