Why the 2 state solution is Dead

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been going on for decades with numerous false starts for peace. With Europe not being a safe space for the Jewish community and Hitler's rise, the need for a new place for them to go was clear. The UK’s solution, in typical European fashion for the time, was to draw lines on a map with complete disregard for the situation on the ground and the people living there. The result is a decades-long war that has become very heated and contested. The initial solution to the problem set forth by the UK and the newly formed UN was a two-state solution. One for the people of Palestine who had already been living there for centuries and a state for Israel who claim to have a birthright to the land due to an initial large Jewish population around 2000 years ago. This plan has not been able to be fully implemented for several reasons. Now, with the recent bout of violence, the chance of reaching a two-state solution is dying. There are so many reasons as to why the plan is dying that the paper will not be able to do all factors justice. There are so many considerations, many of which directly conflict with a reasonable peace solution, that it may be nothing more than wilful ignorance or blind optimism to believe that there is still a chance that a two-state solution works. This paper will look at both the Palestinian and Israeli views of the conflict and discuss how historical events make a dignified and peaceful settlement of the conflict increasingly unlikely.

Keywords: Two state Solution, Israel, Palestine, UN, Jewish

Background Information

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is ongoing in the Middle East. It began in the mid-20th century and is one of the longest-ongoing conflicts in the world. Numerous attempts have been made to resolve the conflict, but none have borne the fruit of long-lasting peace. It began with the birth of major nationalist movements among the Jewish community in Europe due to rising Anti-semitism and Hitler. Alongside this was growing nationalism from the Arabs in the region who wanted independence from British rule. The Balfour Declaration was made in 1917 by the British Government and promised a "national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine. (Gelvin, 2014) A still major European Power had just promised the Zionist movement a homeland in the Middle East. “A British Mandate was created in 1923 and lasted until 1948. During that period, the British facilitated mass Jewish immigration – many of the new residents were fleeing Nazism in Europe – and they also faced protests and strikes”. (Staff, 2023) This was the trigger for mass immigration to Palestine by the Jewish community in Europe. Amid growing nationalism, Palestinians were alarmed by their country’s changing demographics and British confiscation of their lands to be handed over to Jewish settlers. The inevitable clash of these two movements led to sectarian clashes in Palestine in the 30s and 40s and would expand into a wider Arab-Israeli War. 

In 1936, the newly formed Arab national committee called for a protest against growing Jewish immigration and British colonialism which was brutally repressed by the British. One way of punishing protestors was punitive home demolitions which which the Israeli government still does to this day. (Staff, 2023) Widespread suppression of Palestinian rights would continue as more Jewish immigration happened. By the end of the initial Palestinian revolt, 30,000 Palestinians had either been killed, wounded or imprisoned (Staff, 2023)

By 1947, the Jewish population had grown to 33% of Palestine. (Staff, 2023). The UN, having taken over control from the British, adopted resolution 181 on November 29, 1947, suggesting the creation of 2 states. One would be arab and one Jewish. (Kamel 2022) This plan would give 56.47% of Palestinian land to the new Jewish state. It also created a “Special International Regime” under UN control for the city of Jerusalem. This plan provoked a lot of controversy with neither side particularly happy with it.

After its adoption, 450 Palestinian villages were razed by Israeli forces. (Kamel 2022). By the time the British Mandate expired on May 14th, 1948, Zionist militaries had begun an operation to destroy Palestinian villages to expand the borders of their state. This mass displacement of particularly Palestinians is known as the Nakba or Catastrophe in Arabic (Staff, 2023). The Zionist movement captured 78% of historic Palestine despite only 56% being given by the mandate they used to defend it. In total 750,000 Palestinians were forced out of their homes and “Today their descendants live as six million refugees in 58 squalid camps throughout Palestine and the neighbouring countries of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egypt.” (Staff, 2023). On May 15th, 1948, Israel announced itself on the world stage and war broke out the next day. It did not end until January 1949 after an armistice between surrounding Arab states and Israel.

