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The Utter Hopelessness of the Israeli-Palestinian Crisis
NEVER, FOREVER
Both sides have intractable demands that are impossible to meet. The
conflict isn’t territorial, it’s existential.

Josh Feldman
Updated Jul. 08, 2023 3:42AM EDT / Published Jul. 07, 2023 10:43PM EDT
OPINIONA photo illustration showing violence between Israel and Palestine
Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Getty

One of the most common lessons I received as a child was that I can’t
always get what I want. As for many others, this was a fundamental, if
often frustrating, aspect of childhood. Another similarly vital, albeit
contradictory childhood lesson, is that if we put our minds to it, we
can achieve anything.

So too, in the Israeli-Palestinian arena—which has just witnessed what
may be Israel’s largest counterterror operation in the West Bank in 20
years—do we endlessly repeat the slogan that bringing both sides
together for negotiations will lead to a solution.

But despite reinforcing this adage from our youth, and despite
decades-long efforts by world leaders, a viable solution remains
elusive. So, perhaps it’s time we ask ourselves an uncomfortable
question: What if Israeli-Palestinian peace is impossible?

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Since the breakthroughs of the 1993 and 1995 Oslo Accords—aimed at
ending the conflict through a two-state solution—negotiations between
various Palestinian and Israeli administrations have proved futile.
Notwithstanding major positive changes since—namely the normalization of
relations between Israel and numerous Arab nations—encouraging
developments on the Israeli-Palestinian front remain few and far between.

The conflict, and debate surrounding it, have thus entered paralysis,
with no clear path forward. As a result, alternatives to the comatose
two-state solution are being proposed, such as a one-state solution or
confederation.

Tragically, all proposed solutions are met with skepticism from locals,
according to a recent joint survey by Tel Aviv University and the
Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research. While the two-state
solution received “the lowest level of support… among Palestinians,
Israeli Jews, and all Israelis” since the joint polls began in 2016,
support for a one-state solution or confederation was even lower.
Overall, “trust is declining to new low points,” the report noted,
finding that “86 percent of Palestinians and 85 percent of Israeli Jews
believe the other side is not trustworthy.”

But for argument’s sake, let’s explore the possibility that both sides
enter negotiations in good faith. What obstacles will they encounter?

Israel, for one, will likely face fierce opposition from within its
settler movement. As of January, there were over 500,000 Israelis living
in the West Bank; in 2019, dozens of Israeli lawmakers signed a petition
calling for the settling of 2 million Jews in West Bank communities.

If successful, such a move would kill the possibility of any future
Palestinian state—and peace along with it. And if Israel’s civil turmoil
during the 1990s peace process is any reliable indicator of future
events, withdrawing the number of settlers required to create a viable
Palestinian state in the West Bank may drag Israel to the brink of civil
war.

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But let’s now assume Israelis clean out their closet; they’re ready to
make any reasonable concessions for peace. What’s required of Palestinians?

One of the greatest Palestinian obstacles to peace is their claimed
“right of return.” Despite no basis in international law, the demand
remains for the return to Israel of millions of Palestinian descendants
of those who left or were expelled in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. This
is, however, a mere cover for overrunning Israel’s Jewish population,
ergo, no more Israel.

Another seemingly insurmountable barrier is Palestinian support for
terrorist groups. According to a December poll from the Palestinian
Center for Policy and Survey Research, Palestinian parliamentary
elections would see both Hamas and the more moderate Fatah (which
controls the Palestinian Authority) receive 34 percent of the vote. With
Hamas’ international designation as a terrorist organization—and a
founding charter that blames Jews for the French and Russian
revolutions, both world wars, and calls for their mass murder—Israelis,
unsurprisingly, see no partner for peace in a Palestinian national
movement in which Hamas wields such widespread support.

While there may be wholly different solutions yet to arise, these
seemingly irreparable issues would need to be resolved, never mind the
myriad other disagreements between Israelis and Palestinians.

It’s not simply a case of differing narratives but, rather, narratives
that leave no room for the other.

Be it the messianic drive for settlements, the obsessive dream of
flooding Israel with millions of Palestinian refugees, or any of the
numerous other disputes between the two peoples, such issues are
existential, not territorial, as Bren Carlill, author of The Challenges
of Resolving the Israeli–Palestinian Dispute: An Impossible Peace?,
argues in his book.

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A photograph of smoking rising from buildings in Jenin, West Bank after
Israeli forces conducted airstrikes and a raid on the city.
The Oslo Accords’ failure was a testament to that existential roadblock.
Despite years of peace negotiations, neither side was truly willing, nor
able, to make the necessary compromises.

And so, the conflict now exists in an endless loop of political
delegitimization and military confrontations. As long as this
intolerable continuum keeps up, negotiators will continue turning up
empty-handed.

Like millions of others, I long for the day when a Jewish and
Palestinian state live peacefully side-by-side. But what if it’s just a
fantasy? What if one day, as we did time and again throughout childhood,
we’re forced to confront the reality that we don’t always get what we
want? What if, after all these years, we’re forced to accept that a
peaceful resolution to the world’s most intractable conflict will always
remain a dream?

Josh Feldman
@joshrfeldman
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