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Article by Dore Gold, go to https://tinyurl.com/3bxn6ht4
Prime Minister Yair Lapid's support for the “two-state solution” during his UN General Assembly address re-opened the Israeli debate over the merits of this policy. It was never a part of the key documents that provided the diplomatic basis for the Arab-Israeli peace process in the past.
It sounds fair but however it sounds, the two-state solution is not drawn from binding legal commitments made by Israel in the past.
In October
1995, Prime Minister
Yitzhak Rabin gave his final address to the Knesset
weeks before he was assassinated. In the speech,
he outlined the components of a final peace
settlement with the Palestinians. He did not
make any reference 1o the two-state
solution. His backing of Palestinian
statehood by itself was at best lukewarm. He spoke only about an entity which
was “less than a state.”
Another problem
with the terminology of the two-state
solution is the expectation that if the Palestinians'
grievances are fully addressed and resolved, the wider Arab-Israel
conflict will come to an end. Diplomats embraced the “two-state
solution” as a kind of magic key that would solve the Arab-Israel conflict.
There is no indication
that this was ever true.
If the considerations of the Palestinian Arabs were paramount
for the Arab world, then why
wasn't a Palestinian state established in Judea and Samaria when the Arab world had the
chance because it already held those areas?The Palestinian Arabs tried
briefly to set up a mini- state in the Gaza Strip, known as the All-Palestine
Government, but it never acquired wider backing through
international recognition.
Israel needs to design an approach
to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that keeps in mind the true
dimensions of the wider conflict.
The Arab-Israel conflict
has resembled an accordion that can
expand or contract
according to international circumstances.Today
there is a risk that if the two- state solution becomes popularized
again,Israel will come under rising international pressures to adhere to its terms, even if they do not apply.
It risks stripping Israel of its right to secure
boundaries which is an integral
part of Resolution 242.
What recent events
demonstrate is that a very different Middle East has arisen. Diplomacy remains vital in this new period,
but i1 will only yield results if it addresses
the vital interests
of the parties. That is the lesson of the Abraham
Accords, which produced four normalization agreements
between Israel and Arab states.The two-state solution is just a nice-sounding
mantra that will lead diplomats off course. This should be the message of the
State of Israel the next time an Israeli prime minister addresses
the UN General Assembly.
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