Summary and Conclusions

This chapter begins with extended summary of the main arguments of this book, especially that Israel has missed or refused a number of opportunities to settle the Arab-Israeli conflict. Almost all the wars could have been avoided if Israel had agreed to fair compromises. The second half of this chapter examines possible solutions to the conflict, arguing that the standard two-state solution is dead. Various proposed alternatives, such as a binational single Israeli-Palestine state, are either impractical or undesirable. A mini-Palestinian state is proposed—a “Luxembourg solution”—and the reasons that it could prove acceptable to both sides are examined. If Israel refuses, the United States should employ both pressures and incentives to overcome its opposition. The national interest of the United States in the Middle East is reviewed, in the past and today. The pros and cons of offering Israel a formal mutual defense treaty in the context of a political settlement with the Palestinians are explored.

Peace with Egypt and Jordan

From 1947 onward, Egypt sought to avoid wars with Israel. Many compromise peace offers were rejected by Israel, mainly because of its expansionist objectives in Egyptian-held territory in the Negev, Gaza, and the Sinai peninsula. Had Israel accepted the Egyptian overtures, almost certainly the 1948, 1956, 1967, and 1973 wars would have been averted. The Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty of 1979, which has held up ever since, was made possible when Israel agreed to withdraw all Egyptian territory it had conquered in the 1967 and 1973 wars. Similarly, from 1947 onward Jordan sought to avoid war with Israel, and after 1967, King Hussein offered to reach a formal peace treaty, provided Israel return the West Bank which it had conquered in the 1967 war. Israel refused, but in the early1990s, Hussein decided to renounce Jordanian sovereignty over the West Bank, resulting in the Israeli-Jordanian peace treaty of 1994.

The Rise and Fall of the Peace Process, 1975–99

A number of international and US efforts to bring about an Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement were undertaken between 1975 and 2000, but all failed, largely though not entirely because Israeli intransigence. Rejectionism and continuing settlement expansion in the West Bank and Jerusalem led to the first Palestinian intifada (uprising). The most important and initially hopeful peace effort was the 1993 Oslo Accords, negotiated by Palestinian and Israel doves. On paper, Oslo established a number of “principles” that would govern a peace settlement, which would be negotiated in the next five years. However, Oslo ultimately failed and no peace settlement was reached, largely because the Israeli governments of Rabin, Peres, and Netanyahu continued to resist a two-state settlement and extremists on both sides turned to violence and terrorism.

The Lebanon Wars

From the onset of the Arab-Israeli conflict, the major Israeli leaders looked for opportunities to invade and annex southern Lebanon and install a friendly Christian and anti-PLO government in the rest of the country, working closely with Israel in its conflict with the Palestinians and other Islamic organizations. After the PLO established its main bases and headquarters in the region, there were a series of Israeli-PLO-Hezbollah cross-border attacks, culminating in the 1978, 1982, 1993, 1996, and 2006 wars. Although Israel “won” the wars and the PLO was expelled from Lebanon, Hezbollah recovered and grew stronger after each one. It now has an estimated 130,000 rockets and missiles and can hit almost every part of Israel in case of new wars. As a result, since 2006 a state of acknowledged mutual deterrence and an uneasy peace has emerged between Israel and Hezbollah, except for Israeli attacks on Hezbollah forces cooperating with Iran in the Syrian civil war.

The Cold War and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1967–74

During the Cold War, the Arab-Israeli conflict became entangled in the global rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union. American policymakers, particularly Henry Kissinger, believed that the Soviets wanted to exploit the Arab-Israeli conflict to drive the West from the Middle East and dominate the region. To prevent that, the Nixon administration sought to end Soviet influence there and exclude it from all efforts to reach a negotiated settlement. However, the American view was based on misperceptions about Soviet interests and objectives in the region. In fact, fearing American dominance and a war with the United States, the Soviets proposed a joint superpower-guaranteed or even imposed comprehensive peace settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Because the United States spurned these proposals, the Cold War was exacerbated, there were several near-confrontations between the superpowers, and important opportunities to reach a comprehensive settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict were permanently lost.

