Entangled Alliances

photo credit: premasaga

The first alternative is fairly obvious, since it is what new Israel Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu advocated for in his election campaign. As Harvard Professor of International Relations Stephen Walt puts it in his must-read post “What do we do if the two-state solution collapses?”: “Israel could retain control of the West Bank but allow the Palestinians limited autonomy in a set of disconnected enclaves, while it controlled access in and out, their water supplies, and the airspace above them.” This solution, as the cunning reader will have guessed, does not in fact give the Palestinians any right over their land, or, indeed, any de facto rights at all. It is, in effect, apartheid; and if you think that’s overstating it then may I present to you the words of that notorious Israel critic the, er, outgoing Israel Prime Minister Ehud Olmert:

If the day comes when the two-state solution collapses, and we face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights (also for the Palestinians in the territories), then, as soon as that happens, the State of Israel is finished.

If leading Israeli politicians are warning of the dangers of such a course, then you can be sure that America won’t allow it – the international verdict on such a strategy is already in and The United States can’t be seen to be supporting apartheid, pro-Israel lobby or no pro-Israel lobby. Actually, even they would be against this – here’s Olmert again on that subject:

The Jewish organizations, which were our power base in America, will be the first to come out against us,” Olmert said, “because they will say they cannot support a state that does not support democracy and equal voting rights for all its residents.”

So the “apartheid option” is off the table, right? The Centre for American Progress’s Matthew Yglesias isn’t so sure:

I don’t think it would be at all implausible for the Israeli government to continue to assert that military control over Israel’s Palestinian population is necessary for Israeli safety. It’s worth recalling that for all the shock and outrage currently associated with the observation that Israel is moving toward permanent entrenchment of an apartheid social and political regime in the West Bank, that the United States stood by apartheid South Africa for quite a long time

Is Yglesias right? Perhaps. But on the assumption that we can have – or more appropriately, must have – more faith in an Obama administration, we now turn to another alternative as explained by Walt in his aforementioned article:

The Israeli government could maintain its physical control over “greater Israel” and grant the Palestinians full democratic rights within this territory. This option has been proposed by a handful of Israeli Jews and a growing number of Palestinians. But there are formidable objections to this outcome: It would mean abandoning the Zionist dream of an independent Jewish state, and binational states of this sort do not have an encouraging track record, especially when the two parties have waged a bitter conflict across several generations. This is why I prefer the two-state alternative.

You’re not the only one. Though this outcome would have a sort of bittersweet irony to it – after decades of violent struggle, peace comes through the ballot box – it’s got “last resort” written all over it. Israel would have its dream of an independent Jewish state destroyed. Two populaces with a history of antagonism towards each other that spans over sixty years would find themselves joined together in one binational state. Can you see this ending well?

Yet this solution is beginning to take on the characteristic of a certain cynical inevitability. Indeed, large numbers of Palestinians are reportedly ready to hold back from any advance in the peace process because they know that if they simply wait, then the pressure on Israel will be such that they have no choice but to grant them the vote. And who can blame them? Why make concessions when you can just wait it out until you get what you want with no blood spilled? But make no mistake, the two-state solution is still the best option: it’s the only one left where everybody wins. (Or, if you prefer, everybody loses equally.) But as I hope I’ve made clear, it’s not going to happen unless the United States can somehow overcome, most likely through sheer will, the extreme obstacles of Netanyahu and the realities of the Israeli settlements.

This has been a pretty gloomy analysis of the peace process (take your head out of the oven, I say!) but then there’s always been a thin line between pessimism and realism. Those who prefer to take their hard-boiled truths with a little more, er, optimism sauce will no doubt take comfort from the fact that the U.S. is in a position to make real progress for the first time in eight years – due in no small degree to Obama’s appointment of Northern Ireland peace process superstar George Mitchell as special envoy to the Middle East. Me, I’m a little more comfortable in worst-case scenario territory. In any event, I think  everyone can agree that it’s absolutely vital that the US is prepared for the possibility of the collapse of the two-state solution and ready to steer the main parties towards the next best scenario, should the need arise. Ultimately, though, I only know one thing for sure: the only real viable path to peace hangs in the balance and you’d have to be a braver man than me to bet on its fate.