 In 1964, the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) was formed, and a year later, the Fatah political party was established. The remaining Palestinians in Israel were under tightly controlled military occupation and it would take 20 years before they were granted Israeli citizenship. (Staff, 2023). On June 5, 1967, Israel took over the rest of Palestine, including the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, the Syrian Golan Heights and the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula during the Six-Day War. This led to a second forced displacement. Israel started settlement construction in the occupied territories and a two-tier system was created with Jewish settlers afforded all the rights and privileges as opposed to Palestinians who were second-class citizens and had to live under a military occupation that discriminated against them and barred many forms of expression (Staff 2023)

The first Intifada erupted in the Gaza Strip in December 1987 after 4 Palestinians died in a car crash involving an Israeli truck. Protests were widespread and established the Hamas movement that engaged in armed resistance against Israeli occupation. 

“The Israeli army’s heavy-handed response was encapsulated by the “Break their Bones”policy advocated by then-Defence Minister Yitzhak Rabin. It included summary killings, closures of universities, deportations of activists and destruction of homes…According to the Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem, 1,070 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces during the Intifada, including 237 children. More than 175,000 Palestinians were arrested.” (Staff 2023). 

This wave of violence would only end with the Oslo Accords and the formation of the Palestinian authority in 1993. This group was given limited self-rule in the West Bank and Gaza and “effectively signed agreements that gave Israel control of 60 per cent of the West Bank, and much of the territory’s land and water resources.” (Staff 2023). The government was meant to be a precursor to a fully independent Palestine but critics of the PA view it as a corrupt subcontractor to the Israeli occupation that collaborates closely with the Israeli military in clamping down on dissent and political activism against Israel.” (Staff 2023) 

The second Intifada began on September 28, 2000, after an opposition leader in Israel made the provocative decision to enter the Al-Aqsa Mosque with thousands of security forces. Palestinians protested and the Israelis killed 5 Palestinians and injured 200. Israel proceeded to cause “unprecedented damage to the Palestinian economy and infrastructure.” (Staff 2023). The result was a reoccupation of land governed by the PA and 700,000 Israelis living on Palestinian land. 

After the 2nd intifada ended in 2005, Israeli settlements in Gaza were dismantled and the Israelis left the Gaza Strip. A year later, a general election was held, and Hamas won a majority which caused a civil war between Fatah and Hamas. After Hamas won, they expelled Fatah from Gaza, and Fatah resumed control of parts of the West Bank. Due to Hamas’s rule, Israel imposed a land, air and naval blockade on Gaza. Israel has made several drawn-out military assaults on Gaza in 2008, 2012, 2014, and 2021. The result of which is that was: 

 “Thousands of Palestinians have been killed, including many children, and tens of thousands of homes, schools and office buildings have been destroyed… The 2008 assault involved the use of internationally banned weaponry, such as phosphorus gas… In 2014, over a span of 50 days, Israel killed more than 2,100 Palestinians, including 1,462 civilians and close to 500 children… During the assault, called Operation Protective Edge by the Israelis, about 11,000 Palestinians were wounded, 20,000 homes were destroyed, and half a million people displaced.” (Staff 2023). 

The siege has made it next to impossible due to a lack of construction materials allowed in Gaza keeping the strip in a constant and increasing state of disrepair. This eventually led to the events in October 2023 where Hamas killed over a thousand Israelis and kidnapped hundreds more. Israel proceeded to declare war on Hamas and intended to “eradicate” them. They have “used 6,000 bombs in the first six days of the conflict, more than the US used in a year during its operations in Afghanistan and double what the US-led coalition used against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria in a month. (Ganguly et al, 2023)

Palestinian View

The Palestinian struggle has become a point of international concern as of late. This is due to the Israeli response to the October 7th attack that killed over 1000 people. While the actions of Hamas are undeniably wrong, the retaliation of Israel is been disproportionate and a cause of concern. There have been calls for a humanitarian pause and calls for negotiations for a 2-state solution from leaders such as Joe Biden (Kinery, 2023). These are misguided and naïve. The fact of the matter is that too much has happened for there to be a long-lasting peace that can be reached. When considering deep-seated mistrust and popular opinion, and Hamas as a political entity it is truly hard to see a realistic path towards the 2-state solution so many hope to achieve.