Zionism Reconsidered

In some ways, Zionism is legitimate and persuasive, but in other ways it has undermined the possibilities of Israeli peace with the Arab world. The argument that the history of murderous anti-Semitism, culminating in the Holocaust, justified the creation of a Jewish state, somewhere, was strong. However, the arguments that the Jews had an eternal right to Palestine were weak. The religious claim that God gave Palestine to the Jews is challenged by Christian and Islamic counterclaims. The argument that 2,000 years ago the Jews were predominant in Palestine until they were driven out by the Romans has long been shown by archaeologists and historians to have little foundation. Even if true, it would be irrelevant to establishing a convincing claim for exclusive Jewish sovereignty today. Likewise, the Balfour Declaration and the League of Nations Mandate to Britain, the basis for the Zionist claims based on modern history, were simply colonialist impositions.

The Peace Process

The last serious political negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians occurred between 2003 and 2008. The Road Map initiative of 2003 died because Sharon sabotaged it and the Bush administration abandoned it. Sharon’s intransigence also killed the Geneva Accords, a comprehensive two-state peace settlement negotiated between leading Israeli and Palestinian dovish political leaders. Similarly, the Arab Peace Initiative was ignored by Israel. However, the 2008 secret negotiations between Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert and PA president Mahmoud Abbas, apparently came close to success but died when Olmert was replaced by Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu had long history of opposing the creation of a Palestinian state. Although early in his presidency Obama had indicated support for a two-state settlement, he backed down when confronted with Netanyahu’s intransigence rather than risk a conflict not only with Israel but also with the US Congress and the Israeli lobby.

Israel, the “Siege of Gaza,” and Hamas, 2008–14

This chapter first discusses the conflicting interpretations of why Sharon withdrew the Israeli settlements from Gaza but continued the indirect occupation there. The economic siege of Gaza and the Israeli military attacks inflicted grave damage on the Gazan people. Four major Israeli military attacks on Gaza during the 2008–14 period are discussed. Hamas sought to maintain ceasefires and end Palestinian terror attacks on Israel, but it did not have total control over extremists. Israel knew leading Hamas officials not only wanted long-term truces with Israel but were moving toward acceptance of a two-state political settlement. The chapter concludes with an examination of whether Israel could justly claim it had the right to “defend itself” against Palestinian terrorism, so long as that terrorism was the consequence of the continuing Israel occupation and repression of the Palestinian people, and Israel had made nonterrorist armed resistance and even nonviolent resistance impossible.

Camp David, Taba, and the Clinton Parameters, 2000–2001

The most promising Israeli-Palestinian negotiations occurred in the 2000 Camp David and Taba conferences, presided over by Bill Clinton. According to the Israeli mythology, Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered the Palestinians an independent state in at least 95 percent of the occupied territories. However, Arafat and the PLO rejected the offer, and then launched a new violent and often terrorist intifada, demonstrating that they still sought to destroy Israel and take over all of historic Palestine. As with the many other mythologies in the Arab-Israeli conflict, this bears little resemblance to reality. In fact, Barak refused to withdraw the settlers, refused to give the Palestinians sovereignty over mosques in the Old City, refused to allow a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem, and refused to acknowledge any Israeli responsibility for the Nakba and the plight of the refugees. At the follow-up Taba conference, the Israeli delegation was more forthcoming on the central issues, but Barak disowned their concessions.

The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, 1917–88

The early history of the Zionist-Israeli conflict, from 1917 to the 1980s, is discussed. The early Zionist leaders recognized that the Palestinians had understandable reasons to resist Zionism but concluded that the need for a Jewish state outweighed the Palestinian case, leaving the Zionists no choice but to militarily defeat the Palestinians by the “iron wall” strategy. The Peel Commission and UN partition plans are explored, accepted by the Zionists only tactically until they were strong enough to expel most Palestinians from the land allotted to a Jewish state, so as to create an 80 percent Jewish majority. The rise of the PLO under Yasser Arafat is examined, along with its gradual transformation from an extremist terrorist group to its acceptance in 1988 and ever since as a proponent of a two-state compromise peace settlement. Israel’s refusal to reach such a settlement, especially before and after the 1948 and 1967 wars, is discussed.