Netanyahu, unilateralism and the Palestinian conflict — 13 takes

• Date: 15 June 2021
• Author: TOVAH LAZAROFF
• Published date: 15 June 2021
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

Netanyahu entered office in March 2009 just months after his predecessor Ehud Olmert had appeared to be on the cusp of a historic breakthrough to achieve a two-state resolution to the conflict based on the pre-1967 lines.

Israel was only four years out from the 2005 Gaza withdrawal, that including the destruction of 21 Israeli settlements there and four in northern Samaria.

The burning question at the time was how much territory would Israel lose in such a deal and which settlements would be evacuated next, not how much could it retain.

Netanyahu began on a high note, with an outstretched hand to the Palestinians to hold talks and affirming his support for a two-state solution, which he outlined in his Bar-Ilan speech in June 2009.

By the time he left office, on Sunday of this week, negotiations for a two-state resolution seemed so unfeasible that the best the international community and the United States said they could hope for, was to retain the status quo.

In 2010, 71% of Israelis polled and 57% of Palestinians backed two states compared to 44% and 43% in 2020. The data was collected by Dr. Khalil Shikaki, director of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in Ramallah and Dr. Dahlia Scheindlin of Tel Aviv University.

As a sign of how irrelevant the conflict seemed to Israelis, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett in his swearing-in speech spoke of how Israel had been recently reminded "that the conflict with the Palestinians still exists," as if it had been considered an incidental thing that had suddenly been brought to the foreground.

Netanyahu was not the only actor on stage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict during that period. Other players including former US presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump as well as Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. They all played a role in creating and reacting to unilateralism that changed the dialogue and the contour of the conflict.

Here are 13 ways the paradigm shifted as the Israelis moved Right and the Palestinians became more entrenched.

1. Israeli-Arab peace severed from Palestinian conflict

Netanyahu severed the link that had existed since 2002 between the normalization of Israeli ties with the Arab world and the realization of a two-state resolution to the conflict based on the pre-1967 lines. The 2002 Arab League plan offered Israel normalized ties with all its members if it accepted that vision. It was a move that effectively froze the advancement of Israeli-Arab ties for 18 years.

In 2020, Trump ended the Arab League's stranglehold on Israeli-Arab ties and under the rubric of the Abraham Accords brokered four normalization deals with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan. Additional deals are potentially in the works.

It was a...