Anniversaries come and go but they can be useful reminders of contemporary problems. November sees two which mark big moments in the Israel-Palestine conflict: Britain’s promise, a violent century ago, to “view with favor” the establishment of a “Jewish national home” in Palestine; and the United Nations vote in 1947 – supported by the United States and the Soviet Union – to partition that contested land into two separate states. In a period when prospects for peace seem so poor, it is worth reflecting on their meaning.
By coincidence, 2017 is a remarkable year for anniversaries of significant developments in what is arguably the world’s most intractable conflict. The seventh year of nearly every decade since 1897, when the first Zionist Congress was held, has seen a landmark event. In the wake of the Balfour Declaration (on Nov. 2, 1917) and Britain’s conquest of Palestine from the Ottoman Turks, 1937 saw the first British proposal to divide the country between Arabs and Jews. In 1947, when the fledgling UN voted to do the same — leading to Israel’s independence, war and the Palestinian "nakba" or catastrophe.
June of this year saw a spate of commemorations and reflections marking half a century since the Six-Day War of 1967 — another fateful turning point. In 1977, Anwar Sadat of Egypt became the first Arab leader to visit Israel. In 1987, the first intifada (uprising) did much to advance the Palestinian cause and undermine Israel’s occupation. In 2007 the Islamist movement Hamas took over the Gaza Strip — a live issue again now as the Palestinians try, against a background of turmoil in the Arab world, to end their own divisions.
Some fear that Donald Trump’s arrival in the White House may make 2017 another momentous year — and not in a good way. If the general problem is the havoc he is wreaking with U.S. foreign policy, strategic planning and decision-making from North Korea to Iran and climate change, Trump also appears to have only a limited understanding of the complexities of the Israeli-Palestinian issue and is depending on his son-in-law and favorite lawyers to tackle it.
Early worries included Trump's promise to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem — as with every other president who has hinted at that or promised, it's still on hold — and his indifference as to whether Israelis and Palestinians agree on a two-state or a one-state solution. Two states have been backed by every U.S. administration since George H.W. Bush. Retreat from that position would make the prospect for any kind of solution recede even further. No “ultimate deal” looks achievable by Jared Kushner, Jason Greenblatt and David Friedman.
Trump’s Middle East policies are popular with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who was one of very few world leaders to salute the president’s pugnacious attitude to the Iran nuclear deal; he likes the idea of an anti-Iranian alliance of Sunni states led by Saudi Arabia. Netanyahu and cabinet colleagues further to the right also seem to have been emboldened by the White House’s relaxed attitude towards settlements in the occupied territories. Palestinians, still deeply disappointed by Barack Obama’s failures, are wary and suspicious, unconvinced that this new administration will do anything to advance their cause.
It is a measure of the depth of this conflict that its history is so bitterly contested, as the different responses to the Balfour centenary demonstrate. The British foreign secretary was hailed at the time as a “new Cyrus” — the Persian king who liberated the Jews from their Babylonian exile. Balfour is still a big name in Israel. Yet for Arabs he was and remains the author of an act of profound injustice with devastating and continuing consequences.
The centenary has reignited controversy — admittedly never far away — about Palestinian rights. Balfour’s famous qualification was that “nothing be done to prejudice the civil and religious rights” of what were defined as the country’s “existing non-Jewish communities,” who at the time made up 90 percent of the population. That is often characterized as a “broken promise.” The British government, squirming uncomfortably, has rejected Palestinian demands for an apology while trying to keep a low profile over the celebrations. That’s not easy when Theresa May, the embattled British prime minister, has said she will mark the event “with pride” and join Netanyahu for a festive dinner in London today.
On Nov. 29, attention will turn to the 70th anniversary of the UN vote to divide Palestine into Jewish and Arab states. That decision was accepted by the Jews and rejected by the Arabs. Streets in Israel are named after the date because it is considered to mark the birth of a nation — and also because it has far wider international legitimacy than Balfour’s unilateral, colonial-era promise. The Arab rejection of the UN plan — while arguably understandable — had terrible consequences: Half of the Palestinian population became refugees and their country disappeared. Four decades later, in 1988, under Yasser Arafat’s leadership, the Palestinians unilaterally declared their independence and effectively recognized Israel — a position that was formalized in the Oslo agreement of 1993.
In many ways, Oslo has not stood the test of time: bad faith, accelerated Jewish settlement, Palestinian suicide bombings, the rise of Hamas and the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin by a Jewish extremist were all grave blows. It never moved from an interim to a permanent peace deal. It did not tackle “core” issues like settlements, borders and the status of Jerusalem (which both Israelis and Palestinians see as their capital city).
Subsequent failures followed at Camp David under Bill Clinton; in 2008 when Ehud Olmert was Israeli prime minister and most recently in 2014, when then-Secretary of State John Kerry’s final effort petered out. Still, official Palestinian recognition of Israel remains. Netanyahu continues to demand recognition of Israel as a Jewish state — even as he makes clear that a Palestinian state worthy of the name will never be created and that the settlement enterprise will go on. The result is deadlock and a one state-reality of continuing occupation, which is damaging Israel as well as the Palestinians.
If there is a lesson from all this controversial history it is this: Left to themselves, Israelis and Palestinians will not make peace; the weight of the past and the imbalance between them are just too great, their national aspirations too irreconcilable. The incentives to change are not strong enough. No Trumpian "ultimate deal" is in sight, but this ever-volatile conflict still needs to be managed, which means that outside engagement and pressure are vital. And it is still hard to see who other than the United States can play that role, in 2017 and beyond.
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