The Lasting Impact of Trump’s ‘Deal of the Century’ on the Question of Palestine

Abstract:

In 2017 US President Donald Trump launched the ‘Deal of the Century’ (DoC) to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Although Trump is no longer in office, the impact of the DoC lingers and will continue affecting future approaches to the conflict and its resolution. This article argues that the Trump DoC profoundly impacted the colonial order in Palestine, destroying further the illusion that a just settlement addressing the plight of the Palestinians could be reached. The DoC’s impact has affected three significant areas: the vision of a resolution, the approach to conflict resolution, and the venue where the conflict occurs. It helped shift the vision from two-state solution to none, significantly undermining the approach that was based on negotiation and third-party mediation, and assisted in creating a new regional versus international venue for the conflict.

Key Words:

• Deal of the century
• Israel
• Israeli-Palestinian conflict
• Palestine
• Trump

Conventional analytical frameworks approach the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians from a lens that implies symmetrical power relations. Against this backdrop, this article considers the situation in Palestine not as an ordinary contention between two conflicting parties; rather as a conflict between a colonized people seeking to achieve emancipation and a colonizing power (Israel) that is driven by a racist ideology (Zionism) that seemingly justifies the elimination of another people’s past and present. This ideology is expressed in statements and through initiatives that have led to its complete control over Palestine, while providing weak moral and political justifications to support its colonial appetite. The Israeli Zionist narrative considers Palestine a depopulated land that must be restored to an (imagined) condition of thousands of years ago, utilizing means that include massacres―past and present―to cleanse ethnically the land of its indigenous population.

This makes Israel a model of contemporary colonialism, extending an order rejected by international conventions decades ago. By conceptualizing Israel as a settler-colonial order, we understand the various parties’ roles, including the United States and its successive administrations. Indeed, an investigation of the US-Israeli relationship reveals a striking continuity in arduous support by successive American administrations from Truman to Trump, expressing largely unconditional support of Israel and showing a keen interest in maintaining Israel’s security and qualitative superiority in all aspects. One possible explanation might highlight that this bias could be rooted in the similar origins of both countries: founded on the ruins of other peoples and able, with time, to institutionalize and legalize their settler-colonial model―with the concomitant injustice, discrimination, racism, and disregard of human dignity that manifests in various forms.¹

The relationship between the US and Israel has been fairly consistent under all American administrations, at least in substance.² For example, the Truman and Eisenhower administrations robustly opposed the return of Palestinian refugees to their homes; the Kennedy administration elevated the US-Israeli relations to an American national commitment; the Johnson administration called for the settlement of Palestinian refugees in Arab countries. Under the Nixon administration, Kissinger, the arch defender of Israel, took over the file of the Arab-Israeli conflict and geared it towards neutralizing Egypt through the Camp David agreement. The Clinton administration was dominated by individuals with strong Zionist inclinations, such as CIA Director James Woolsey and Pentagon chief Les Aspin, and maintained silence toward Israeli atrocities against Palestinians. The Bush Jr. administration supported Sharon’s brutal approach towards the Palestinians, which included besieging Yasser Arafat—and getting rid of him later on³—and halting US aid to the Palestinians after Hamas won the 2006 legislative elections. The Obama administration raised the US financial support to Israel to US$4 billion annually and exerted little pressure on Israel to stop atrocities against Palestinians. Finally, the Trump administration recognized Jerusalem as the permanent capital of Israel, moved the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, recognized the legality of Israel’s annexation of the Syrian Golan heights, and lured several Arab countries towards normalizing their relations with Israel. The most recent Biden’s administration has not been an exception so far, and it not expected to change course.