Deep-Seeded Mistrust and Public Opinion

Considering the complex nature of the issue, this is fully foreseeable. This conflict has been going on for decades and involves religious, geopolitical and nationalistic concerns intertwined together so deeply that it would be naïve to suggest tackling them separately. There is a lot of resentment about what Israel has done over the last decades and the land they have taken along with it. Public opinion is not on the side of a 2-state solution anymore. “A survey taken before the latest outbreak of fighting by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy found that 60 percent of Palestinians say the goal of their national movement should be "to work toward reclaiming all of historic Palestine from the river to the sea” (Yglesias, 2023). Palestinians don’t want a 2-state solution anymore or at the very least don’t believe it can happen anymore. A study by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research found that while “The two-state solution remains the one with the largest percentage of support compared to other solutions, including that of the one-state solution in which the two sides, Palestinians and Israeli Jews, enjoy equal rights; support for the one-state solution is higher than one quarter and less than one third…The majority is still opposed to the two-state solution.” (Public opinion poll no (82), 2023). This isn’t due to anti-semitism like idiots on social media such as Ben Shapiro would claim. Its due to long standing indignities and dangerous rhetoric about the plight of the Palestinian people. For example, Ben Shapiro has openly stated that the “only solution to the Israel-Gaza war is that Israel should annex Gaza and kill as many people so that what is happening does not happen again.” (Baragona, 2023) This rhetoric is dangerous and only serves to perpetuate the violence and anger. This is utterly despicable language but is to be expected from someone who has made a livelihood of provoking anger. Regarding the Israeli Government, they have had a blockade on the Gaza Strip ever since Hamas won the election. They have oppressive restrictions on what and who can enter or leave the strip in the name of Israeli national security. This has turned the Gaza Strip into an open-air prison. Reuters (2023) reported A United Nations expert on Tuesday said Israel had transformed the occupied Palestinian territories into an "open-air prison" through widespread detentions of Palestinians.” Human Rights Watch (2022) has stated that “Israel’s sweeping restrictions on leaving Gaza deprive its more than two million residents of opportunities to better their lives.” This has turned the Gaza Strip into an open-air prison. The Israeli government is perpetuating oppression that makes positive sentiments about Israel hard to come to fruition. At every turn, Palestinians are dealing with the realities imposed on them by the Israeli occupation.

“Israel’s closure policy blocks most Gaza residents from going to the West Bank, preventing professionals, artists, athletes, students, and others from pursuing opportunities within Palestine and from travelling abroad via Israel, restricting their rights to work and an education…Israel also prevents Palestinian authorities from operating an airport or seaport in Gaza. Israeli authorities also sharply restrict the entry and exit of goods. (Human Rights Watch 2022)

These indignities by people they would most likely consider invaders or colonisers make it hard to be amicable with the Israeli side of the issue. This is what enabled Hamas to be elected in the Gaza Strip which will be discussed in its portion of the paper due to its significance. Francesca Albanese, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on human rights in the occupied territories stated that:

“There is no other way to define the regime that Israel has imposed on the Palestinians - which is apartheid by default --other than an open-air prison. By deeming all Palestinians as a potential security threat, Israel is blurring the line between its own security and the security of its annexation plan ... Palestinians are presumed guilty without evidence, arrested without warrants, detained without charge or trial very often, and brutalised in Israeli custody.” 

This is frankly unacceptable from a country that claims to be seeking peace and Palestinians can see that daily. As long as Israel continues to perpetuate indignities and oppression of the Palestinians in the region, it is hard to see how public opinion would change on a 2-state solution and the Israeli government.

