Trump and the “minimal settlement” of the Palestinian issue: A forward-looking reading (Part Three and Final)

The coming period will be difficult for the Palestinians and they will be exposed to maximum pressure from all sides.

Israeli acceptance of the Trump plan will be tactical to skip a stage and reap benefits until it reaches clinical death like "Oslo"

The "minimal settlement" is the best it can give the Palestinians: a "remnant state" that is not fully sovereign.

When the political system calcifies, its internal support and backing declines, its self-immunity erodes, and its ability to confront challenges weakens.

The closure of the political sphere to “for” and “against” stifled the space for free thought and effective debate and led to the death of political life.

The performance of the political system has diminished with the lack of resources to the minimum and its main interest has become focused on maneuvering for survival.

A political system besieged by pressures and maneuvering for survival may find no alternative but to accommodate a settlement that comes under the banner of the “two-state solution.”

Palestinian adherence to implementing the "two-state solution" means implicit acceptance of the principle of dividing the West Bank and entering into negotiations on the nature of the division.

The most dangerous thing facing the Palestinian issue in the future is accepting a settlement based on dividing the West Bank and Israel’s selective annexation of a large part of it.

Full annexation of the land leaves the door open to a struggle for equal rights and a transition from an apartheid state to a binational state.

The official Arab reaction is expected to be positive and welcoming of such a plan, especially in light of the changes taking place in the region. In light of the deteriorating situation in Palestine, in terms of the reality of both the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, influential Arab parties will exert pressure on the Palestinians to accept it. As for Israel, there will be resistance, which may lead to a change in the composition of the government, resulting in conditional acceptance, accompanied by a list of huge aid requests and numerous guarantees. This acceptance may be tactical to skip a stage and collect the benefits, then the usual Israeli procrastination begins, leading the plan to the intensive care unit, where it clinically dies. This is exactly what happened with the Oslo Accords, and it could happen with the Trump plan. The Israeli goal will revolve around not angering the US president personally, and collecting the maximum possible benefits from him within four years, a period that is quickly passing, in order to deal with a new president. As for the Palestinians, the coming period will be difficult for them and they will be exposed to maximum pressure from all sides.

Trump will not budge towards them, influenced by their claim that he is oppressing them and amputating their legitimate right to freedom and independence on the entire land occupied in 1967. Quite the opposite, as he will bestow upon them, and will find a lot of resonance, that he is giving them the only and last chance to obtain a state, so they either take it or lose it forever.

When Trump proposed the "Deal of the Century" nearly five years ago, the Palestinians refused to accept or deal with it. This rejection was expected from the Trump administration, so the plan at the time included a transitional period of four years, to pave the way for political changes that would push the Palestinian Authority to accept it. Those years have passed, and many profound changes have occurred, especially in the last year. So what will the Palestinian position be? Will the "minimum settlement" be dealt with positively this time, which the best it can give the Palestinians is a "remnant state" that is not fully sovereign, but rather, if it comes, will be in the form of a "minus state", according to Rabin's term, or "excessive autonomy" according to Netanyahu's expression? Or will it be rejected and the Palestinian Authority will bear the consequences of the pressures that will rain down on it? The most important question in this context may be: Can the Palestinians, in their current state, effectively confront what is coming to them, especially if rejection is their position?

The Palestinian situation has reached a state of extreme weakness

Although the Palestinians, in general, will not be satisfied with such a plan, many indications indicate that the Palestinian situation has currently reached a state of extreme weakness, due to the loss of most of its self-immunity, which means the decline of the Palestinian ability to successfully confront the group of pressures coming from outside, and thus engage in successful and effective resistance. Over many years, there have been accumulated setbacks that have affected various aspects of Palestinian life under occupation. Although occupying Israel has a fundamental and primary role in the deterioration of the Palestinian situation, and it is the one that follows systematic policies to bring it to this situation that repels the continuation of the Palestinian existence, this does not absolve the Palestinians of personal responsibility for the state of their situation.

