Tensions between Israel and the Palestinian Authority are escalating rapidly. Meanwhile, international diplomacy has succumbed to peace process fatigue just when it is most needed.
Between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean a double crisis is emerging. Both Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) are facing internal challenges that have clouded their respective futures, and as tensions mount between them, they are getting closer to a final break.
Advertising
In Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu has returned to power by allying himself with far-right and ultra-Orthodox parties that are determined to change the very nature of Israel’s constitutional order. Among other things, the government is carrying out reforms that will politicize the judiciary and strip it of its most important powers, as well as threaten to eliminate any remaining possibility of achieving a sustainable two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian question.
Meanwhile, Israelis have taken to the streets en masse to protest against the government’s proposals. in a recent speech Unveiling his own “People’s Directive” to end the crisis, Israeli President Isaac Herzog warned that the risk of civil war cannot be ruled out. Within minutes of his own proposal being made public, the Netanyahu government had already refused. Barring a miracle, Israel will continue to plunge into the deepest internal political crisis since its founding. The nature of the Israeli state that will emerge from this situation is now an open question.
Gone are the Oslo Accords, which offered the hope of resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by establishing structures and pathways for a two-state solution. Fundamentalist forces on both sides have challenged this process from the beginning, but never before have they been so powerful. The gradual decline that has been taking place for many years is accelerating, erasing what was left of Oslo’s legacy. What remains today is little more than the rapidly crumbling ruins of what the Accords once established. Most Israelis no longer seem to care much about what happens in the occupied Palestinian territories, as long as their own security is guaranteed.
On the other side of the tall Israeli separation barrier walling off the West Bank, the PA is also in the throes of a legitimacy crisis, though perhaps less immediate than on the Israeli side. surveys Recent reports show that a large majority of Palestinians have lost faith in the PA and is in favor of abolishing it. The government of President Mahmoud Abbas has achieved neither peace nor prosperity. As Palestinians suffer the daily humiliations of the occupying regime and see illegal Israeli settlements encroach on their land, they seem increasingly willing to support those who want to take up arms.
These trends on both sides threaten to create a vicious cycle of violence and conflict that would be much worse than the occasional explosive outbursts over Gaza (which, unfortunately, have become more or less routine).
To make matters worse, there is palpable fatigue in international diplomacy over the so-called Middle East Peace Process. Many Arab countries have understandably turned the page, even developing their own political and economic relations with Israel. With Russia bombing the Ukrainian civilian population, the European Union is busy with other things; And even if it did not have a war on its borders, it is less internally united on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict than it has been in the past.
Similarly, while US President Joe Biden’s administration continues to express its support for a two-state solution, it has not backed down from any of the dangerous and illegal steps that the Donald Trump administration took when it reached out to Netanyahu and undermined the conditions to make a two-state solution possible. It is not difficult to understand why more Palestinians have succumbed to despair.
As we enter the season of Ramadan (March 22-April 20) and Passover (April 5-13), passions are bound to run even higher. At least 100 people have already been killed in various clashes in the West Bank so far this year, and civilians on both sides have been victims of terrorist attacks. Almost everyone expects the situation to go from bad to worse in the coming weeks and months.
The days of Oslo are long gone. The prospects for peace will not be revived without a fundamental reordering of issues one way or the other. The big question, therefore, is whether international diplomacy, dormant for years, can be reactivated. If this is not the case, a new outbreak of violence and possibly a protracted war will most likely take place.
© Project Syndicate, 2022.www.project-syndicate.org