The blatant bias of US administrations towards Israel has drawn the attention of many commentators who remarked on its root causes, premises, and disastrous repercussions for Palestinians. For example, Noam Chomsky found that US ‘imperial policy’ has been based consistently on a ‘pro-Zionist bias’ among American politicians, media, and intellectuals.⁴ Edward Said agrees with this characterization and deems Israel and the US—especially the latter—as rejectionists and opponents of true peace, while the Arab and Palestinian sides are asked frequently to accommodate themselves to the reality of Israel.⁵ Agreeing with this analysis, Nasir Aruri characterized US rejectionist policy toward Palestinian participation and rights as a policy that focuses more on the process than on peace itself. He also reminds us that the US–Israeli special relations turned into a strategic hegemonic alliance after the 1967 war, which renders the US government neither qualified nor able to act as an honest mediator. The US employs its diplomatic monopoly over the process to exclude all other would-be peacemakers and facilitators, achieve Israel’s goals, and remain the sole power broker in the Middle East that is vital to its hegemonic interests. Moreover, the various US administrations have provided Israel with protection from international scrutiny for its human rights violations and from investigations of potential violations of international law, engineering the gridlock that allows the Israeli government to negotiate indefinitely.⁶ Rashid Khalidi agrees with this analysis and stresses that the US has not acted as an honest and impartial broker during the thirty-two years of the failed Palestinian-Israeli peace process since Madrid conference in 1991. Throughout this period, the US and Israel coordinated their efforts to prevent the emergence of a viable Palestinian state by maintaining the status quo, which benefits Israel.⁷ Khalidi adds that US support of Israel is not limited to successive US administrations but also includes individual politicians and other important segments of the American people. Thus, the Trump’s administration was no exception when it affiliated itself with Benjamin Netanyahu’s extremely right-wing government in Israel.

In a striking move, Trump’s 2017 National Security Strategy outlined that the US does not consider the Israeli-Palestinian conflict a prime irritant that prevents peace and prosperity in the Middle East. It deems instead threats posed by ‘jihadist terrorist organizations’ and Iran as the primary cause of the region’s problems.⁸ Furthermore, this strategy claimed that ‘Arab states have increasingly found common interests with Israel in confronting common threats,’ which refers mainly to the warming relationship with so-called ‘moderate’ Arab states that oppose Tehran and have normalized ties with Israel. One manifestation of Trump’s pro-Israel strategy was his so-called ‘Peace to Prosperity’ plan, also dubbed the ‘Deal of the Century’ (DoC),⁹ that placed more obstructions and complexities on the road to Palestinian emancipation, while leaving Israeli colonial policies unchecked.

This plan called for further fragmentation of the Palestinian territories, confining Palestinians to disconnected zones in the West Bank and extending Israel’s colonial control and legal regime to the remaining less-populated areas that include a large number of the existing Jewish colonies, which perfectly aligns with Israel’s post-1967 war policy of ‘maximum land with minimum Palestinians.¹⁰’ The plan advocated for the formation of a disjointed Palestinian entity and promised an investment package of US$50 billion to sustain this entity. The ‘Deal’ grants Israel total sovereignty over an undivided Jerusalem, supports the annexation of Jewish colonies and denies Palestinian refugees their right of return. Furthermore, the plan includes constraining details that grossly curb the right of free movement of people and goods into Palestinian enclaves. Under the DoC, the Palestinian areas in the West Bank would be left disconnected and fragmented, reduced to merely 70% of their current territory, with Israel annexing the Jordan Valley and all its colonies. Ilan Pappé argues that the DoC constitutes a real existential danger for Palestine and the Palestinians, ‘an assault on Palestine and its people that potentially can be as destructive as the 1948 Nakba.’¹¹ The DoC could be seen as an American affirmation of Zionism as a legitimate settler-colonial movement in the twenty-first century,¹² motivated by a logic defined by Patrick Wolfe as ‘the elimination of the native.’¹³

Since the DoC has been described as a total win for Israel on all major final-status issues, which the Oslo Accords stipulated to be resolved through mutual agreement between the two sides, this explains why all Palestinians adamantly rejected it. Knowing that Palestinians would utterly reject this plan, the Trump administration’s approach bypassed them and instead worked directly with ‘moderate’ Arab states, enticing them to make peace with Israel through what has become known as the Abraham Accords.¹⁴ Neutralizing Arab support for Palestinians severely impacted the balance of power with Israel, while Palestinians were expected to find themselves forced to accept whatever would be offered to them. In other words, with no allies to balance Israel’s dominance, Trump’s policies hoped to push the Palestinians into accepting what little Israel and the Trump administration are willing to give.

Although its initiator is no longer in office, the impact of his ‘Deal’ lingers and is likely to affect future approaches to the conflict and its complications. This article argues that Trump’s DoC profoundly impacted the colonial order in Palestine, destroying the illusion that a just settlement that addresses the plight of the Palestinians could be reached. This has affected the vision of a resolution, the approach to conflict resolution, and the venue where the conflict occurs. The DoC helped shift the vision from the two-state solution to none, significantly undermining the approach that was based on negotiation and third-party mediation, and assisted in creating a new regional versus international venue for the conflict.