For more than two decades, the Palestinian political system has been suffering from a state of calcification, which has continuously and continuously made it lose its political effectiveness, until it has reached and is now in an advanced state of paralysis and inability to exert political influence, both internally and externally. This system has successively disabled the tools of political action that positively link it to society, which helped it succeed in consecrating them. This same disruption has produced a division in the political body, which has become chronic with the help of its stability in a geographical separation between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. In the absence of a legislative council, effective political parties, fair periodic elections, an independent judiciary, and a free media, the political sphere has been closed and monopolized in both its West Bank and Gaza systems, and effective oversight, accountability, and accountability have been absent. With the escalation of its reliance on the support of its clientelist bases, the space available to individuals for political participation has shrunk, which has led to an increase in the rate of society’s reluctance to care about political affairs, and an increasing separation of the system and society from each other, each in a different valley. When the political system calcifies and withdraws into itself, internal support and backing for it declines, its self-immunity erodes, and its ability to perform and confront the challenges it faces weakens.

Loyalty fanaticism divided the Palestinian people into two opposing camps.

The chronic Palestinian division has gone beyond dividing the political affiliation of society into two main factions, one of which controls the West Bank and the other Gaza, to the point of a state of fanatic loyalty that has divided the Palestinian people into two opposing camps, not over the desired goal, but over the best means to achieve it. This has led to a deep rift between two opposing camps, one of which supports the political-negotiating approach, and the other supports armed resistance. Over time, the two camps have become increasingly entrenched in their positions, and the level of suspicion and accusations between them has escalated, reaching the point of treason. The result was that the field of politics was closed to “for” and “against,” which stifled the space for free thinking and effective discussion, and led to the death of political life in the country. The system of political thought has become rigid on a set of axioms, which have become circulated in both camps as certain, definitive, and final facts that are not subject to scrutiny and review. The entrenchment in positions and intransigence regarding them led to the confrontation for the two camps becoming more internal than external, which led to the political level of both sides hesitating to make difficult but necessary decisions, and when they were forced to make them, they came late, offering concessions that were not useful in achieving the desired effect. Since Palestinian politics began to suffer from self-regression and focused on winning the “battle” taking place internally, it lost what remained of its old balance of effectiveness on the external level, and its actions turned into an ongoing series of reactions to escalating external demands.

The devastating war on Gaza and the deep war in the West Bank

This increasing self-paralysis was accompanied by an escalation in the pace of the Israeli attack, especially after the far-right government took power in Israel, aiming to resolve the confrontation with the Palestinians, specifically in the West Bank. After Operation "Noah's Flood", the Gaza Strip was added to the agenda. With a devastating war on the Strip that has been raging for more than a year, this government is waging a hidden, but deep, systematic war in the West Bank, with the aim of deepening the environment that repels the Palestinians and preparing the conditions for the desired annexation. Weakening the Palestinian Authority and depriving it of the resources necessary for its continued survival is a central goal of this government. This targeting, in addition to the negatives of the internal Palestinian conflict, has led to the Palestinian situation suffering from deep collapses, affecting all economic, educational, health and service structures, and more importantly, damaging important positive aspects of its value system. With the increasing shortage of resources available to meet the growing demands, the performance of the political system has shrunk to a minimum, and most of its attention has become focused on maneuvering for the sake of survival.

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Under the pressure of external circumstances and the crumbling internal situation, a political system that is maneuvering for survival will not be able to successfully confront the “minimum settlement” if it is proposed by Trump after he assumes the presidency on January 20. As a result of being surrounded by international and regional pressures, and its desire to preserve itself, this system may find no alternative but to find excuses to agree with this settlement, and muster justifications for being forced to engage in it, especially since it will come under the banner of implementing the principle of the “two-state solution,” which is the principle adopted by the Palestinians to resolve the conflict with Israel.