Hamas as a Political Entity

Hamas is a controversial figure for several reasons on both sides of the issue. Hamas is an Islamist Militant movement that operates in the Gaza Strip. It has been designated a terrorist organization by the US and EU. This is due to its regular use of violence in its goals. It is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood also an Islamist militant group in Egypt. (Robinson, 2023) It won an election in 2006 to gain control of Gaza. The fact that it was elected democratically is often used as a talking point to suggest that Palestinians necessarily endorse its militant actions or all of its goals. But that’s not true. The Palestinians had been suffering through various indignities for years and the ineffectiveness of the Palestinian Authority gave rise to Hamas. "Critics of the PA view it as a corrupt subcontractor to the Israeli occupation that collaborates closely with the Israeli military in clamping down on dissent and political activism against Israel” (Staff, 2023) So, when Hamas positioned itself as the alternative and showed it was willing to take action (however distasteful), it was seen as a risk they were willing to take. “It earned votes for the social services it provided and as a rejection of the incumbent Fatah, which many voters perceived as having grown corrupt at the helm of the PLO and delivering little to Palestinians through its negotiations with Israel.” (Robinson, 2023) Its election is a direct response to a lack of protection and function of the previous government. While Hamas is far from an egalitarian government, it was seen as a force able to provide for the needs of the Palestinians. However, it could be argued that the PA was destined to fail. They have never been given the ability to properly rule and provide for their people. Israel had maintained most of the control in the region, continues to do so in the West Bank, and gave limited power to the new government. “The PA has actively helped Israel to keep tight control over the Palestinian population. Many perceive the body as a tool of the Israeli security apparatus, its US-trained forces not only targeting those suspected of planning attacks on Israelis but also arresting union figures, journalists and critics on social media.” (Staff, 2023) This could never be the organization that Palestinians could fully get behind as it was seen as a smoke screen for Israeli oppression. “That’s partially by the design of Netanyahu, who has propped up Hamas at the expense of a unified Palestinian voice in peace talks. Something the Israelis could point to and claim to give Palestinians power and autonomy.” (Nahea, 2023. p 84) Then when this inevitably didn’t last, they could blame the lack of peace of the Palestinians as opposed to the harsh conditions that the PA enables. For Hamas to lose its mandate, Israel has to give the PA the ability to defend and fight for its people like a real government can and does. But Hamas’s violent behaviour is the reason it won't be given such legitimacy. This creates a real catch-22 in the peace process.

From the Palestinian perspective, 2 major issues need to be addressed before any real peace can be made. The indignities that they face on the daily need to stop unless anger and hatred continue to spread. This will also continue to impoverish the region in a way that it will struggle to get out of as its infrastructure continues to be bombed most recently in retaliation to the October 7th attack. Hamas also needs to be removed from power, not by Israeli military force but by removing its mandate to rule. This can only be done by giving the Palestinian population the respect and safety it deserves so that it no longer feels like Hamas is the ‘best of the worst’. The government of both Gaza and the West Bank needs to be able to protect and provide for its people and its territory unless it will always create space for anger and resentment to fuel Hamas’s violent ambitions.

Israeli Perspective 

Israel, as the dominant power in this conflict, has played a major role in this conflict's perpetuation. Their motives often conflict with long-lasting peace in ways that are in some cases easily avoidable. The history of the Jewish plight and the formation of the country plays a massive role in the way that Israel sees its place in the region. Many people conflate anti-semitism with anti-zionism which makes criticising the Israeli government and its actions a real challenge. Whether this is intentional or just an effect of the heated nature of the conflict is hard to determine. There are many reasons why the two-state solution is no longer feasible from the Israeli side including Israeli public opinion, illegal settlements in the West Bank and the proposed Palestinian statehood.

