Israel-Palestine: An Issue of Leadership
At one point, President Trump publicly stated that either a one state or two state solution for Israel would be acceptable to him. Since then, his administration has not pursued any decisive action and has allowed the current situation to remain the status quo.
However, one can hardly claim that Trump is the one creating the problems. In fact, it’s been customary for years among analysts to claim that Israelis and Palestinians are moving no closer to resolving their disputes.
When I briefly lived in Washington D.C., I heard a lecture from Ghaith Al-Omari, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and advisor to the Palestinian negotiating team from 1999–2001. He told me that while there are certainly many ethnic and religious disputes that run deeply through generations, the greatest problem right now is leadership.
The leadership problem is twofold. On one hand, it has a lot to do with Netanyahu’s perceived hardline position. Despite some urging from the United States to cease settlement expansion, Netanyahu seems to have not changed his mind at all. If anything, he has become bolder and more stubborn in his own position. He has continued his expansionist policy, and in the eyes of many Palestinians, is attempting to finally kill off any chances at an independent Palestinian state. A fairly large portion of the world believes that the settlements are illegal, but Netanyahu has used them as a bargaining chip. His exact endgame goals are uncertain, but whether he wishes for one state or two, he still has to consider what to do about Gaza, the other half of the leadership problem.
Palestine, though united in name, is comprised of two non-adjacent pieces of land. The West Bank is currently ruled by Fatah, the descendent of the Palestinian National Liberation Movement, while the Gaza Strip is ruled by Hamas, the de-facto authority in the area. The issue is that Hamas is regarded by Israel, the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union, Australia, Canada, Japan, and others, as a terrorist organization.
Hamas’ charter—commonly known as the Hamas Covenant of 1988—claims that it was founded to liberate Palestine, and is certainly not opposed to using violence. Previously, the military wing of Hamas has attacked innocent civilians using suicide bombers, and rockets, which it launches from densely populated civilian centers in order to make retaliation difficult for the Israeli Defense Force.
After the death of Yasser Arafat, the foremost leader of Palestine until his passing, rising tensions between Fatah and Hamas reached a boiling point during the 2006 elections. In these elections, Hamas secured a surprise victory in the legislature by winning 74 of the 132 seats. The two parties failed to reach a power-sharing compromise which ultimately resulted in Hamas taking control over Gaza in 2007 and removing Fatah officials and security forces. In response, Israel, in hopes of reducing the number of terrorist attacks, began blockading Gaza to prevent Hamas from receiving more weaponry.
The issue is delicate for sure, since the human-shield tactics that Hamas employs makes it extraordinarily difficult for Israel to protect all of its population without impacting civilians. Thus, it would make sense to focus efforts on prevention. However, this has made everyday life extremely difficult for people living there and a fact-finding mission for the UN Human Rights Council determined that the conditions of the blockade of Gaza constituted collective punishment for everyone living there, making it unlawful. Nonetheless, Israel maintains the blockade, citing a security threat that poses a danger to their nation.
Netanyahu uses this very threat as a counterbalance for the settlements. His calls to remove the settlements through negotiation are all about gaining more control and making Israel safer. Netanyahu desires for Hamas to lose power and for Fatah to reunify Palestine, opening up a good opportunity to negotiate with a unified Palestine to leverage the settlements as an additional bargaining chip. For Fatah, someone has to be the unifying force for the Palestinian people so that they can negotiate directly for their interests, and they’d rather it not be Hamas. In addition, they also understand that if the security threat posed by Hamas is removed, Israel can lift the Gaza blockade which will improve the lives of the Palestinian people living there significantly.
Since negotiating for the peaceful coexistence of an Israeli and Palestinian state is problematic, and it seems that both Israel and Fatah benefit from the decline of Hamas, what’s holding the process up? The answer is a lack of personal leadership and trust. For example, Fatah and the Palestinian people might not believe that Netanyahu would hold up his end of the bargain if they cooperate to help deal with Hamas. If both Israeli and Palestinian Fatah leadership see eye to eye and have a true commitment to peace and security, progress can be made. If they trust each other to practice what they preach, things will get better.
Ghaith Al-Omari told me that the key to a resolution here is compromise, and he defined compromise as a situation where both negotiating parties can return to their constituencies with a suitable message of victory. In the past, both sides were willing to negotiate in the belief that they would mutually benefit from whatever resolution they came to. Those leaders are no longer with us, and that trust has been eroded by failed promises and unforeseen complications. Now, the stage must be cleared and reset. In this lingering issue of Israel and Palestine, perhaps it’s time for some fresh leaders. It seems like these old ones just aren’t cutting it.