Trump, Power Asymmetry, and Conflict Termination

Backed by some Arab states, Palestinians historically maintained a relative balance of power in their confrontation with the Zionist colonial order. The two sides fought several wars, including in 1967 and 1973. In 2002, Arab countries presented a peace proposal known as the Arab Peace Initiative that offered full Arab normalization with Israel in return for Israel’s full withdrawal from the land it occupied in 1967. This offer reflected the relative power balance between both sides and was supported by the international community, whereas Israel refused to adopt a clear position. Trump intended to end this balance of power and push Palestinians into a corner, deepening the severe power imbalance with Israel and depriving Palestinians of any leverage. When Palestinians rejected the plan, the US administration launched punitive measures: it moved its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, cut off support for UNRWA, closed the Palestinian delegation’s office in Washington, DC, and ‘legalized’ the colonies. Khalidi (2020) considers the Trump era as the seventh declaration of war against the Palestinians because the DoC included measures that are designed to reinforce the Israeli colonial project and thwart the self-determination of the Palestinians.¹⁵ Whether balanced or imbalanced power relations lead to peace is debatable.¹⁶ In line with Trump’s approach that favors imbalance, John Vasquez and Thazha Paul argue that whenever a power asymmetry is too deep, the stronger party ‘will be able to impose its will on the weaker side over time. The weaker side will be forced to give up the conflict, as it will not be able to sustain the human and material costs of continuing it.’¹⁷

However, rebutting Trump’s approach, the balance of power theory assumes that stability can be achieved only when equal power relations exist among parties.¹⁸ Christopher Mitchell explains that power and structural asymmetry tend to direct conflict into ‘‘malign spiral[s] of interaction’ between competing parties.’¹⁹ Granting impunity to the stronger side in a structurally asymmetric conflict and dictating facts on the ground (as Trump did by siding with Israel) strengthens its unjust actions and is thus unlikely to lead to a peaceful resolution.²⁰ In this situation, the stronger party engages in what Johan Galtung calls ‘negative peace,’²¹ which might minimize violence but cannot resolve the conflict in the long term. As the stronger side acquires more power, chances decrease that the aspirations of the weaker side are fairly addressed because a power imbalance deepens, unless the stronger party is ready to accept the other side as equal in terms of status, rights, and needs.²² In sum, imbalanced relations can encourage the stronger party to behave in a hegemonic way, as it ‘tend[s] to dominate, conquer, oppress and destroy other countries.’²³ Israel did this after the announcement of Trump’s plan by creating more irreversible facts on the ground. Galtung agrees that structural asymmetry in colonial situations ‘often take[s] the form of systemic domination and oppression.’²⁴

Dynamics of oppression and deep injustice tend to complicate reaching a settlement and perpetuate a conflict. Gahazi-Walid Falah speaks of the ‘territorial injustice’ that the DoC has done to the Palestinians in the occupied territories, escalating the conflict for many years to come.²⁵ Kenneth Waltz builds on this ‘oppression and injustices’ argument and suggests that hegemony is a most dangerous condition because it encourages the hegemon to impose its will on others. As a result, weak parties ‘flock together in order to prevent conquest or domination by the stronger side.’²⁶ Stuart Kaufman and other scholars agree that states may unite to prevent another one from gaining enough power to dominate all other countries.²⁷ Thus, a power imbalance is credited with motivating sustained conflict to thwart domination and/or extinction―not peaceful behavior, as Trump claims. Trump’s DoC targeted this area in particular: the Palestinians should not find anyone to ‘flock’ with, particularly among their usual Arab allies, which, he argued, should push them to surrender.

Michael Stohl and Mary Chamberlain differentiate between competing conceptions of peace and conflict resolution because ‘it is necessary to decide whether by peace you mean social justice or social stability.’²⁸ Are conflict resolution activities suppressing conflict to serve the interests of oppressive but stabilizing power structures?²⁹ Trump’s DoC aimed to suppress legitimate Palestinian rights and achieve ‘stability’ through normalizing Israel’s relations with some Arab countries, but not justice. Trump’s attempt to deepen the power imbalance between the Palestinians and their colonizers has failed to end the conflict, leading instead to its perpetuation. Palestinians have not surrendered, and some of the damage caused by the DoC has become irreversible. Thus, Trump’s plan has strategically complicated the conflict, leaving a long-term impact that prevents a solution in the foreseeable future.

