When one side has in effect “won”, in that it has what amounts to a preponderance of political and military power, any movement in negotiations must perforce come from that side: they have, as it were, all the chips. For the game to go on, they have to gift the other side with some.
Now, I won’t argue that the Palestinian negotiating strategy hasn’t been terrible - they have routinely failed to see just how weak their position really is, and have relied a lot on ‘magic thinking’ about the amount of support they are likely to get from the rest of the world. They must realize by now that the rest of the ME is in no position to help them, even if it wanted to do more than pay ritual lip service to their cause. Likewise, no amount of UN activity will do squat for them, in terms of getting them a state. They have to make “concessions” too, such as giving up ludicrous demands that can’t be fulfilled in the real world (the 'right of return, handing over Jerusalem, etc.).
The problem, as I see it, is that the Israelis have largely given up on negotiations out of frustration. That’s understandable but regrettable - long-term, it is in their interests as well as those of the Palestinians to arrive at some sort of two-state solution.
Well, that’s certainly true - countries are often not born peacefully.
The Israelis fought against the Brits before theirs was created - much like another North American nation I could name.
Though in the Israeli case, that fight was interrupted by WW2, which saw the Israeli unofficial government forced to take the British side, on the “enemy of my enemy” principle.
Interestingly, the Israeli willingness to fight on the side of the Brits during WW2 paid them dividends later - it provided their officers with valuable military training, courtesy of the war (for example, Moshe Dayan received his “trademark” wound to his eye fighting on behalf of the Brits against the Vichy French in the Syria-Lebanon Campaign in WW2).
Since when? In wars, traditionally, the LOSING party sues for peace and then the two parties disengage hostilities in a negotiated manner. In the 1970s, after losing wars in 1967 and 1973, it was Sadat who came to Israel asking to start negotiating peace, not Meir or Begin going to Egypt. And what do you know…they signed a peace treaty, and Israel let them have the land they wanted!
Israel has never, even now, been unwilling to negotiate. They even have leaders who, like Sadat, have put their political careers and their lives on the line to show a willingness to make unpopular concessions. But until the Palestinians approach the negotiating table with an understanding that their war is effectively over and that they are the losing party in that war, they will get nowhere.
I consider myself a Zionist, in the (original) sense, that Hertzl intended. He envisioned a country where:
-there was absolute freedom of belief
-a society dedicated to morality
a country that would be a “light unto the nations”
In short, a peaceful land with an advanced system of social justice.
I agree that in a traditional war, the losing side accepts that it has lost and sues for peace.
The problem with the Palestinians, alas, cuts deeper. They have proven unable to create a “side” that can bargain effectively. They were never a single united country akin to Egypt or Jordan. They have been and now remain split into mutually antagonistic groups, many of them violent and fanatical extremists, making it impossible for the “suit” and “bargaining” process to occur in the normal manner.
As described upthread, Israel itself faced this sort of problem of disunity and extremism - and overcame it. For a variety of reasons, the Palestinians have been unable to do so. This has made them exceptionally weak, but has frustrated attempts at reasoned bargaining. It is not a wonder that the Israelis have to a large extent given up (bargaining with entities incapable of bargaining in good faith is trying, to say the least). The Palestinian dilemma can be simplified thus: concessions to the (unreasonable, unworkable) demands currently on the table would certainly result in Hamas gaining support at the expense of the PA - which is already unpopular for its corruption and authoritarianism.
The Israelis are not without a share of blame in all this - like people anywhere, they are self-interested, and the weakness/incompetence/extremism of Palestinian leadership has been an open invitation for Israeli exploitation - the Israelis interested in bargaining in good faith lose heart, those interested in a separation and exploitation strategy gain support, and Palestinians on the other side interested in bargaining in good faith lose heart as well.
At this point, there is no real point in assigning blame for the situation, only to look at the practicalities: the Palestinian leadership is, for whatever reasons, simply incapable of making hard concessions - and surviving. If the Israelis want a resolution, the onus perforce must fall on them, as they are the only party capable of movement. This isn’t fair, and it isn’t the usual course - but the alternative is the current stasis, which most Israelis I have anecdotally discussed the matter with do not want to continue. The actual value to Israel of the current status quo is to enable creeping settlements, which are of marginal benefit to the Israeli state, but come with enormous costs in terms of long-term stability and prestige.
Thinking of their situation with Palestinians as a “war” is probably the Israelis’ single biggest problem. A paradigm of enmity prevents the vision of partnership that is Israel’s only long-term hope.
The problem is not that there is a “war”, but that there was one - however, unlike most wars, it did not end with a “peace” with all parties. The actual states, eventually, entered peace or peace-like deals, but the Palestinians living in the WB and Gaza were left out.
To understand the reasons requires a bit o’ history.
For example - Israel defeated Jordan in the 1967 “Six Day War” (a definite “war”), overrunning the Arab sections of Jerusalem and the WB generally. These territories were originally part of Jordanian territory - not Palestinian (Palestine was never a “state”).
Now, it is less known in the West, but Jordan had serious trouble with its Palestinian population - Jordan is ethnically split between Palestinians and Jordanians. This resulted in the early 1970s in Jordan fighting a civil war of sorts with the PLO, which the latter lost - resulting in a massive expulsion of Palestinians from Jordan (the “Black September”).
Meanwhile, the Israelis were of the notion that they could cut a peace deal with the Arab nations, including Jordan, on a “land taken in the 6 Day War for peace” platform. This was initially met with stark rejection (the famous “Three No’s” platform"no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with it…").
Egypt, equally famously, broke with that policy - and got back the Sinai.
Jordan took its time. Thing is that, after the “Black September”, Jordan did not want the WB back: it would be too destabilizing for the country to accept thousands of Palestinians as citizens. So Jordan, in the '80s, cut all ties with the WB and declared it had no claims on it.
So who owns the WB? Israel administers it, but, just like Jordan, does not actually want it as part of its country (or more accurately, does not want its population of angry Palestinians: it is perfectly happy to encroach on it, by nudging the border and with ‘settlements’).
This is perhaps an unprecedented situation - that after a war, a peace deal would effectively leave a slice of territory without a state-level entity wanting to own it. The “solution”, as everyone more or less recognizes, is to make Palestine its own state - but the ongoing disfunctionality of the PA renders this difficult.
It is hard to fault the Israelis for much of this. The Six-Day War, and in particular the War with Jordan, was forced on them - they begged Jordan not to participate (the Jordanians were drawn in by Egypt). After the war, they could not simply hand back the territory they had taken to an active enemy that openly declared it would not seek peace. Later, when the “three No’s” policy eroded, Jordan had ample reason not to take the territory back: their own problems with Palestinian leadership.
The problem is not “war with Palestinians”, the problem is the lasting shadow of the wars with the Arab nations that created this problem that will not go away (without some forward thinking leadership by someone).
