Israel Holds the Key to the Solution of the Palestinian Question

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lthough the Palestinian question started after the emergence of Zionism as a political movement, it has been at the center of Middle East politics for a long time due to the consequences of the Arab-Israeli Wars and the Israeli occupation after the establishment of the state of Israel. Relegated by many to the background due to developments focusing on Iran and the Persian Gulf since 1979, the Palestinian question has continued as an unresolved “problem,” and today, it is again the most important item on the agenda in the Middle East and the world at large.

The most important reason for the emergence of Palestine as a “problem” is the Israeli occupation and unless the occupation ends, all paths to a solution will be blocked. The current tension and Israel’s disproportionate attacks are being analyzed through Hamas and the Al-Aqsa Flood operation. However, it should not be forgotten that Hamas was founded in 1987 while Palestinians have been fighting for their rights for more than a century and will continue to do so if a solution is not reached.

Paradoxical as it may seem, Israel actually holds the key to a solution not only for the Palestinians, but also to its own security. If there were no settlements to perpetuate the occupation, if Israel withdrew from the occupied territories, including East Jerusalem, if millions of Palestinians expelled from their homeland were granted the right to return, and if a full-fledged Palestinian state with recognized and respected sovereignty was established, there would be no “Palestinian problem” and Israel would be able to live within secure borders.

Therefore, if the United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 of 1967 is fully implemented today, perhaps the suffering of the past will not disappear, but it will be possible to prevent future traumas. Of course, these conditions are unlikely to be realized in the short term, but no solution will be realistic unless efforts are made in this direction.

Palestinians are ignored, but they are there

The main reason for the continuation of the Palestinian conflict is ignoring the rights, existence, and demands of the Palestinians. So much so that with the latest Gaza attack, there is a possibility that Israel will actually define itself as a “Jewish State,” which has been voiced by Netanyahu since 2008 and adopted in 2018 as the “Nation-State Bill”. The law upholds that the concept of the “nation-state,” which first appeared in literature at the time of the emergence of modern states but which has never inferred the existence of a single “nation” in practice, s being implemented in an exclusionary and racist way in a globalized world.

At the time of writing the Israeli ground operation has yet to start and the Palestinians in Gaza, which has been under heavy bombardment for days, have nowhere to go. One of the scenarios being discussed, based on the statements of Israeli officials, is the complete destruction of Gaza and the expulsion of the Palestinians from the territory to Egypt. However, this so-called solution, which Cairo strongly opposes, would only be palliative, since even if expelled, the Palestinians would continue to live next door to Israel. The scenario of a buffer zone between Gaza and Israel would also be useless. This measure would aim to prevent Palestinian groups from infiltrating Israel by land, but as Operation Al-Aqsa Flood has demonstrated, paramotors and especially missiles can easily penetrate a buffer zone.

Moreover, even if Israel solves its “problem” in Gaza, it still faces the reality of East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Although settlements have been established to perpetuate the occupation with a population of more than one million settlers in the said region, it is unclear to what extent the Palestinians of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, who feel the pressure of the occupation more and more every day on the streets of Palestine and especially at the Al-Aqsa Mosque, will continue to tolerate it. Even if Israel tries to solve the West Bank problem by expelling the Palestinians to Jordan—a scenario that Jordan has announced that it will never accept—Palestinians will continue to live next door to Israel’s borders.

Israel is also concerned about an internal reality, namely the two million Palestinians who are Israeli citizens. At this point, the Nation-State Bill  has two visible and invisible purposes. The first is if the Palestinian problem is ever resolved, to block the possibility of the return of millions of Palestinian refugees who have been displaced in the Arab-Israeli Wars and have scattered all across the world, especially in neighboring countries. The second purpose, which may sound like an impossible goal in practice, is to deactivate the citizenship of Israeli citizens of Palestinian origin in the event of a possible settlement.

Whichever of these scenarios is realized—or even if both materialize—it is impossible to ignore the Palestinians by separating them internally, by exploiting their political differences, or by taking advantage of conjunctural developments at the regional level. Ignoring the Palestinians living in the occupied territories and other countries, totaling more than 14 million, is not a solution; it is the lifeblood of the spiral of insolvency, resistance, and violence.