The Vision for a Resolution

For Palestinians, the 1993 Oslo Accord represented a paradigm shift from engaging in armed resistance to negotiation, which was coupled with recognizing Israel and reaching a settlement based on a two-state solution. For Israel, the accord represented an opportunity to delude the other side by projecting itself as engaging in peace, while reproducing the brutal colonial order and aiming to erase the Palestinian people. The failure of the so-called peace process has trivialized the two-state solution. Therefore, Trump’s DoC did not single-handedly produce a paradigm shift away from this option but only accelerated its progression.

Khaled Elgindy argues that Trump’s move of the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem has ‘accelerated existing trends rather than making a major shift in itself.’³⁰ The DoC played a major role in accelerating the two-state solution’s demise by breaking ‘with what had generally been understood to be the international consensus on this issue.’³¹ Hugh Lovatt contends that the ‘Trump administration’s undermining of international consensus positions [that] fram[e] a two-state solution and Palestinian statehood is nurturing a Palestinian shift towards a one-state vision.’³² While support for a shift away from the two-state solution seems to have increased since Trump’s DoC, no consensus has emerged among observers regarding where this shift is leading. This confusion about the shift’s destination reflects the damage the DoC has inflicted. In August 2021, Foreign Affairs released the results of a poll conducted among 62 prominent experts in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that revealed an unprecedented level of confusion and polarization: 25 of these experts expressed certainty that the two-state solution is no longer viable, 28 deemed it still possible, and 9 were undecided.³³

The one-state paradigm is increasingly gaining support among observers, becoming the new vision for a solution to the colonial condition in Palestine. Ian Lustick describes the DoC’s long-term impact as follows: ‘What distinguishes the Plan from previous doomed two-state efforts are elements within it, including, but not limited to its ratification of the one-state reality, that reflects a new realism.’³⁴ Jewish activist Peter Beinart confirms Lustick’s assessment of this shift, writing in the New York Times, ‘for decades I argued for separation between Israelis and Palestinians. Now, I can imagine a Jewish home in an equal state.’³⁵ Most recently, Michael Barnett, Nathan Brown, Marc Lynch, and Shibley Telhami made the case for Israel’s one-state reality arguing that the time has come to give up on the two-state solution.³⁶ Similar alternative paradigms to the two-state solution are emerging in what Bashir Bashir and Rachel Busbridge call bi-national realities, arguing that a prescriptive bi-nationalism offers a ‘decolonizing project in Israel/Palestine that seeks to establish a polity based on the principles of justice and equality.’³⁷

Two major policy decisions, executed in line with the DoC, drove this shift away from the two-state solution: moving the American Embassy to Jerusalem and (supposedly) ‘legalizing’ settlements.

Relocating the American Embassy to Jerusalem

For national security considerations, successive presidents waived the requirement of the Law of Relocation of the American Embassy to Jerusalem.³⁸ In 2017, the Trump’s administration decided to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and move the US embassy to Jerusalem. By doing so, the Trump administration endorsed Israel’s acquisition of territory by force, thereby legitimating Israel’s de jure annexation of East Jerusalem.³⁹ Trump justified this step by claiming that there was no national security imperative barring the move and that diplomatic missions ought to be near the hosting capital. Trump was hoping to boost his popularity with the Evangelical community in the United States and appease his major election funder, Jewish lobbyist Sheldon Adelson.⁴⁰

The embassy’s relocation to Jerusalem has two significant consequences: first, misleading Israelis that the conflict could be permanently settled without sharing the Holy City; and secondly, infuriating Palestinians by ignoring that for them, Jerusalem represents ‘the preservation of identity, culture and religion.’⁴¹ Though no agreement has been reached over Jerusalem, the Israeli government has discussed scenarios for sharing East Jerusalem with the Palestinians, especially during the 2000 Camp David and in the 2008 Abbas-Olmert talks. Furthermore, the US administration has historically served as a biased mediator that supported Israel but nevertheless negotiated with the Palestinians, proposing different arrangements regarding Jerusalem.⁴² The DoC has deluded Israelis into believing that the conflict can be terminated without discussing the future of Jerusalem with the Palestinians.

