Panel Discussion Envisions Bleak Future for Palestine
Photo: A boy and a soldier in front of the West Bank Barrier
Justin McIntosh, August 2004
By: Daniel Gil/ Contributing Writer
The future of Palestine appeared grim Tuesday morning at a panel discussion held by the Arab Center for Washington D.C.
The event, which was titled What is next for Palestine and the Palestinians? was the topic which Arab World experts and intellectuals debated on the 50th anniversary of the Six Day War between Israel and surrounding Arab states. However, despite the reflective nature of the day, audience members walked away without a definitive answer to the question, and instead, with the notion that the future for Palestine is unclear and likely doesn’t bode well for Palestinians in the short term.
“It is a unique situation in history which changes so dramatically and quickly that we must react to it extremely fluidly,” said Nadia Hijab, the executive director and founder of Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network and member of the panel.
“The current situation between Israel and Palestine is not sustainable… There is no clear answer on what is next for Palestine and its people however, the short term appears very grim because of Israel’s laws, the colonizing of the West Bank, and the siege of the Gaza Strip.”
Marking the beginning of the 50th anniversary of the beginning of Israeli occupation, Human Rights Watch reported in a Sunday article that Israel “controls these areas through repression, institutionalized discrimination, and systematic abuses of the Palestinian population’s rights…”
In the same article, HRW outlined a slew of human rights violations committed by both Israel and armed Palestinian groups over the past 50 years, which has perpetuated the state of conflict and have defined relations between Israel and Palestine in recent years.
From right to left: Yousef Munayyer (moderator), Nadia Hijab (panelist), William Quandt (panelist), Virginia Tilley (panelist), Khaled Elgindy (panelist), Khalil Jahshan (Executive Director of ACW)
According to Virginia Tilley, a professor of Political Science at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale and member of the panel, this is because “Israeli policy towards Palestinians perpetuates Israeli dominance over Palestine through systematic oppression.” She believes Israel’s current policy will sustain the conflict rather than allow for a solution to it.
Israel has shown it is perfectly content propping up the status quo, expanding settlements in disputed territory and cracking down on Palestinians living in Israel. The United States, which has historically been one of Israel’s major allies has little reason to place pressure on Israel especially given its vested interest in democratizing the Middle East and maintaining regional stability since the Arab Spring in 2011.
“We must fundamentally reassess the way we approach the conflict,” said Tilley “So that we can solve it,” she continued.
The idea that the conflict must be approached differently was a major theme of the discussion. The panelists proposed and picked apart hybrids of a single state as well as a confederation of Israel and Palestine, a far cry from historical remedies for the situation which relied on separating them entirely.
The two state solution to the conflict, which has become the classic response to the issue, was debated heavily by Tilley and the rest of the panel who believed its implementation would likely result in a situation akin to South African apartheid. Tilley was convinced a one state solution is better for the “peoplehood of Palestinians and Israelis” considering each group’s strong desire for unilateral and international recognition, as well as national sovereignty.
“A two state solution would preserve apartheid in one of two states… in order for its sustainable implementation, economic union would be essential for both states,” said Tilley, an idea which Israel hasn’t tolerated in recent years considering its desire for closed borders with a hypothetical Palestinian state.
Tilley’s sentiment was echoed by other members of the panel such as Khaled Elgindy, a fellow in the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution who declared, “we need a paradigm shift” and the classic two state framework policymakers have used for years, “is most likely dead.”
Elgindy believes this shift must come about within Palestine itself because of Israel’s settlement building in the West Bank, which has increased exponentially over the past decade, and also because of international and American complacency towards the occupation.
“The Palestinian people need new legitimate leadership which is representative and effective,” said Elgindy, something much easier said than done.
Tilley followed up by stating that Israel makes the two state option almost impossible because it has historically limited Palestine’s ability to govern itself.
William B. Qunadt, who served as a staff member on the National Security Council in the 1970’s and was active in the negotiations which led to the Camp David Accords in 1978, agreed with Elgindy and also stated that Palestine shouldn’t rely on help from the Trump administration.
“[Trump and his administration] is not a president or a cabinet thinking in large analytical strategic ways about the world,” he said. “Today the United States would need a huge amount of political capital to effect any change in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”
Despite the depressing nature of the discussion, it did end on some cause for hope in that the panel believed in the ability for future policymakers to work successfully with Israel and Palestine to seek peace.
“We have hope in a new generation of thinkers,” Tilley chimed at the discussion’s end.