Before four left-leaning international scholars laid out potential solutions to “Deadlock in Israel-Palestine: How to Imagine a Better Future? (Part One),” an October 3 forum jointly sponsored by UCLA and USC, moderator David Myers positioned the verbal stage furniture.
An author of five books on Jewish history, the UCLA history professor said it is “most urgent to stimulate thinking about the future in the face of the stasis on the ground and the possibility of political imagination.”
Absent peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, he continued, “some say the era of the two-state solution, the paradigm for the last half-century, is over. But there is no clarity or consensus about viable alternatives.”
What next, asked Myers, if talks cannot be revived?
Two U.S.-based pro-Palestinian thinkers, Shibley Telhami, University of Maryland professor and senior fellow with the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institute, and Omar Rahman, visiting fellow at the Brookings Doha Center, formed one team. Two Israelis, Yuli Tamir, a 1978 co-founder of Peace Now and president of Beit Berl College, and Dahlia Scheindlin, an international political consultant and public opinion analyst, opposed them.
Rahman opened the 90-minute Zoom panel discussion by declaring, “It is important to recognize that there is a one-state reality in place today with Israel-Palestine. This is important when imagining a viable political future.”
He also said that the “one-state reality has institutional structures, vested interests and power dynamics in place that make it difficult for something else. It is on a trajectory — consolidating into a permanent system of domination without the pretense of a negotiated two-state solution.” He called the current status “a recipe for indefinite conflict. You can’t keep a population subjugated and lacking basic human and political rights indefinitely.”
Rahman suggested “confederation,” defined as a loose association between two sovereign states whereby each state agrees to give up some of its sovereign powers, “is the superior model for this time and place.”
Rahman suggested “confederation,” defined as a loose association between two sovereign states whereby each state agrees to give up some of its sovereign powers, “is the superior model for this time and place.”
All agreed that is palatable but one of the longest shots.
Scheindlin said, “The critical point that probably everybody understands is that the critical actors here are convinced that there is no possibility right now, as Omar just said, of reaching a negotiated two-state solution. It may even be dangerous to try.”
When discussing Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, Scheindlin said he “completely dropped the issue of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from the global agenda when he spoke at the U.N. Israelis are frankly fine with that. It hasn’t been high on the priority list or anywhere near the top in a number of years. As for the Palestinian leadership, I think, theoretically, they support negotiations. But they lack a legitimacy to undertake them.”
Scheindlin concurred with Rahman “that we need some joint institutions (as in confederation) to help manage these things.”
Returning to the tone of the day, “it is not a very hopeful environment,” she said. “But I don’t think anybody has the luxury to say, let’s just stop imagining the future.”
Tamir called a confederation “a wonderful solution to two states wanting to work together. But as long as you don’t have defined sovereignty, Israel doesn’t have defined borders and certainly the Palestinian state [doesn’t], then we are not able to create a confederation. The confederation is an option for a future that is very, very far from where we are right now. I can’t see anyone either on the Israeli or Palestinian side, and by the way, not even the American side, ready to take a courageous move ahead.”
Telhami helped conduct a recent poll of Middle East-focused scholars, where 57% said it was too late for a two-state solution, and the remainder contended it is not possible in the next 10 years.
When he spoke, he zeroed in on occupation. “Over 90% [of Palestinians] in the West Bank and Gaza were born under occupation,” he said. “Many were born and died under occupation, and it is obviously their lifetime, with no end in sight. So is that really an occupation or something else?”
Part Two of “Deadlock in Israel-Palestine: How to Imagine a Better Future?” will be held December 5.
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