President-elect Donald Trump has lost no time in stressing his desire to end the Arab-Jewish conflict which has seen many proposals in the last 100 years fall by the wayside as a result of unrelenting Arab rejection to any Jewish State in former Palestine.
The first such proposal came in 1922 when Great Britain went back on its promise made to the Jewish people in 1920 at both the San Remo Conference and the Treaty of Sevres – by restricting the reconstitution of the Jewish National Home in only 22% of the territory of Palestine covered by the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine (“Brexit 1922”).
The Jews reluctantly accepted this proposal but the Arabs were not prepared to accept self-determination in only 78% of Palestine – today called Jordan. They wanted the remaining 22% – today called Israel, Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) Jerusalem and Gaza – and have maintained this position until today.
Proposals to end the conflict recommended by:
- the 1937 Peel Commission,
- the 1947 United Nations Partition Resolution,
- the 1993 Oslo Accords,
- the 2002 Bush Roadmap and
- Israeli offers in 2000/1 and 2008
have been consigned to the dustbin of history.
For President-elect Trump – resolving this conflict becomes the ultimate deal maker’s challenge to accomplish.
Trump lost no time in making his intentions very clear – just three days after his stunning Presidential victory:
As a deal maker, I’d like to do… the deal that can’t be made. And do it for humanity’s sake.
To understand how Trump might pull off this deal one need look no further than the views of John Bolton – a controversial front runner with Rudy Giuliani to be Trump’s Secretary of State.
In an op-ed piece in the Washington Times on 16 April 2014 Bolton presciently wrote:
“Instead of pursuing the misguided notion of “two states,” U.S. policymakers should instead ask what other solutions are possible that would provide Palestinians with personal dignity and security, economic growth and the prospect of living under a responsible, responsive government.
Concededly, there is no perfect alternative, but the most attractive prospect is to attach the disparate Palestinian communities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to their neighboring contiguous Arab states, Jordan and Egypt, respectively. We might call this a “three-state solution.”After the late 1940s collapse of the League of Nations’ Middle East mandates, Jordan successfully governed the West Bank until the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. Today, Israel, Jordan and Palestinians should draw new West Bank boundaries embodying Security Council Resolution 242’s “land for peace” formula.
Jordan could, with relative ease, resume sovereignty over those portions of the West Bank not incorporated into Israel”
Jordan – part of the problem – must undoubtedly become part of the solution.
Bolton however conceded:
Gaza is a harder problem, but incorporating it into Egypt is clearly a better solution than allowing it to remain the headquarters for Hamas and other terrorist groups.
An easier solution could see Gaza connected to the West Bank by an overhead expressway or underground road containing adequate security safeguards.
Trump possesses the firepower to broker a successful deal by:
- offering continued – and perhaps increased – funding to Egypt and Jordan and
- providing guarantees to defend Egypt and Jordan’s territorial integrity against Islamic State and others who might seek to intimidate and undermine their sovereignty.
Trump can indeed drain the swamp of Arab hatred and rejectionism and succeed where so many others have failed.
Brexit 2016 was the precursor to Trump’s Presidential triumph.
Brexit 1922 can serve as the foundation for Trump to pull off the deal of the century.
This article by David Singer appeared in On Line Opinion.