Does the latest wave of violence and the support it has received offer a solution?

Operation Al-Aqsa Flood has created a huge shock effect in Israel. Israel’s first two weeks of heavy bombardment and attacks on Gaza without any military targeting have exposed the fact that is has no contingency plans for responding to events beyond its “routine” reactions. In other words, apart from the fact that Mossad was not able to foresee and/or prevent such an operation from an intelligence point of view and was not able to counter it, it seems that it did not have a comprehensive plan in place for the aftermath of such an attack. If it really had a comprehensive plan, instead of bombarding Gaza intensively and massacring thousands of civilians, it would have announced its purpose, scope, and exit strategy to the world, especially to its own public, and implemented it gradually.

Conversely, on the first day of Al-Aqsa Flood, Israel took steps to exploit the sympathy shown to it by public opinion, specifically Western public opinion, which is sensitive to the killing of civilians. Many Western leaders, particularly in the U.S., sent consecutive messages of support to Israel. When Israel’s disproportionate reaction and the questioning and reaction to the massacre in Gaza started to develop, the same leaders lined up, so to speak, this time, to visit Israel.

There are many questions to be asked at this point, but I will choose three: First, does Israel’s policy of violence in Gaza provide a sufficient solution to ensure its security? Second, what are the consequences of this step by countries, especially the United States, which have declared their unconditional support for Israel? Third, when the wave of violence goes beyond the Palestinian/Israeli borders and becomes regional and global—and there is a serious risk of this happening—what will the parties to the conflict and the actors whose support fueled the spiral of violence do?

The answer to the first question is quite clear, and, unfortunately, this answer has been given repeatedly in the bloody history of the Palestinian issue. Despite the tens of thousands of Palestinians who have lost their lives through Israel’s policy of violence, and despite the fact that the lives of Palestinians have become increasingly difficult, Palestinians have not given up seeking their rights. It is clear that they will continue to seek their rights in the future with different means, different structures, and different resistance bodies. As long as Palestinians do so, it is very difficult for Israel to ensure its security, even at a perceptual level.

The answer to the second question is actually closely related to the first answer. Countries that declare their unconditional support for Israel and its policies, although in the short term may seem to ease Israel’s hand and provide legitimacy to its actions, in the medium and long term, are actually harming Israel and themselves. The damage to Israel is that the Palestinian problem is still “inside and next to” Israel. The damage to those supporting Israel is that they dynamiting the norms they have idealized for decades, such as human rights, responsibility to protect, and democratic values, and applying these only to themselves and the actors that suit their interests. The more civilians continue to be massacred in Gaza and the more there is no objection to these massacres, the less credible these states will be in the eyes of the international community, especially in the Middle East.

The answer to the third question is a possible scenario that should not be dismissed out of hand. The first two weeks of the recent spiral of violence have gone beyond the Israeli/Palestinian dimension and have begun to affect regional countries and the countries that support Israel. It is only a matter of time before Israel faces a two-front war, or even a wider one, and it is highly likely that Israel and its unconditional supporters such as the U.S. will once again face asymmetric threats.

At this point, the initiatives of the countries in the region, especially Turkey, to reduce tensions, to avoid targeting civilians, and to meet urgent humanitarian needs gain value. Before solving the Palestinian question, it is urgent to reduce the current spiral of violence and tension. In the second stage, in order to prevent similar tragedies from occurring again, it is essential to work for the establishment of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, to ensure the full sovereignty of this state free from arbitrary interference, and to guarantee this situation through various mechanisms.

The realization of the second stage, in particular, seems difficult in the short term, but not impossible. It is obvious that the Palestinian question is unsustainable, and that Israel cannot easily manage the security threats it perceives as Hamas’s Al-Aqsa Flood operation on October 7 and the trauma it has caused have proven beyond a doubt.

It must be emphasized once again that Israel holds the key to the solution of the Palestinian issue, and it will continue to live in insecurity unless it seeks a long-term permanent solution. At this point, the attempts by the countries in the region, especially Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan, to reduce the tension and solve the problem should be taken into consideration by Israel and the countries that unconditionally support it. Otherwise, we will continue to deal with new Palestine-centered crises and traumas in the future.