The Israel-Palestine Problem
By Andrew Kauders '20
On January 28, 2020, President Donald Trump released Peace to Prosperity, his attempt to achieve a peaceful resolution in the ever pressing Israel-Palestine conflict. His plan is the first real peace plan brought to the table in quite some time, despite some controversy and claims of unfairness surrounding it. Critics claim that the plan favors Israel, even though it provides a two state solution that would give both sides their own independent state. The portion of land allotted to Israel is, in fact, larger than that allotted to Palestine, and the new plan gives all of Jerusalem, which includes Muslim holy sites, to Israel, making the claims of bias towards Israel feasible. But many people forget, or do not know, that Israel has fought six defensive wars against Arabs and Palestinians since Israel's inception in 1948, and after each, peace is proposed, only to be denied by Palestine. In 1967, following the Six-Day War, at the Khartoum Conference, Palestine outlined three "no's" regarding Israel: no peace, no negotiations, and no recognition. Israel has recognized peace and accepted it for years, whereas Palestine refuses to consider it. The political body in Palestine, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), now known as the Palestinian Authority, directly outlines in its charter a desire to liberate the land of the area through armed struggle, not through negotiations. In outlining a clear threat of war to the state of Israel, Palestine loses some of its bargaining power. Time and time again, it becomes clear the the Palestinian Authority's goal is not to secure a state for Palestine; if they wanted that, there would have been peace fifty years ago. Instead, their goal is to destroy the state of Israel and form one Palestinian state without an Israeli one. President Trump's peace plan makes it abundantly clear that a peaceful two-state solution in the region is near impossible and not necessarily at the fault of Israel. While the plan proposes less territory for Palestine than previous plans, Palestine lost their chance to bargain, as Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas rejected the plan before it was released to the public. While I am sure that not all Palestinians support this view, if Palestinian leadership continues to pursue this goal, peace will be exceedingly difficult. As a rapidly evolving issue, the Israel-Palestine conflict has been and will continue to be the most dividing issue surrounding the Middle East for years to come, and if the Palestinian Authority continues to reject peace, the region faces a difficult road to resolving this conflict.
To see an alternative viewpoint, here is a piece by Salam Fayyad, former prime minister of Palestine, and current Distinguished Fellow in foreign policy at the Brookings Institute:
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Refrences
Palestine Liberation Organization. "The Palestinian National Charter: Resolutions of the Palestine National Council." July 17, 1968.
Falk, Pamela. "Palestinians' Mahmoud Abbas Rejects Trump's Middle East Peace Plan." CBS News. February 11, 2020. Accessed April 7, 2020. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/palestinians-mahmoud-abbas-rejects- trumps-middle-east-peace-plan/.
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