Israeli Public Opinion

Public opinion can go a long way in determining what a government does. While in the past, Israeli public opinion on a two-state solution was fairly positive. “There was a time when the majority Israeli population was in favour of making major territorial concessions to the Palestinians in exchange for peace… The more terrorism there is, the less support there is in Israel for a two-state solution.” (Thomsen, 2023). A recent Haaretz poll asked Israelis if they would support a two-state solution and only 31% said yes. (Yglesias 2023) As more terrorist actions happen, support on the Israeli left has dwindled and the Israeli right started to gain more traction. These are some people who have not wanted a two-state solution at all and have made political moves to make it harder to do so. “A succession of Israeli prime ministers from the right has sought consistently to ensure that no Palestinian state would eventuate” (Bowker, 2023). Nationalist and hardline religious parties have gained traction as more attacks happened stoking fear and anger in the Israeli public. The result of the October 7th attack is that voices arguing for Palestinian self-determination will be marginal to the mainstream of Israeli politics due to the seemingly evident notion that Palestinians don’t want peace. It is very easy to see the current state of Israeli politics is not conducive to a two-state solution as an Israeli minister claimed “there’s “no such thing” as a Palestinian people…There is no such thing as a Palestinian nation. There is no Palestinian history. There is no Palestinian language” (Kellman, 2023). This language serves nothing but to anger Palestinians and show how the government views the Palestinian nation. This comes as the government that came into power in early 2023 is being called “its most hard-line ever”. Netanyahu, the current prime minister of Israel, has even stated that “he would not permit a Palestinian state to be created under his watch if he is re-elected…Whoever moves to establish a Palestinian state or intends to withdraw from territory is simply yielding territory for radical Islamic terrorist attacks against Israel," (Lubell, 2015) This was stated shortly before he was reelected into office. This kind of rhetoric and its seeming support from the Israeli people is truly incompatible with a country that claims to want a 2-state solution. Public opinion simply is not on the side of a 2-state solution and the evidence is in their political systems and actions.

Illegal Settlements in the West Bank

When discussing a peace solution when it comes to borders, most revert to the 1967 borders as the division of land. This map is frankly outdated and fails to properly acknowledge the realities of the land today. Israel has been building settlements on land that was meant to be Palestinian. Israel annexed the whole city of Jerusalem as its capital in 1967 despite peace plans calling for a split into East and West Jerusalem. The settlements in the West Bank are an affront to any realistic 2 state solution. In the West Bank, the situation is dire as well. “Under Netanyahu’s far-right government, Israel has approved a record number of housing units in West Bank settlements” according to CNN. (Ebrahim and Salman 2023) The Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights has stated in a press release that “Israel’s continuous annexation of portions of the occupied Palestinian territory, now focusing on large swathes of the West Bank after unlawfully annexing east Jerusalem, suggests that a concrete effort may be under way to annex the entire occupied Palestinian territory in violation of international law,” (2023). The press release continued by saying that “In February 2023, Israel’s governing coalition transferred most of the governing powers over the West Bank to the additional minister of defence, effectively designating Bezalel Smotrich, a civilian official, as the de facto governor of the occupied West Bank.” This is egregious behaviour and is not in line with a claimed support of peace. This action is especially concerning when one looks at the history of Israel and the role that plays in decision-making. A nation's founding principles can have a massive impact on the nature of the country for generations to come. For example, the US and its Second Amendment have led to decades of ineffective and controversial gun control despite plenty of gun violence in the country. The same can be seen in Israel. The formation of the country is a result of centuries of oppression and being kicked around Europe due to anti-semitism. The events of the Holocaust and “Social and political developments in Europe convinced Jews they needed their own country, and their ancestral homeland seemed like the right place to establish it” (Beauchamp, 2018). This was meant to be a land where they could finally stay and not be pushed out by other groups. This is central to the national identity. Looking back to today, it is hard to see a realistic plan where the Israelis give up the significant land it has taken and put settlers on. It goes against the founding principles that created the country and Israel has already “cited several reasons for retaining the West Bank within its ambit: a claim based on the notion of historic rights to this as a homeland as claimed in the Balfour Declaration of 1917; security grounds, both internal and external; and the deep symbolic value for Jews of the area occupied” as stated by historian Brian Rathbun. (2014, p. 205) The more land that Israel takes from the Palestinians, the less land any potential peace plan with give them and therefore, the less likely there is to be a peace plan to is sustainable and fair to both parties.

