The day after

Israel-Palestine at a crossroads. Again.

In early March, six months into the Gazan genocide, I described a hypothetical end of the state of Israel. More politically correct: I optimistically prophesied a sudden switch from a system where half of the people living between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River can vote and the other half can’t, to one where every soul enjoys full civil rights. Three months later, it might be time to prepare for a less rosy scenario.

They say the more things change, the more they stay the same. Perhaps it’s more accurate to say that the longer things stay the same, the higher the likelihood of abrupt change. Put differently, history has a way of repeatedly hitting snooze, until with horror-struck eyes it realises the time, jumps out of bed, and breaks an ankle. In the case of Israel-Palestine, the latter scenario, as opposed to narrowly catching the bus, seems more likely by the day.

To render the comparison a bit more, I’ll hark back to the past again.

Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovakia, established in 1918 as a state for Czechs and Slovaks, lasted 75 years later the country split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia. While Czechs carried more heft, the country’s geographically contiguous parts lived together in peace, which proved to be greatly conducive to their eventual peaceful Two-State solution. As for Palestine, unbridled Israeli settlement expansion, greatly accelerated since the 1993 Oslo Accords, has fragmented their potential state. This crucial difference alone makes a clean split extremely unlikely, if not impossible.

South-Africa

The South-African analogy views Israel-Palestine as a single Apartheid state. One group, in this case Israeli Jews, control all the levers of this country, most crucially the army, which operates freely throughout the territory. The dominant group doesn’t just impose its rule on another, but imposes a different set of laws altogether. Palestinians in the West Bank, East-Jerusalem, and Gaza live under martial law, shorn of basic rights, including the right to life, while Jewish Israelis enjoy full civil protections and democratic rule. The Palestinian Authority barely matters. Thus, resolving the conflict necessitates giving everybody the same rights. In South-Africa, a transition to democracy gave the majority black population control of the country, alongside the minority white population that had hitherto ruled the roost. The country did not split up, despite or because of its former racist authorities corralling blacks into segregated ‘Bantustans’.

For Israel-Palestine, a South-African-style One-State solution would feature state institutions in which Muslim, Christian, and Jewish citizens are proportionally represented. As unlikely as a Two-State solution has become, observers (excluding myself) generally agree that a One-State solution is even less plausible.

Bosnia-Herzegovina

Yugoslavia, dominated by the Serbs who held substantial political and military power, endured for 73 years. Its dramatic collapse in the Bosnian War of the early 1990s culminated in the genocide of 8.000 Muslim boys and men in Screbrenica. Similar to the Israel-Palestine conflict, inter-ethnic violence was a defining feature of Yugoslavia’s existence and foreshadowed its tragic end. While Slovenia and Croatia, largely ethnically homogeneous, seceded relatively painlessly, the Bosnian civil war culminated in genocide. In Bosnia, various ethnic groups lived dispersed in a manner reminiscent of the Israeli-occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, where over 700,000 Jewish settlers live in exclusively Jewish cities and outposts among 2.9 million Muslim and Christian Palestinians.

While Gaza burns, the West Bank and East Jerusalem appear to be heading towards a Bosnian scenario. Since the inauguration of the current extremist Israeli government, there has been a sharp increase in deadly state violence, expropriations and house demolitions. In 2023, before Hamas’ attack on October 7, Israeli forces had already killed 234 Palestinians, while settlers were responsible for nine additional killings. The death toll since October 7 stands at over 500.

From his inauguration Interior Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, convicted in 2007 of inciting racism and supporting the terrorist Kach movement, intensified military operations and settlement expansions. These escalations have led to more frequent and severe clashes between Israeli forces and settlers on the one hand, and Palestinian civilians on the other. While Ben Gvir has not explicitly stated that his goal is to provoke an all-out civil war to ethnically cleanse all Palestinians, his rhetoric and actions, like distributing assault rifles to Jewish civilians, clearly point in this direction. The situation is fraught with all the ingredients for disaster: decades of grievances, unchecked genocidal rhetoric, and weapons galore.

Gaza

Solving the crisis in Gaza requires more than just halting the violence; it necessitates comprehensive and systemic changes. First, Israeli forces must withdraw from the territory. The naval blockade, strangled trade and murdering fishermen, must end, along with the cessation of airplanes and drones laying siege from the air. The land border, controlled by Israel’s siege partner Egypt, should be opened, allowing free movement of people and goods. Additionally, similar to West Berlin during the Cold War, Gaza needs a guaranteed connection to the Palestinian West Bank to ensure economic and social cohesion.

Returning to the pre-conflict status quo in Gaza risks setting the stage for an even greater conflict. We have observed restrained involvement from regional actors such as Yemen’s Houthis, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, and even Iran. Imagining a scenario worse than the current onslaught is grim but necessary: it could involve a more systematic Israeli campaign to remove Palestinians ‘from the equation’, including the West Bank and East-Jerusalem, coupled with extensive military retaliation from neighbouring countries, leading to instability and potential regime changes in Egypt and Jordan. In such a scenario, the complete eradication of the Palestinian presence and the total destruction of Israel both loom as horrifyingly possible outcomes within our lifetime.

Dayton

The Bosnian war ended when outside powers forced the warring parties to sign the Dayton peace accords. The only way to avoid the direst Israeli-Palestinian scenario is by forcibly relieving Israel of its de facto sovereignty over Gaza, East Jerusalem, and the West Bank, in accordance with numerous UN resolutions. If Israel, in its 76th year of existence, claims that its continued military presence in the West Bank and its 14-year blockade of Gaza are necessary for the security of its citizens, then it should welcome a neutral peacekeeping force. There are two ways to circumvent the predictable American Security Council veto.

A United Nations Uniting for Peace Resolution can bypass an American Security Council veto by invoking Resolution 377A(V). This allows the General Assembly to assume responsibility when the Security Council is deadlocked due to a veto by a permanent member. Should the Security Council fail to act to maintain international peace and security, the General Assembly can convene an emergency special session and recommend collective measures, including the deployment of peacekeeping troops, thereby circumventing the veto

Another method to bypass an American veto is the establishment of a UN Trusteeship for Palestine. The Trusteeship Council, established shortly after the creation of the United Nations in 1945, was designed to guide former Axis Power-held territories towards independence, such as Western Samoa, Cameroon, Togoland, New Guinea, and Italian Somaliland. Establishing a trusteeship involves administrative agreements negotiated by member states and approved by a majority vote in the General Assembly, thus not subject to a veto by permanent Security Council members like the United States. A UN trusteeship for Palestine, endorsed and administered by regional actors such as Saudi Arabia and Jordan, or potentially China, could facilitate the governance and development of Palestinian institutions towards statehood.

From start-up nation to shut-down nation

One thing is certain: without decisive foreign intervention, whether through diplomatic efforts like an arms embargo and economic sanctions on all warring parties, the war, occupation, and relentless cycle of death will continue. Belgium, with its active role in international diplomacy—mediating conflicts in the Great Lakes region of Africa, advocating for international humanitarian law, and participating in EU and UN peacekeeping initiatives—is well-positioned to lead such efforts. When its new government is eventually sworn into office, it should embrace its duty to promote global peace and stability. Contrary to the Bosnian civil war, where Europeans stood helplessly by until Uncle Sam stepped up to the plate, the latter is nowhere to be seen.