The Death of the Two-State Paradigm

If there was any doubt about the moribund state of the two-state paradigm in Palestine, the unveiling of the White House’s peace plan last month has put that doubt to rest. The “deal of the century,” put together by Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt in close cooperation with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the American ambassador to Israel David Friedman, is not a peace plan but a “take it or leave it” fiat imposed on the Palestinians. The feeble and ailing Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was told in no uncertain terms by Kushner that it’s either Kushner’s way or the highway.

Kushner’s plan is widely interpreted outside Israel and The White House as a poor facsimile of the colonial plan almost a century ago to establish Western and Zionist hegemony over Palestine with no regard for the political and human rights of the native Palestinian population. The plan upends decades of diplomacy and legally rooted international support for two states in Palestine under UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338. The plan is stillborn now that the Arab League, made up mostly of “moderate” Arab leaders, has rejected it because “it does not meet the minimum rights and aspirations of the Palestinian people.”