18
Developing an Israeli Grand Strategy toward
a Peaceful Two-State Solution
as Europe and the United States. Hence, what is asked for,
is to build an effective regional and global coordination and
cooperation structure to deal – as effectively as possible –
with all the features of terror: incitement, the production and
smuggling of arms, the movement and training of terrorists,
and effective preventive action.
44
Most evidently, in parallel, decisive action against Jewish
terror and hate crimes, have to be taken by the Israeli
Government.
The Need to Get Opponents on Board and/or to Marginalize
Them
In pursuing the Oslo process, two (overlapping) groups –
the religious leadership and the settler community – were,
with devastating results, largely ignored. Permanent Status
negotiations under Prime Minister Barak also alienated
Israel's Palestinian Arab community. Ignoring and alienating
stakeholders threatens any negotiating process.
Working With and Not Against the Settler Community:
The settler community are undoubtedly the group to pay
the major price in order to enable a two-state solution: they
will have to give up their ideological commitment to Eretz
Yisrael (the Land of Israel), and quite a few will have to pay
a high personal price – to move out of their present homes –
either into settlement blocs – or move West of the June 1967
cease-fire line. Estimates about the internal division of the
settler movement indicate that about twenty percent favor a
two-state solution; almost sixty percent may lean either way,
largely dependent on whether they themselves will have to
move, or not; and about twenty percent of the settlers oppose
progress toward a two-state solution, although among them
are those who will obey and go along with any government
decision, while calling for civilian resistance. The remainder
will most likely struggle – probably violently – against any
headway toward a two-state solution.
45
In order to create enabling conditions for obtaining at least
passive support of the settler community five measures
seem essential:
• To refrain from demanding a total settlement freeze, as
such a step lumps all different groups together. The great
majority of settlers live in urban areas very close to the
1967 cease-fire line. These include religious-orthodox
(haredi) settlers who politically tend to identify with
Shas, whose support for the envisaged peace process
is essential.
• On the basis of the principle "what has been agreed upon
shall be implemented" to negotiate balanced quid pro
quo understandings that will on the one hand legalize
settlement activity in specific areas, and on the other
hand clarify from where settlers will have to be relocated/
evacuated.
44 See Ron Shatzberg's article in this publication for more details.
45 These findings are based on a private unpublished poll that has
been carried out by Othniel Schneller in 2014.
• To make necessary provisions for settlements that will
have to be relocated; to build their alternative residence,
before asking them to move, thus enabling these families
to move from one home to another.
• To formulate a code of conduct with the settler leadership
(the ideological leadership, the heads of regional councils,
and the rabbinical leadership) to allow for political and
civil protest action, while maintaining the full commitment
to observe government decisions; and
• To take necessary action to deter settler violence.
In order for these tactics to succeed two additional measures
are essential: emerging change on the ground, enabling
Palestinian state-building particularly in Area C that will
create a reality to be accepted; and keeping the number of
settlements and settlers who will have to be evacuated at
a minimum, seeking a variety of solutions for permitting the
majority to remain in their present homes, while undertaking an
Israeli governmental commitment to refrain from confiscating
Palestinian land.
Working with and Not Against the Religious Leadership
For both Israel and Palestine at least the passive support of
the Jewish and Muslim religious leadership will be essential.
Presently two different dialogues are being pursued: an
internal Jewish dialogue with rabbinical leaders aimed at
asking them to take responsibility in supporting a realistically
achievable peace process; and a parallel Jewish-Islamic
dialogue aimed at defining common ground and coordinated
action.
46
Bringing Israel’s Palestinian Arab Community on Board.
This will have to occur on several levels: the Israeli Palestinian
political leadership has been in the past as well as more
recently in secret mediating missions between the Israeli
Prime Minister and Arafat or Abu Mazen. (Ahmed Tibi
undertook such a task for PM Rabin, Aiman al-Oudeh for
PM Netanyahu). On the wider socio-political level it will be
essential to build joint Jewish-Arab coalitions in support of
seeking together a two state solution. A wider process of
Arab elite formation in Israel which is underway, will constitute
another socio-cultural, socio-economic, and socio-political
pre-condition for bringing the Palestinian Arab Community
of Israel on board.
47
3. The Emerging Dilemma for the Palestinian People
and Leadership
The present political position of President Abbas is largely in
line with the concept laid out in the Arab Peace Initiative of
March 2002: seek to obtain from the international community
sufficient support to assert pressure on Israel to accept up-
front the contours of a permanent settlement agreement.
Pursuing this approach, Abbas has shown flexibility in regard
to the process of implementation, but no flexibility in regard
to the asked for final outcome.
46 See the article by Ro'I Ravitzky in this publication.
47 For more details, see that article by Kamal Hassan in this publication.