Proposed Peace Plans

There have been multiple peace talks that have had various degrees of success. The Arab states and Palestinians have rejected all of them or an agreement hasn’t been able to be agreed upon. This is primarily due to the specific conditions of peace. As the dominant power in the region and with the support of the US, Israel has the better negotiating point. This means that the peace deals tend to largely benefit Israel and leave Palestine with increasingly less land. The land they are given is also the less desirable land while Israel is given more useful land. An article by Vox writer Nicole Narea (2023) goes over all the failed peace talks over the years and shows what the conditions of these peace deals entailed. In 1967, the first plan was made in the UN called Resolution 242. This plan called for arab states to “live in peace within secure and recognised boundaries free from threats or acts of force” and for Israel to withdraw from the territory it occupied after the 6-day war and to return to the pre-1967 borders. While Israel, Egypt and Jordan all accepted the resolution and Egypt and Jordan recognised Israel’s existence, Israel is yet to uphold its part of the deal. This would lead to the Yom Kippur War. Israel has resisted implementing it with Netanyahu calling this plan “Indefensible” in 2011. Most calls for peace are based on the territory lines from this plan. 

The Camp David Accords established a cold peace in 1978 between Israel and Egypt and had a major role in the trajectory of Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations. Israel and Egypt reiterated support for Palestinians to participate in future negotiations, “full autonomy” for people in the West Bank and Gaza, a provisional government in those territories supported by Israeli security forces, and negotiations to determine Palestinians’ final status within five years.” (p.17) Israel once again failed to hold up its end of the bargain as “The five-year deadline for beginning to grant Palestinian people autonomy within the West Bank and Gaza came and went, and Israeli settlements in the occupied territories ballooned.” (Narea, 2023 p.19) President Carter writes in his 2006 book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid that by “remov[ing] Egypt’s considerable strength from the military equation of the Middle East,” Israel “permitted itself renewed freedom to pursue the goals of a fervent and dedicated minority of its citizens to confiscate, settle, and fortify the occupied territories.” Israel had once again not lived up to its agreement and lied to gain an upper hand in the geopolitical arena.

 In 1987, the PLO recognised Israel’s right to exist which allowed it to take a more active role in determining the fate of Palestine. 

 In 1991, the Madrid Conference was held to create a new framework for peace. This led to no formal agreements but “hope generated in Madrid laid the groundwork for the first breakthrough in decades” (p. 30). The year 1993 had the breakthrough that set the peace process for the upcoming decades. On the back of international pressure after violent clampdowns of the Intifada, Israel and Palestine held secret talks with Norway mediating. The deal allowed Palestinians to self-govern the West Bank and Gaza and for Israel to remove its military from Palestinian land. But there were issues. There was no timeline for when Israel would leave Palestinian territory and gave Israel jurisdiction over their settlements in the occupied territories. This did not do much more than relieve Israel of “formal responsibility for the living conditions and welfare of the territories’ rapidly increasing population, still completely dominated by Israeli forces,” (p. 36). It did however set a timeline of 5 years for issues such as the Palestinian state and its borders, whether Palestinian refugees had a right to return to Israel and Jerusalem. At this point, however, it has become abundantly clear while Palestine was willing to compromise in its search for peace, Israel was much less willing.

