It’s possible (but still far from certain) that US Secretary of State John Kerry will inflict a historic defeat on the Palestinians. Yet, as disaster looms, Palestinian negotiators praise Kerry as an honest broker and pray for his success, while the Palestine solidarity movement proclaims one victory after another in its campaign to isolate Israel. What’s going on? How did it come to pass that we now stand at such a perplexing juncture?
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It is no secret what the Kerry plan will look like. If he is to have any chance of success, Kerry cannot fight a war on two fronts. Israel constitutes a “strategic asset” of the US and can count on the clout of a powerful domestic lobby. It is consequently in a far stronger position than Palestinians to resist Washington’s orders. Judging by both official and insider statements, the Secretary of State has therefore appropriated Israel’s minimal demands as his own; the “Kerry process” refers to his efforts to foist these on the Palestinians. Kerry’s proposal will see Israel annex some 10 percent of the West Bank, including the critical water resources and some of the most arable land. The new border, which will run along the path of the Wall that Israel has been constructing, will incorporate the major Jewish settlement blocs, put municipal East Jerusalem on the Israeli side (except for some 100,000 Arab Jerusalemites who, along with the neighbourhoods in which they reside, will be excluded), and effectively trisect the West Bank. A makeshift arrangement will be worked out enabling the Palestinians (together with the Kingdom of Jordan, Saudi Arabia, or the Organization of Islamic Cooperation) to serve as custodian of the Muslim holy sites in the Old City, while Israel preserves overall sovereignty.
In the 2008 Annapolis negotiations, the Palestinian delegation presented a generous map that would have enabled Israel to keep 60 percent of its settlers in place as part of a two percent land swap, while also maintaining the West Bank’s territorial contiguity. The Israeli delegation rejected the map, not, however, on topographical grounds but because it was deemed politically infeasible
Stripped of natural resources, tourist revenues from Jerusalem, and territorial contiguity, the so-called Palestinian state envisaged by the Kerry plan will at some point—there’s already talk of it—be forced to confederate with the Kingdom of Jordan. The “Jordanian option” dates back to the Peel Commission recommendations in the 1930s; was realized from 1948 to 1967 when Jordan annexed the West Bank, and was supported by Israel’s Labour Party after the 1967 war. But, although shelved after the first intifada and the Palestinian declaration of statehood in 1988, it appears to have been given a new lease on life: Not just in effect but also in fact, Palestine will disappear from the map.
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