Palestine: More traditional diplomacy, but no stability

Richard Falk

To begin with, we will witness a growing awareness that traditional diplomacy will not bring stability, much less peace with justice, to this struggle, which has gone on for more than a century.

2022 is likely going to experience a much-delayed funeral that finally pronounces the death of Oslo diplomacy along with its reliance on direct negotiations between the two sides, and the US pretending to serve as a neutral intermediary, sometimes half ironically identified as an 'honest broker'.

It has been made clear - time and time again - that Israel's political leaders don’t want just a political compromise that leans in their favour. Israeli has long shrugged off pressures to comply with international law or to pretend support for a peace process guided from Washington.

Israel has - for some years - stopped pretending that it supports a diplomatically arranged solution.

The most encouraging development for the Palestinians is in the symbolic domain of politics.It is here where they are winning even in America, especially among younger Jews, along with some signs that the bipartisan consensus in the US Congress is splintering, at least at the edges

No foreseeable surge of Palestinian resistance poses much of a threat, especially as neighbouring Arab regimes have become distracted or detached from the conflict, with some previously-hostile governments even displaying a willingness to join openly with Israel in confronting Iran.

This image of dead-end diplomacy is reinforced by the US posture post-Trump.

On the one side, the Biden presidency has signalled that it will not challenge Trump’s signature moves, including moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem, confirming Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, endorsing the "Normalisation Accords" and even seeking their expansion, capped by reassurances to Israel that it will collaborate regionally, especially when it comes to Iran.

At the same time, Biden seeks to appear to be taking a more moderate tone, which explains Washington’s renewal of public support for a two-state solution and mild rebukes when Israel uses excessive violence against Palestinian civilians or moves to expand Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.

I would suppose that even Biden realises that the two-state solution has long been a zombie fix that allows Israel to let the unresolved conflict with the Palestinians simmer indefinitely.

As matters now stand the Biden presidency is weak and unable to push forward his domestic agenda, which has disappointed the American public. Under these circumstances, the last thing he wants in 2022 is even the mildest break with Israel of the sort that occurred toward the end of the Obama presidency.

In my view, the most notable developments in 2022 will be prompted by growing disillusionment and disbelief that constructive action will follow from either the peace diplomacy of the past or new UN pressures. Palestinian resistance will continue to send signals to the world that the struggle goes on no matter how hard Israel works to show the world that it has prevailed in the struggle and that the best that the Palestinians can hope for are economic benefits to be bestowed following a political acceptance of Israel as a Jewish state along with a pledge not to oppose Zionist Ambitions to conquer what remains of the ‘promised land'.

In other words, the year ahead will likely announce to the world that Israel has opted for a one-state unilateral solution along with a Palestinian refusal to swallow such toxic Kool Aid.

Given this line of thinking, the most encouraging development for the Palestinians in the year ahead is likely to be in the symbolic domain of politics, and what I have previously called the 'Legitimacy War' dimension of political conflict.

It is here the Palestinians are winning even in America, especially among younger Jews, along with some signs that the bipartisan consensus in the US Congress is splintering, at least at the edges.

We all need to remind ourselves of three salient features of the present context: (1) the Palestinians are fighting an anti-colonial war against an apartheid government in Israel; (2) the major anti-colonial wars have been won, not by the stronger side militarily, but by the winner of the Legitimacy War as the US discovered in Vietnam, and more recently in Iraq and Afghanistan; (3) the Palestinians will be increasing seen by the informed global public and media as winning the Legitimacy War; this impression will be supported by continued fact-finding at the UN and further engagement by the ICC.