What is the reality of the Israeli-Palestinian two-state solution?
Updated
.jpg/8276604 "Israeli forces evacuate controversial settlement")
It all sounds simple enough. The Israelis have their country, the Palestinians theirs. It sounds fair too. After all, neither side wants to live under the laws and customs of the other. They are divided by geography, religion and language. What could go wrong?
Just about everything.
While most nations, including Australia, have been enthusiastic supporters of the "two-state solution", the two peoples with the most at stake simply cannot negotiate their way clear to make it happen. At least their leaders can't.
In fact they have not officially even had talks since the last round broke down in 2014.
The heart of the matter, of course, is land. Who gets what and who has overall control.
The Palestinians want their country to include all the land lost by Jordan during the 1967 war. That is the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
There is also the complication of the Gaza Strip bordering both Israel and Egypt but not joined to the West Bank, physically or politically.
But the Israelis want a West Bank border further east and are against the Palestinian Authority's claim East Jerusalem should be theirs for a new capital .
Complicating matters further, around half a million Israelis have set up home, in defiance of international law, in the very territories the Palestinians claim for their homeland.
And that process has been accelerated in recent weeks with the announcement thousands more houses and units have been approved for construction in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
That was done in a rush with the expectation incoming US President Donald Trump would not object, in stark contrast to his predecessor.
Interestingly, at the joint press conference Mr Trump did ask Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu to stop the building.
But he also dropped the bombshell he was not wedded to the two-state solution that has been at the heart of US policy for decades.
Both the Israeli and Palestinian leaders accuse each other of dishonesty, duplicity and deception.
Many Palestinians believe the current Israeli Government has no intention ever of allowing them a country to call their own. And on the Israeli side, there is fear and suspicion that a newly-created state of Palestine would at some time in the future present a serious security threat.
That is why Mr Netanyahu today repeated his demand the Palestinians recognise Israel's right to exist and that his security forces have overarching control of any Palestinian nation.
The very definition of a country includes control of its own security and the integrity of borders. Neither of those conditions would be met under the Israeli plan.
So, for the moment, for the future, it is difficult to see how the "two-state solution" can move from rhetoric to reality.
What dramatic circuit breaker could Mr Trump offer? Could the audacious and the unpredictable President succeed where decades of conventional diplomacy have utterly failed?
We all have a stake in a settlement that both sides can live and prosper with. The conflict has not just divided these fractious regional brothers and sisters, but fuelled division in other regional conflicts.
Maybe Mr Trump is the man to break the impasse. But he has not revealed his magic Middle East peace dust yet. But to simply shrug and say this can never be solved is defeatist and betrays the aspirations of ordinary people on both sides who just want to get on and live a peaceful decent and dignified life.
Topics: unrest-conflict-and-war, world-politics, israel, palestinian-territory-occupied, united-states
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