Oslo II happened in 1995 and built on the work of the first agreement. This would divide the West Bank into 3 Zones. These were meant to be the land that the Palestinian state would be in. The newly created Palestinian Authority was given full control over Area A. Area B was a mixed control between the two parties. Area C, where the Israeli settlements were, was under Israeli control. The Israelis did however agree to withdraw from most of Gaza. The agreement also had Israel withdrawing from Areas A and B in 3 months after signing the agreement and would “negotiate further withdrawals in the five-year interim period established in the first Oslo agreement.” (p. 40). Both Oslo agreements were unpopular with radicals on both sides attempting to block it including Hamas attacks and an Israeli assassination of their prime minister for his effort. This turbulence would destabilise peace talks and lead to Netanyahu’s first government. This would mark the beginning of the end of the peace process despite multiple attempts for various reasons. 

 Various attempts would follow for the next almost 30 years with President Clinton’s attempt in 2000 which was rejected by the Palestinians due to its excessive concessions on land and right of return, the Arab Peace Initiative in 2002 which was rejected by the Israelis as they began to retaliate against the second Intifada, the 2003 Geneva Initiative which was also rejected by the Israelis, an UN-sponsored attempt in 2003 which failed to due to the Israeli demand that any agreement would bar any discussion about Israeli settlements in the West Bank. In 2005, Israel Unilaterally decided to leave the occupied territories. However, Israel maintained control of the airspace over Gaza. Israel also removed 8500 Israeli settlers who had resisted the plan and seated control of Gaza to the PA and they vacated 4 Israeli settlements in the West Bank. while this seems like a positive decision, the decision was “not meant to proceed a negotiated settlement of any kind but was meant to obviate the need for one.” (p 63) It was merely cutting their losses in terms of the Gaza Strip and focusing claiming on the rest of the Palestinian land. The election of Hamas in 2006 put an even bigger hamper on any peace negotiations with the US refusing to recognise the new government. An attempt at agreement was made between Hamas and Israel that included significant territorial concessions on the Israeli part, but the Palestinians believed that “the offer did not meet Palestinian aspirations for an independent and viable state.” (p. 69) Netanyahu soon be elected and reject the talks. President Obama tried in 2014 but that didn’t work and with the increase of Israeli settlements, it became increasingly clear that the 2-state solution was dying. The US secretary of state tried and made little ground with an initial agreement (meant to be a trust-building measure) being reneged on by Israel. President Trump also tried in 2020. This did nothing to help the situation but inflame tensions. He recognised the annexation of contested territory with Syria by Israel, upended decades of US policy and moved the American embassy to Jerusalem in 2018 (a move that went over poorly with Palestinians and will be very difficult politically to reverse), gave legitimacy to the Israeli settlement making the US become the first country and only country to do so. His peace plan was vehemently rejected by the Palestinians due to its vast annexations by Israel in the West Bank, full demilitarisation by Palestine, and no right to return for Palestinians, it also bizarrely recognised Jerusalem as both the capital of Palestine and the “undivided capital” of Israel. The logistics of his plan were truly poorly thought out and were a non-starter from the beginning with the Palestinians stating: “We say a thousand nos to the Deal of The Century,” (p. 81). Trump’s actions have undermined the ability of the US to credibly moderate peace. It is abundantly clear that there have been many attempts at peace between Israel and Palestine, but the fact of the matter is, Israel has been actively hampering any peace negotiations that give Palestinians a respectable and sovereign state. It has gone against agreed-upon principles of agreements, attempted to make agreements that were so far from respectable that no Palestinian president could accept them, and enabled the inability to come to one by continuing to create settlements in the West Bank further entrenching itself on Palestinian territory. This is not the behaviour of a government that wants peace that is both sustainable and equitable to both parties involved.

 To say that this situation is a convoluted matter is an understatement, but it has been made worse by several things done over the years that failed or have intentionally made it harder to achieve peace. The Palestinians are living in a situation of squalor and constant disrespect while the Israelis use the fact that they have been Palestinian resistance some of which may be on tasteful as an excuse to continually take Palestinian land and dehumanise Palestinian people. the result of this is one where there's such deep-seated hatred and even personal actions are unlikely that there will be peace anytime soon or ever.

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