UNITED NATIONS : Resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is “key to sustainable peace in the Middle East”, says UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, maintaining that the lack of any progress only “furthers radicalization across the region ”The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which dates back to the mid-1940s, is one of the longest military confrontations defying a permanent solution – even as it continues to be on the agenda of the United Nations whose primary mandate is the maintenance of international peace and security.
But regrettably there has been no peace nor security in the long-festering battle for a Palestinian homeland.
The multiple peace plans floating around Middle Eastern and Western capitals included a proposed “one-state solution”, a “two- state solution” and the 1993 “Oslo Accords”, a peace treaty based on UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 aimed at fulfilling the "right of the Palestinian people to self-determination".
But none of them really got off the ground.
Alon Ben-Meir, a retired professor of international relations at the Center for Global Affairs at New York University (NYU), has a new plan for an Israeli-Palestinian-Jordanian confederation.
In an interview with IPS, Dr Ben-Meir said after 73 years of conflict, regardless of the many changes on the ground, the political wind that swept the region, and the intermittent violence between Israel and Palestine, the Palestinians will not, under any circumstances give up on their aspiration for statehood.
“Ultimately, the creation of an independent Palestinian state that exists side-by-side with Israel remains the only viable option to end their conflict”, argued Dr Meir, who has taught courses on international negotiation and Middle Eastern studies for over 20 years.
“Given however the substantive irreversible fact that were created on the ground since 1967, an independent Palestinian state can peacefully coexist with Israel only through the establishment of an Israeli-Palestinian confederation that would subsequently be joined by Jordan,” he said.
Mahmoud Abbas, President of the S tate of Palestine, addresses the UN Security Council on the situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question. Credit: UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe
By definition, a confederation is a “voluntary associations of independent states that, to secure some common purpose, agree to certain limitations on their freedom of action and establish some joint machinery of consultation or deliberation” .
This is necessitated by the facts and the requirement that all sides will have to fully and permanently collaborate on many levels required by the changing conditions on the ground, most of which can no longer be restored to the status quo ante, he explained. --- (IPS)