The principle of the "two-state solution" is the cornerstone of Palestinian policy

Since the Palestine Liberation Organization adopted the principle of the "two-state solution" and virtually declared the establishment of the Palestinian state in 1988, and reached the "Oslo Accords" with Israel on this basis, the Palestinian political system, supported by a late acceptance from Hamas, has sought to translate this state into reality on the ground, based on the assumption that the land occupied in 1967, with minor and mutual amendments, will constitute the territory of this state. According to this assumption, the principle of the "two-state solution" has become the cornerstone of Palestinian policy and its most important assumptions regarding the settlement with Israel, without examining or reviewing what this principle might produce in light of the changes imposed by Israel in Jerusalem and the West Bank in particular, over the course of more than half a century. The second assumption, which was considered an accepted fact, was that everything that has changed as a result of the systematic and escalating process of settlement and Judaization, which began three weeks after the occupation and is still ongoing, will change in the opposite direction. Since the matter is a given, the Palestinians have not paid the slightest attention to how the second assumption is supposed to be achieved, and to ensure that there is a party capable and willing to force Israel to stop its adopted path and turn in the opposite direction. The Palestinian slogan for addressing this essential issue has been summarized in the necessity of international will, and the need to continue mobilizing the support of the international community, although all indications point to the futility of relying on the possibility of achieving this. The best evidence is the failure to implement the large number of international resolutions accumulating over decades in support of Palestinian rights, and the lack of increasing recognition by states of the State of Palestine of defining its territory, which means that this recognition will only apply to the territory after it is defined in subsequent negotiations with Israel.

Dividing the West Bank and consecrating Israel's retention of a large part of it

Traditionally, the principle of the "two-state solution" was based on the necessity of dividing historical Palestine into two states, one of which exists, namely Israel within the 1948 borders, and the second, Palestine, which must exist on the remaining part occupied by Israel since 1967. However, because the ongoing Israeli developments have changed the status of Jerusalem and the West Bank, the "two-state solution" can no longer produce a Palestinian state with these specifications. Rather, it has actually declined since the signing of the "Oslo Accords", and has come to mean dividing the West Bank and consecrating Israel's retention of a large part of it. Therefore, the continued adherence of the Palestinian position to the necessity of implementing the "two-state solution" means implicit acceptance of the principle of dividing the West Bank and entering into negotiations to reach an agreement regarding the nature and manner of this division. This means that the official Palestinian position accepts, in principle, dealing with a minimum settlement, and will attempt, through a negotiation process with Israel, to raise its ceiling as much as possible.

It is imperative for the Palestinians to stop continuing to deceive themselves and raise slogans that will not be achieved in reality. The "two-state solution" cannot produce for the Palestinians more than a "remnant state" with diminished sovereignty, and the best that can be achieved under this ceiling is to succeed in increasing the percentage of these "remnants" from the area that Israel will seize in the West Bank. If this is acceptable to the official Palestinian authorities, and it is in fact, then the evasion about it must not continue, but rather the Palestinian public must be confronted with it, and deal with the "minimum settlement" that is likely to come during Trump's second term. However, if this result of the "two-state solution" is not acceptable, that means the necessity of abandoning the pursuit of a settlement within its framework, and adopting another alternative that is completely different from it.

Full inclusion is better than selective inclusion.

The most dangerous thing facing the Palestinian cause in the future is accepting a settlement based on dividing the West Bank and Israel’s selective annexation of a large part of it. At minimal cost, this settlement allows Israel to achieve two goals it has long sought to achieve: increasing its area by annexing the parts of the West Bank emptied of Palestinians, while at the same time completely eliminating the future influence of the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza Strip on its demographic entity. As long as the “minimal settlement” will not give the Palestinians a fully independent and sovereign state on the land occupied in 1967, Israel’s complete annexation of this land, with all those on it, may be better than allowing the Palestinians to selectively annex it. Unlike selective annexation, which completely closes the door on a poor outcome for the Palestinians, full annexation leaves the door open to the possibility of waging a struggle over equal rights, and transforming in the long term from an apartheid state to a binational state, eventually becoming a state for all its citizens.

In addition to the opposition of parties whose interests would be harmed if the "two-state solution" were abandoned, many Palestinians will believe that this alternative is unavailable because Israel cannot agree to it. But Israel also does not agree to the "two-state solution" and the establishment of a Palestinian state, yet Palestinian efforts are still limited to trying to achieve it. To confront the risks of the next stage, which will be very effective and influential, what is required of the Palestinians is not to replace one alternative with another, but rather to stop closing off the options themselves, open the way for discussion regarding them, and benefit from their existence in confronting others. Is this possible? It is doubtful, because it requires reviving political life and removing calcification from the political system, and this requires a will that has not yet been available.