Israeli-Palestinian Peace Plans
(Updated June 2006)
The absence of peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors
is not due to the lack of a plan. “Solutions” to the conflict have been proposed for more than 60 years. Each foundered
because of the failure of Arab leaders to accept the State
of Israel.
Many observers have urged the United States to be more
active in the peace process,
and to put forth its own peace plan. Virtually every U.S. administration
has authored a plan and not
one has ever succeeded.
The two successful cases where Israel reached agreements
with Arab nations were not the result of peace plans; rather, they were
the product of the vision of courageous Arab leaders — Anwar
Sadat of Egypt and King
Hussein of Jordan —
who demonstrated by word and deed they were committed to peace and thereby
convinced the Israeli people they could take risks for peace.
Ariel
Sharon followed in the footsteps of Menachem
Begin and Yitzhak
Rabin and offered to make painful concessions.
The government gave away part of the Jewish
people’s ancestral
home so the Palestinians can have a state,
but no Palestinian leader has yet shown the
courage to follow the path of Sadat and Hussein
and grant Israel peace in exchange for any
amount of land.
Sharon implemented the disengagement
plan in August 2005, and completely withdrew
all Israeli troops and settlers in the Gaza
Strip. All settlements in
the area were dismantled, including four
settlements in northen Samaria.
Between August 16 and August 30, 2005, Israel
safely evacuated more than 8,500 Israeli
settlers and, on September 11, 2005, Israeli
soldiers left Gaza, ending Israel's 38-year
presence in the area. The United States had
little to do with this latest step toward
a two-state solution, and actually discouraged
Israel from acting unilaterally in the naive
hope that the Palestinians would be prepared
to negotiate over the withdrawal.
Prime Minister Ehud
Olmert has now
also joined his predecessors and offered
to make concessions for peace. Olmert has
proposed a “realignment
plan” whereby Israel would unilaterally
withdraw from most settlements
while holding onto five settlement
blocs if no agreement can be
negotiated with the Palestinians. By implementing
this proposed plan, Olmert is attempting
to define Israel’s
permanent borders with a future Palestinian
state and ensure a Jewish demographic majority
inside Israel. Once again, Israel is the
principal instigator of the move to end control
over area claimed by the Palestinians and
the United States has been willing to only
endorse the idea as a step in the right direction
while continuing to insist that Israel negotiate
a final settlement with the Palestinian Authority.
Outsiders, whether they are opposition politicians,
academics, or international organizations, have often floated ideas
for how to bring about Middle East peace. It is easy to reach agreements
in the abstract when the parties are not accountable for their decisions
and have neither the power nor the obligation to implement them.
It is often said that the “devil is in the details,”
and this has proven true in all past Israeli-Arab negotiations. Grand
designs are not substitutes for difficult decisions that must be hashed
out in direct talks.
Elements of third-party proposals can be incorporated
in peace talks, but the only people who can reach meaningful agreements
are the democratically elected Prime Minister of Israel and the appointed
Prime Minister of the Palestinian
Authority.
The end game of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute has
been clear for some time: A two-state solution that involves the creation
of a Palestinian state in most of the West
Bank and Gaza Strip, an
Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 borders with modifications sufficient to incorporate the overwhelming majority
of settlers, and to substantially
increase the security of Israel, and a Palestinian agreement to end
the conflict. Numerous plans, including Oslo and the road map, outline
how this can be achieved, but a plan is meaningless if one signatory
ignores its commitments.
The Palestinians are now
facing their Lincoln moment when they must
choose between a more perfect Palestinian
union living in peace beside Israel or some
fractured people condemned to statelessness
by the terrorists in their midst. If the
Palestinians dismantle the terrorist network,
as they promised to do both at Oslo and in
the road map, then Israel will have to make
tough decisions regarding the settlements.
Israelis will have to decide if their democracy
can be preserved without dismantling some
Jewish towns and villages. Israel already
made its choice in evacuating Gaza and it
appears that most
Israelis, including the Prime Minister, are
prepared to make that Lincolnesque choice
again in the West Bank.
Still, Israelis
would much prefer to negotiate. The
election of Hamas — a
terrorist group committed to the destruction
of Israel — to
lead the Palestinian Authority in 2006,
however, greatly reduced the prospects
of peace in the near future. The current
fratricidal fighting between Palestinians
factions may be the Lincoln moment they
require to decide whether to move in the
direction of coexistence with Israel or
perpetual conflict.
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