PRIME Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and President Mahmoud Abbas of Palestine Authority resumed US-sponsored direct negotiations in Washington earlier this month after a stalemate of nearly two years. But the lack of mutual trust between the two sides coupled with the enormity of the issues that characterise the conflict are enough to turn even a robust optimist into a pessimist regarding the outcome of such an exercise.

The issues on the table are creation of an independent state for the Palestinians, division of Jerusalem, demarcation of borders, recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, Jewish settlements in the occupied territory, and the return of Palestinian refugees.

The Palestinians went into the negotiations with the basic position that Israel should accept the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state comprising the land that the Zionists occupied in the 1967 war — the East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza. The East Jerusalem, or the Old City as it is called, which includes the Al Aqsa Mosue, should serve as the capital of the Palestinian state. This means that most if not all Jewish settlements in the Old City and the West Bank would have to be dismantled.

The idea of a Palestinian state is palatable to the Israeli government, albeit subject to certain conditions. At the top of these conditions is that Jerusalem may not be bifurcated, which means that its eastern part would not form part of a future Palestinian state. Israel wants to maintain its military presence in a future Palestinian state by controlling borders and airspace, which means that the state would not be fully sovereign.

Israel also insists on maintaining most of the Jewish settlements on the West Bank. Besides, it will have to be accepted as a Jewish state. This condition effectively rules out the return of Palestinian refugees (or their children) displaced in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war to their motherland.

The argument is that the return of the refugees would destroy the present demographic composition of the Israeli state.

The negotiations between Arabs and Israelis have been held under the United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 of 1967, which provided for the “withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict” (1967 war), and “respect for and acknowledgement of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every state in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognised boundaries free from threats or acts of force”. The first breakthrough was the US brokered Camp David Accord of 1978 between Egypt and Israel, which under the principle of land for peace called for setting up a “self-governing authority” on the West Bank and Gaza, leading to “final status” talks. However, the agreement found little support among the Palestinians, who were not party to that.

Efforts for a peace deal in the Middle East got momentum after the Gulf war of 1991 leading to the 1993 Oslo Agreement. Its importance lies in the fact that it brought face-to-face the Israelis and the Palestinians and that Israel and the PLO recognised each other. It called for “an end to decades of confrontation and conflict” and of each side recognising “their mutual legitimate and political rights”.

It provided for the phased withdrawal of Israeli troops from the West Bank and Gaza, setting up of an interim Palestinian self-governing authority for a five-year transitional period, which would lead to a final settlement based on the relevant UNSC resolutions. In vague terms, the Oslo deal provided for a two-state solution to the Palestinian problem.

The final settlement issues were taken up in the 2000 Camp David negotiations but no deal could be struck as Israel insisted on retaining control of East Jerusalem as well as its West Bank settlements and brushed aside the demand for the return of the Palestinian refugees.

The Arab peace initiative launched by Saudi Arabia in 2002 proposed that Israel would withdraw to the lines before the 1967 war, a Palestinian state would be set up in the West Bank and Gaza, and there would be a “just solution” to the refugee problem. In return, Arab countries would recognise Israel.

The Geneva Accord of 2003 provided that the Palestinians would surrender their right of return in exchange for most of the West Bank. The agreement recognised the Palestinians' right to have their capital in East Jerusalem, though it conceded to Israel the right to maintain its sovereignty over the Western Wall, one of the most sacred sites for the Jews, in the Old City.

Like any other broker, the US wants the negotiations to bear fruit. And it has its own reasons for this. It is well aware of negative perceptions about it among Muslims, particularly Arabs, at a time when smashing the Al-Qaeda network is crucial to its own security. The US also wants to isolate Iran on the latter's nuclear programme and one way of doing this is to create the perception of an honest and successful broker in the region. Hence, not surprisingly, in a Congressional testimony in March this year, Gen David Petraeus, America's top military official, described the Palestine dispute as the first “cross-cutting challenge to security and stability” in the Middle East and Central Asia.

Such considerations notwithstanding, the efforts to make peace in the Middle East need to overcome certain obstacles having both political and religious dimensions. Take the division of Jerusalem, which has tremendous religious significance for Muslims, Christians and Jews. After Israel had taken East Jerusalem from Jordan in the 1967 war, defence minister Gen Moshe Dayan standing before the Western Wall had remarked “We have returned to our holy places... And we shall never leave them.” Subsequently, hundreds of thousands of Jews were encouraged to settle in East Jerusalem to consolidate Israel as a Jewish state. Hence, it will be very difficult for an Israeli negotiator to sell the idea of vacating East Jerusalem to his people. And it will be equally difficult for any Palestinian leader to abandon the demand for return of the Old City.

Under the UN partition plan of 1947, Israel was to be established on 55 per cent of what was once Palestine. However, courtesy the use of force, Israel managed to grab 78 per cent of the Palestinian territory.

In the 1967 war, Israel further extended its borders taking East Jerusalem and West Bank from Jordan, Golan Heights from Syria and Gaza and Sinai Peninsula (subsequently returned following the Camp David Accord) from Egypt.

As in East Jerusalem, several Jewish settlements were built on the West Bank as well as in the Golan region in violation of international law. Collectively more than four hundred thousand Jews have settled in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Presently, the Israeli government has imposed a ten-month freeze on the West Bank settlements (accounting for 40 per cent of the total area), which will expire at the end of this month (September).

Then there is the issue of the return of the refugees. The UN puts the number of the registered refugees at more than four million. Of these, 1.83 million live in Jordon while 1.70 million reside in Gaza and the West Bank.

Regrettably, the Arab-Israel negotiations have by and large short shrifted the issue of the return of these refugees, mainly because the reference point for most of the conflict resolution efforts in the Middle East has been the 1967 war, while the refugee problem dates back to 1948.

Israel has consistently ruled out the return of the refugees to what it claims to be now its own territory. The refuges, it maintains, may be absorbed by Arab countries or by a future Palestinian state if and when it comes into being.

Not all Palestinians want a two-state solution; nor do all Jews. But that seems to be the only viable solution to the Middle East problem. However, within the two-state solution, the territorial composition of a future Palestinian state and its sovereignty together with the return of the refugees remain the thorny issues.

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