The Palestinian issue is expected to command a more central role in the talks between Saudi Arabia and Israel on normalization, compared to earlier assessments or expectations by the Israeli government. Three main reasons account for this: the importance of the issue for Saudi Arabia as the leader of the Arab-Muslim world; the demands that the Biden administration is expected to present to Israel to preserve the two-state option; and the understanding by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas that he will gain more than he...
The proposed transfer of the Civil Administration and the Coordination of Government Operations in the Territories (COGAT) from the authority of the Minister of Defense to the authority of a minister from the Religious Zionist Party is intended, in the eyes of the incoming government, to correct the injustice to the settlement population and to implement the conditions for the application of Israeli law in the Jewish communities in the West Bank. Since 1967 Israel has refrained from declaring sovereignty over the West Bank...
The move away from the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, whether intentional or inadvertent, accelerates a trend of sliding toward a one-state reality. However, the assumption that after decades of conflict and bloodshed the two peoples can live together belies common sense. In the context of sliding toward one state, three scenarios, which can be dubbed “gray rhinos,” are galloping toward us, as we are ignore their dangerous approach: the creation of a mixed and intertwined way of life for Jews and Palestinians...
In recent years, there has been an increasing tendency to speak of the “demise of the two-state solution” and to replace it with one state from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River as a solution to the Israeli−Palestinian conflict. The proponents of the one-state model claim that the two states solution is no longer feasible, given that the Green Line has been blurred and Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) is connected to the State of Israel by extensive Israeli settlements and activity−both military and civilian.
Is the...
The “application of sovereignty” is a euphemism for the unilateral annexation of parts of the West Bank. This move would thoroughly upset the current state of affairs and change the rules of the game in the Israeli-Palestinian arena. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu believes that Israel is now presented with what is perhaps a one-time opportunity to change the reality in the conflict arena: “Until today, Israel has always been the one that had to concede, to give, to freeze, and to withdraw…Now President Trump has said that it is...
