Israel and the Palestinians: Ending the Stalemate

Finally, the U.S. must begin to press its allies to act towards all Palestinian terrorist groups the way the U.S. expects them to act towards non-Palestinian terrorist groups. Rather than promote financial assistance to Fatah and the Palestinian Authority (and other Palestinian terrorist groups), the U.S. should tell its allies that it opposes such assistance. Obviously, the U.S. should also cut off its direct support for Fatah and the Palestinian Authority.

Combating Arab irredentism. While the U.S. should not presume it has the ability to force massive  social  change  in  the  Arab  world,  it  can  and  should  take  steps  to  break  down  the overwhelming Arab antipathy towards Israel and through it towards the U.S. itself. It must begin by reasserting the basic conditions of the pre-peace process years: that it cannot accept as a genuine negotiator for peace any party that does not explicitly accept the right of the Jewish people to self-determination in Israel, and the necessity for all states to accept Israel’s legitimacy and oppose any belligerence (including diplomatic and economic warfare) against Israel.

By the same token, the U.S. will need to make clear that it will not support the establishment of a Palestinian state predicated on the current demand that no Jewish people may be granted citizenship in that state or that the State of Palestine can only be established after all Jews are expelled from their homes in Judea and Samaria and their communities destroyed. The establishment of such a racist state, predicated on anti-Semitism and racial exclusivity, is antithetical to American values and to the U.S.’s basic interest in a stable, multi-confessional and free Middle East.

Furthermore, the U.S. should make explicit its  rejection of the Palestinian demand for the so-called “right of return” of foreign-born descendants of Arabs who left Israel in 1948-49. The U.S. should state explicitly that such a demand is irreconcilable with the cause of peace and stability in the Middle East and with the U.S. commitment to Israel’s existence.

Utilizing diplomatic sticks as well as carrots. In 2002, President Bush asserted that the U.S. would not support the establishment of a Palestinian state unless that state were peaceful, democratic and engaged in fighting terror. To restore the credibility of its demands, the U.S.  should declare explicitly that the PLO and the Palestinian Authority have failed to meet any of the most basic international conditions for support and that it has become apparent that the Palestinian Authority is neither democratic, nor peaceful, nor terror-fighting—and that it is not developing in a way that can lead to confidence about its embracing such moral and political infrastructure in the future. These words must be followed by deeds, including the suspension of American support for Palestinian statehood for an interim period of ten years, in order to provide the Palestinians with sufficient time to reform their society. After that interim period, a subsequent reevaluation of the Palestinian commitment to developing institutions and practices that would enable the creation of a state that meets its international commitments will be undertaken.

In this regard, the U.S. should support Israel’s decision to apply Israeli law to Judea and Samaria while stipulating that such a step does not mean that Israel or the U.S. are withdrawing their support for a territorial compromise, just as the application of Israeli law to Jerusalem and the Golan Heights has not precluded an Israeli willingness to compromise on their future international status.