Does the Trump Administration’s Israeli-Palestinian Plan Offer a Path to Peace?

Image courtesy of The White House/Flickr.

This article was originally published by the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) on 29 January 2020.

Without a basis for negotiation around which both sides feel they can come to the table, peace will remain elusive.

Yesterday, at an East Room gathering, President Trump, alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, unveiled his administration’s plan to address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As promised at the outset of his remarks, the approach represents a vision “fundamentally different from past proposals.” The event itself—with the plan unveiled by U.S. and Israeli leadership—presented a visual that underscored this difference, and the challenge this plan faces if it is to chart a course to peace.

The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict in 2020: What Are the Possible Paths Ahead?

Image courtesy of Cole Keister/Unsplash

This article was originally published by the United States Institute of Peace on 14 January 2020.

Without progress toward a comprehensive solution, we may see unilateral measures and rising tensions.

Despite tremendous effort exerted since the 1991 Madrid Peace Conference to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through a two-state solution, peace has been elusive. Today, there is a growing feeling among Palestinians, Israelis and the international community that the two-state paradigm may no longer be viable. USIP’s Ambassador Hesham Youssef examines the potential scenarios facing Israelis, Palestinians and the region as the stalemated conflict continues without progress toward two states.

Washington’s Illusory Plan for Israel-Palestine

Image courtesy of U.S. Embassy Jerusalem/Flickr. (CC BY 2.0)

This article was originally published by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) on 5 June 2019.

The United States is set to propose an economic plan for Israel-Palestine, spearheaded by Jared Kushner, on 25 and 26 June in Bahrain, where Gulf Arab states will discuss the troubled Palestinian economy.

It seems that Jared Kushner, one of the principal architects of the so-called “deal of the century” to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, has finally discovered the European Union. In his role as a senior adviser on the Middle East to US President Donald Trump, Kushner has recently faced a series of setbacks – among them the recalcitrance of Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and Israeli politics’ descent into almost unprecedented political chaos. In response to these problems, Kushner made what looked to be a hastily arranged trip to Brussels on 4 June, meeting with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and Federica Mogherini, the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy.

The Six Day War and the Nuclear Coup that Never Was

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This article was originally published by War on the Rocks on 29 June 2017.

On the eve of the June 1967 war in the Middle East, a small group of men in the Israeli elite considered a doomsday scenario. They all supported Israel having an overt nuclear strategy, but the dovish prime minister, Levi Eshkol, had resisted. Now, with war looming, they felt that their hour had come. Behind the scenes, these bureaucrats, scientists and officers prepared the ground for using Israel’s ultimate weapon: the nuclear bomb.

Three weeks ago, The New York Times revealed part of that story which the newspaper described as the “last secret” of the Six Day War. The truth is, evidence of these events has been out in the open for several years now. Yitzchak Yaacov, a top scientist who served as a senior officer in the Israeli army, had published his memoirs detailing the deliberations for the secret operation already in 2011. Based on this book as well as several interviews, Amir Oren, military correspondent for Haaretz, wrote in the same year a long analysis of the decision-making process surrounding this chapter in Israel’s history. And in 2014, Oxford University Press published a monograph by Or Rabinowitz that distilled all these Hebrew-language sources into an English-language text.

Israel, the Six Day War and the End of the Two-state Solution

Courtesy of Nina A. J. G./Flickr. (CC BY-ND 2.0)

This article was originally published by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) on 10 June 2017.

Donald Trump entered the White House promising to be ‘the most pro-Israel president ever’. This hyperbolic bombast gratified what is certainly the most right-wing Israeli government ever, which is celebrating the 50th anniversary of Israel’s crushing victory over Arab armies in 1967, and half a century of occupation of the West Bank and Arab east Jerusalem it has no plans to end.

President Trump, the self-described dealmaker, keeps hinting and tweeting he is on course to do ‘the ultimate deal’ that has eluded his predecessors: never spelt out but assumed to mean an Arab-Israeli peace encompassing a deal for the Palestinians, who have sought in vain the state proffered tantalisingly by the Oslo accords of 1993-95.

This most erratic of US presidents, meeting Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, in February, threw the international consensus on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since Oslo to the winds, saying that the two-state solution, meant to offer security to Israel and justice to the Palestinians, may not be the way to resolve it. ‘I am looking at two-state and one-state [solutions], and I like the one that both parties like,’ Trump said, to nervous chortles from Netanyahu and general bemusement.