But the fact that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is in one of its manageable and less urgent phases shouldn't mask the degree to which it can get hot again, or the extent to which Israelis are still troubled by the occupation and the international criticism it causes. Israelis consider themselves a moral people with humanistic values. And while much can be rationalized in the name of security, the occupation is at odds with that self-image. Much like the British in India, Israelis are susceptible to moral considerations, particularly those they impose on themselves. Israel needs a counternarrative, an alternate vision. And with all of its flaws, the two-state solution provides it. Forget the Palestinians -- Israelis need the idea of two states for themselves.
4. The Palestinians Are Stuck with It
Ignore all this talk about Palestinians abandoning the PA, returning the keys to the Israelis, or actively working toward a one-state solution. Palestinians are stuck with the two-state paradigm, and they know it. Since 1994, when the Gaza-Jericho agreement allowed Arafat to return to Ramallah, the Palestinians have been building the institutions and infrastructure of their putative state with the acquiescence and often grudging support of Israel and the international community. If and when Palestinian statehood is ever achieved, Salam Fayyad, the Palestinian prime minister, will deserve much of the credit for actually constructing the framework of a state even while negotiations remain at an impasse. It's a gamble, to be sure, but one based on a line from one of Kevin Costner's better movies, Field of Dreams: Build it, and -- who knows? -- maybe they will come.
Which is not to say that Palestinians are optimistic. That state-building effort has been going on in various forms for nearly 20 years now. An entire generation of young Palestinians in the West Bank and even in Gaza has grown up with the Israeli occupation, but also with the strange phenomenon of state-building too. There's deep ambivalence here. Earlier this year, Palestinian pollster Khalil Shikaki found that 45 percent of Palestinians believed that their first and most vital goal should be ending Israel's occupation and building a Palestinian state. At the same time, 68 percent felt that chances for establishment of such a state in the next five years were slim to nonexistent.
The center of gravity in the Palestinian community has now shifted, probably irrevocably, from the diaspora to Palestine, with hopes and aspirations forcibly scaled back. Even in Gaza, the religious manifestation of Palestinian nationalism -- Hamas -- rules over a stable polity and has seen its own visionary goals tempered by the realities of governance and its shrinking options in the Arab world. With Bashar al-Assad's Syria melting down and Iran under pressure, Hamas's external leadership finds itself without a good home -- a development that only reinforces the one the internal leadership already controls in Gaza. It's the irony of ironies that even with the peace process in a coma, the Palestinian leaderhip's default position is -- you guessed it -- efforts to gain recognition at the U.N. for a Palestinian state.
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