- The split between Gaza Strip, controlled by Hamas, and the West Bank, controlled by the PLO and the weakness of the PLO that has diminishing support among Palestinians.
- The significant ability of extremists, on both sides, to put obstacles to peace through continued acts of violence and terror and provocations that cause progress toward peace to stall. On the Palestinian side, this includes Hamas and other extremist organizations, possibly Hezbullah, and possibly Iran, Syria and other rejectionists country. Each player can veto progress, and it is hard, if not impossible, to make progress simultaneously with all the main players. On the Israeli side this includes the extremist settlers that are increasingly performing pogroms against Palestinians and people like the murderer of Rabin.
- The inherent difficulty of achieving a compromise that will be far from the expectations of both sides.
- Jerusalem
The compromise that has been almost achieved in the aftermath of the Oslo process, and could be achieved again, would involve (according to Olmert) the creation of a Palestinian state based on the 1949-1967 armistice line, with possible exchange of territories to ensure that heavily populated Jewish settlements and neighborhoods established beyond the Green Line stay within Israel. This includes, in particular, the heavily populated Jewish suburbs North, East and South of Jerusalem. While Palestinians would not return to the territory of Israel, their symbolic right to do so would be recognized in some fashion.
Suppose we get there -- not easy task on itself -- what next?
We have created a Palestinian state with two unconnected pieces of territory: the Gaza strip and the West Bank. Historical experience is not too encouraging for such arrangements: see Pakistan and Danzig.
We have created a state that is weak and corrupt (as it already is, now); the Palestinian state will be riddled with irredentists that are not willing to accept the compromise, are not willing to accept the continued existence of the state of Israel and, in particular, are not willing to accept Jewish sovereignty in the heart of Jerusalem. They will have the means to continue with terror operations.
We have created a state that continues to be economically dependent on Israel and strongly integrated with the Israeli economy, if normal economic relations are established between the two states, or poor and hostile to Israel, otherwise, as disputes over water and other shared resources will continue.
We still have Israeli Arabs that are 20% of Israel's population being disenfranchised by the large socio-economic gap between them and the Jewish population and by the inherent discrimination of their citizenship in a state that defines itself as Jewish.
We still have religious or nationalist zealots on both sides that will refuse to accept the compromise of two states for a long time.
Geography implies that it is not practical to erect high walls and separate Israel from Palestine; such walls would cut the Gaza strip from the West Bank, and would largely cut the North of the West Bank form the South of the West Bank; they would cut hills where rain falls from the valleys that are irrigated by that water. Palestine can thrive only through a strong economic integration with Israel. The large Arab minority in Israel will be a further motivation for strong ties between Israel and Palestine.
Israel cannot continue, in the long run, to be a modern, secular, democratic country and continue having laws that implicitly discriminate against its Arab citizens, such as the Law of Return; Israel is bound to become, over time, the country of the citizens of Israel, not the country of the Jewish people, whether in Israel or in the US. Israel and Palestine can be at peace with each other only if they are secular states and the voice of nationalism is muted in both. Two such states with strong social and economic ties will become increasingly integrated: Jews will want to live in the West Bank; Palestinians will want to live in Israel and marry Israeli Arabs, if not Israeli Jews.
Such an integration may not mean one state; people have dreamt of a Middle-East Union, patterned after the European Union. But it will mean that that the negative view of peace that inspires many Israeli and Palestinians will not come to be: For many Israeli, a peace means having the Palestinians behind walls and forgetting about them and their problems. Likewise, for many Palestinians peace merely means not having anymore Israeli soldiers and settlers in their hair. But such a minimalist, negative view of peace cannot suffice, in the long term. A positive peace will be much harder to achieve and will take much longer to achieve -- most likely multiple generations. But it is important to understand that the current effort to achieve a two-state solution in the Middle-East is not the end, but just the beginning of the end. A true peace, a stable situation in the Middle-East, will require profound changes in both Israel and Palestine.
There could be, in principle, an alternative solution: the Gaza Strip joining Egypt, and the West Bank joining Jordany. This is where we would be now, without the six-day war. There is some logic in such an evolution: It avoids the problem of a split Palestinian country; most of the citizens of Jordany are Palestinians and there are still many ties between the West Bank and Jordany; West Bank + Jordany (the pre-67 Jordany) is a much more viable country than either alone from a geographic and economic view-point. But there are many obstacles to such an evolution: Palestinians, especially in the Gaza Strip, will oppose it. Egypt will oppose it, as long as it is opposed to the Muslim Brotherhood and Gaza is controlled by Hamas. A union of Jordany and the West Bank will probably mean a toppling of the Hashemite Kingdom. This alternative is unlikely; but then any alternative to the continuation of the conflict is unlikely.
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