Imposing a 'solution' on Palestinians isn't going to end the Middle East conflict with Israel

A Palestinian Authority policeman walks outside a police station adorned with a painting depicting late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, in the West Bank city of Hebron, earlier this month. AFP

One century ago, when Western European powers were planning to carve up the Mena region, the US attempted to convince them to take a different path. Supporting the belief that the peoples recently freed from colonial rule should have the right to self-determination, the US sent a commission of prominent Americans to survey Arab public opinion to discover what they did and did not want for their future.

The commission concluded that the overwhelming majority of Arabs rejected division or partition of their region, European mandates over them, and the establishment of a Zionist state in Palestine. What many hoped for was a unitary Arab state. The commission report also warned of conflict if the planned partition moved forward.

Britain’s Arthur Balfour rejected these findings, saying that the attitudes of the indigenous Arab population meant little to him, especially when weighed against the importance of the Zionist movement.

In the end, Balfour got his way, and the dire prediction of the US commission has been borne out. The Mena region was partitioned, and a mandate was established in Palestine, which the British used to foster Jewish immigration leading to the establishment of Israel.

Since then, Palestinians have been dispossessed, displaced and subjected to unceasing violence. Because they have resisted, the past century has been one continuous conflict culminating in the unfolding genocide in Gaza and crushing repression on the West Bank.

At present, the problem faced by the Palestinian people is that during the past three decades, they have lost even more control over the circumstances of their lives. Since signing the Oslo Accords, Israel has taken steps to make impossible the establishment of a unified Palestinian state in the territories it occupied in 1967.

The Israelis have severed what they call East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank, distorting its economy and forcing its population to become dependent on Israel for employment and services. In the West Bank, the Israelis followed a plan to expand settlements and use “Jewish only” roads, infrastructure, checkpoints and security zones to divide the Palestinian territory into small, controlled areas. Gaza has been de-developed and subjected to economic strangulation for decades. It, too, has been cut off from the rest of Palestine.

The dream of what had been hoped for after Oslo has been crushed.

Still, the western world pays little attention to the needs and aspirations of the Palestinian people. Instead, led by the US, plans are being put forward to govern the future of the Palestinians without the consent of the governed. What is being proposed is a Gaza ruled by a “reformed” Palestinian Authority, with security provided by an Arab-Islamic force, and nothing more than a commitment to negotiate a future two-state solution.

The proposal is a non-starter for two reasons.

Despite being designed to meet Israel’s needs, the terms of this “day after” concept has been rejected by Israelis. They refuse to leave Gaza or allow Palestinians to return to areas of Gaza from which they have been “cleansed”. The Israelis also reject the role of outside forces to provide security.

Further, they are refusing to entertain any discussion of a Palestinian state that involves connecting the divided Palestinian areas, especially if that includes ceding land, removing settlers, surrendering security control or expanding the role of the Palestinian Authority.

More importantly, the “day after” plans fail to take into account Palestinian views.

Instead of prioritising what Israel (or the US) wants or requires and imposing plans on the Palestinians to meet Israel’s security needs, a shift is needed to an approach that challenges those Israeli policies that have led to Palestinian displacement and anger; distorted Palestinian political and economic development; and made it impossible to build Palestinian institutions that can earn respect.

The place to start is to demand a ceasefire and end the crippling occupation. Palestinian views should be heard. The burden should be placed on Israel and its policies that created this mess and not on victims.

There are some encouraging signs that in recent years, public opinion in the US has been shifting in a more pro-Palestinian direction. Americans are more supportive of Palestinians, and more opposed to Israeli policies that violate Palestinian rights. They are receptive to changing policies that would help Palestinians.

However, this where the conversation gets stuck, precisely because there is no clear Palestinian vision for the future and no leadership that can articulate it.

With this in mind, a group of Palestinian entrepreneurs commissioned Zogby Research Services to measure the impact of Israeli policies in Gaza, the threats facing those on the West Bank, and to ask Palestinians what they identify as the best path forward to achieve their rights and peace.

What the poll, conducted in September, reveals is that despite the different circumstances that the Israelis have imposed on the Palestinians in each of the three regions under their control, there remains the common threads of identity, desire for freedom and unity that continues to bind them together. What they want is that the knee of the Israeli occupation be lifted off their backs so that they can finally have freedom and independence in land of their own.

Since they have lost faith, in varying degrees, with the performance of the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, they favour the following: holding a popular referendum to elect a new generation of leadership that can advance a new vision for Palestine; unifying the Palestinian ranks to create a functioning government that can earn respect and recognition; and continuing to hold Israel accountable for its crimes in international bodies.

Of course, all of this must be developed further, but it is the better path to take precisely because it recognises that instead of continuing to impose “solutions” on Palestinians, the place to begin is to ask them what they want, listen to what they say and then work to make their aspirations a reality.