Solving the Wrong Problem

Secretary Rice’s abject failure in Palestinian-Israeli diplomacy will become evident shortly. She forced a tactical agreement on Gaza border crossings that will collapse when terrorists take advantage of it, meaning she leaves the success of her venture in the hands of people with a vested interest in its dissolution. In the meantime, she appears not to have noticed that the problem she wants to solve – how to make two states live next to one another – is not the problem that one of her interlocutors has to solve.

Secretary Rice’s abject failure in Palestinian-Israeli diplomacy will become evident shortly. She forced a tactical agreement on Gaza border crossings that will collapse when terrorists take advantage of it, meaning she leaves the success of her venture in the hands of people with a vested interest in its dissolution. In the meantime, she appears not to have noticed that the problem she wants to solve – how to make two states live next to one another – is not the problem that one of her interlocutors has to solve. The administration has the “two-state solution” as its priority; Abu Mazen has a different one. His, like that of his late mentor, is to walk the line between Palestinians who are in their proper place and Palestinians who are not. A “two state solution” not only does not work for him, it forces him to deal with the dreaded (though imaginary) “right of return.”

There are actually four groups of Palestinians, two where they belong and two not.

Some Palestinians live on the actual land of their ancestors – the farms, villages and towns of their history.

They subdivide into those in Israel/Jordan* who are citizens of their respective countries and those in the disputed territories.

A two-state solution works only for those in the territories. They will have their political aspirations met while living in their “traditional” space. Those inside Israel or Jordan will be split emotionally between their loyalties to the land and their political identity.

Some Palestinians live outside their traditional space. They are the “refugees,” original and descended.

They subdivide into those in the territories and those outside. (There are 450,000 in Lebanon, 275,000 in Syria and uncounted hundreds of thousands in Jordan; there are none in Israel.)

Under a “two state solution” there will be no wholesale “return” to places under Israeli or Jordanian sovereignty. So, for the refugees in the territories, a “two-state solution” solves the political identity problem, but not that of residence – they believe they should “return” to someplace else. For the refugees outside the territories, it solves neither.

This, in a nutshell, is why Abu Mazen is obstructionist regarding Hamas and anti-Israel incitement. He cannot go before the three-out-of-four Palestinian groups and tell them their goals are unattainable, so he makes certain the war continues.

It would help enormously if U.S. policy recognized what Abu Mazen’s problem is and that he is not strong enough to solve it. Someone else has to break the news to several generations of stateless people that most of the world understands, even if they do not, that the State of Israel was not an accident and is not temporary. That refugees resettle all the time. That Palestinians share language, religion and culture with hundreds of millions of people and can find a place among them, or find a place somewhere else. That UNRWA’s mandate makes it their jailor, not their salvation.

None of this is easy, but it is not impossible if the U.S. chooses to address the right problem.

*Remember, Palestinians do not consider Jordan a legitimate country either.