The solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

On Thursday, Palestinian and Israeli leaders sat down to peace talks for the first time in two years.

Many believe they are doomed to fail, and perhaps they are. But it’s not because the solution is difficult.

Effectively there are eight issues to be resolved, and a reasonable solution to each is largely already known.

The borders of the country of Palestine

The main aim of the Palestinian people is the creation of their own country on the land that was controlled by Egypt and Jordan on their behalf before Israel captured it in the 1967 Six-day War.

This land is Gaza and the West Bank, known as the ‘1967 borders’, and it belongs to the Palestinians under international law.

The Israeli government has indicated in the past that it accepts these borders, perhaps less a few square kilometres of land in the West Bank to be exchanged for Israeli land.

As well as these borders, a 45km checkpoint-free road linking the two territories must also be established.

The city of Jerusalem

As Jerusalem is sacred to both the Jewish and Muslim faiths, the city was split into two by the United Nations – West Jerusalem for Israel and East Jerusalem for the Palestinians.

The Palestinians want East Jerusalem to be their capital, but Israelis claim the entire city is too special to the Jewish people to give back.

However, with the Al-Asqua mosque in East Jerusalem being the third holiest site in Islam, the Palestinians also have a moral claim, as well as a legal one.

The settlements

There are currently 500,000 Israelis living in illegal settlements (towns) created in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Right now there is a temporary Israeli ban on new settlement building but this runs out at the end of September.

There is huge pressure within Israel to continue building but the Palestinians say they won’t negotiate if the ban isn’t extended.

Many Palestinians have accepted that some of the settlement areas may have to remain with Israel in exchange for an equivalent chunk of Israeli land.

However, the vast majority of settlements will realistically have to be handed over to the Palestinians along with the land they sit on.

Water

This is a low-profile but nevertheless extremely important issue in the overall solution to the conflict. After all, it was water rights that the 1967 war was fought over in the first place.

Israel is a dry place and the West Bank has a large underground water aquifer which supplies Israel with a considerably larger portion of water than the Palestinians.

For any peace to be achieved, Israelis will have to sacrifice some of their preferential water rights and pricing for the sake of a fair and equitable distribution of water – the region’s truly scarce resource.

Palestinian refugees

The haziest issue is that of the Palestinian refugees – the million or so people who lost their homes and livelihoods without compensation during the 1948 and 1967 wars with Israel.

There are now over four million refugees and their descendants living in Jordan or as second-class citizens in refugee camps elsewhere in the region.

The Arab peace initiative suggests a “just settlement” to this issue, based on the UN Resolution 194 which calls for refugees to be allowed to return to their homelands if they wish, or financially compensated if they don’t.

Whatever the “just settlement” ends up being, the international community and particularly wealthy Arab nations should help to pay for any relocation and compensation promised in the final agreement.

Palestinian prisoners

Israel currently holds over 7,000 Palestinian prisoners.

If they are to be returned, the selections must be based on merit, not on which Palestinian political party the prisoner is affiliated with (Fatah prisoners are currently getting priority over Hamas prisoners in negotiations).

In return, the Palestinians must give back Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit who was captured in 2006 in a cross-border raid.

Recognising Israel’s right to exist

The Palestinian political party Hamas has yet to officially recognised Israel’s right to exist; its charter calls for the removal of Israel completely.

However, the party maintains it is pragmatic and realistic about this issue, and says its charter is outdated and rarely used.

Whatever the case may be, they and the other Palestinian party Fatah need to officially acknowledged Israel’s right to exist as part of a final peace deal, as do all Arab countries in the region.

Israel’s security

Israel’s security is at the heart of the peace deal.

Once control of Gaza and the West Bank is handed over to the Palestinians, all reasonable steps must be taken by the new Palestinian authorities to stop any violence towards Israelis.

The fine details of how this will be achieved will be a matter for negotiation.

But both sides need to acknowledge that no matter what the safety precautions are, it’s impossible to prevent random attacks from determined individuals.

Therefore, such attacks should not compromise the bigger efforts at carrying out a fair agreement.

Whether this widely accepted solution can be implemented though is at the mercy of petty politics. And that’s another story altogether.

By The Casual Truth

Photo – A Palestinian mother and child at an Israeli checkpoint.