Consequently, Israel built on the US government’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital by changing further facts on the ground. Most notably, in May 2021 Israel tried to displace 36 Palestinian families that have lived in Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood since they were displaced from their homes during the 1948 Nakba.⁴³ Israel is unafraid to take such actions even with Trump out of office, not expecting repercussions from the US. Faced by threats to their existence in Jerusalem, Palestinians living in the city united in one voice with those in the West Bank, Gaza, inside Israel, and the diaspora, engaging in large-scale protests under the slogan ‘Save Sheikh Jarrah.’⁴⁴ These protests escalated into a war against Gaza in May 2021.⁴⁵

‘Legalizing’ Israeli Settlements in the West Bank

For years, the US officially pretended to oppose Jewish colonies in the West Bank, even branding them as an obstacle to peace. In 2016, the Obama Administration abstained from vetoing UN Security Council 2334 that affirmed that the establishment of Israeli settlements in the West Bank ‘has no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law and a major obstacle to the achievement of the two-State solution and a just, lasting and comprehensive peace.’⁴⁶ In opposition to Obama’s stance and in line with its other pro-Israeli decisions regarding the occupation, in 2019 the Trump administration declared that it considered the building and expansion of Israeli settlements on Palestinian land as ‘not inconsistent with international law.’⁴⁷ In 2019, Mike Pompeo became the first US secretary of state to visit an Israeli colony in the occupied West Bank, while the State Department declared that settlement products can be labeled ‘Made in Israel.’⁴⁸ In describing this explicit position, Kali Robinson, said, ‘if there was already a yellow light from the United States for settlement expansion, the [Trump] administration just turned it green.’⁴⁹

By essentially legalizing or ‘legitimizing’⁵⁰ Israeli settlements, the Trump administration again left a significant transformational impact on the conflict, exacerbating tensions in the region and undermining principles of international law by allowing for the ‘acquisition of territory by force.’⁵¹ Colonies have also structurally prevented the possibility of creating a contiguous and viable Palestinian state. As they are located on the major roads between Palestinian cities, settlement blocs divide the West Bank into separated parts, with Trump’s DoC plan proposing connecting them through bridges and tunnels. The DoC’s recognition of the colonies as part of Israel leaves no margin for establishing a viable Palestinian state, representing a US departure from the two-state solution.

Both democratic and republican US administrations have traditionally rejected deviation from the two-state solution formula in this conflict because they have been concerned about the possible alternatives. The one-state option is not a solution to their liking and should be avoided at all costs. But the affected parties themselves, Israelis and Palestinians, are not ready for a one-state solution either. In other words, Trump’s position on Israeli colonies has pushed the two-state option, traditionally the most acceptable solution for the international community, a step farther away―without providing an alternative. As Lovatt puts it, ‘I think Trump is doing a good job of demolishing the Oslo-MEPP. Given its obvious failings, I don’t think that is entirely a bad idea. But the problem is [that] he is not replacing it with an alternative conflict resolution model, beyond efforts to impose an outcome on Palestinians.’⁵²

Finally, the long-term impact of the DoC on the conflict can be seen in the difficulty the current Biden’s government has in opposing settlement expansion or reversing Trump’s new reality. Historically, successive US administrations have avoided the associated clashes with powerful Israeli lobby groups,⁵³ as such a reversal would require overturning facts on the ground.⁵⁴ Thus, the US embassy remains in Jerusalem, the US consulate to Palestinians in East Jerusalem is closed, the Palestinian mission in Washington remains shuttered, and Israeli colonial measures remain unchecked. This situation has led Martin Indyk to question whether brokering peace between the two sides is possible, given the dramatic changes the Trump administration has left on the ground.⁵⁵

The Approach to Conflict Resolution: Undermining Negotiation and Mediation

Trump’s DoC has undermined diplomacy as an approach to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This impact can be seen in the damage it caused in the areas of negotiation and mediation.

Negotiation: Disincentivized and Marginalized

Between 1993 and 2018, talks between Israel and the Palestinians took place in some fashion most of the time, including bilateral negotiation, multi-track or multi-channel negotiations, or sometimes indirect talks through a third party. While these negotiations were ineffective in resolving the conflict, the various US administrations utilized these talks to manage and/or contain it. With Trump’s DoC and its attempt to force Palestinians to surrender regarding Jerusalem, settlements, and the right of return for refugees, negotiation ceased to be acceptable. Indeed, Palestinians rejected not only talks with Israel but also with the US administration itself.

The DoC’s attempt to legalize Israeli colonies sent an unambiguous message to the Palestinians, confirming that over 25 years of negotiations had merely provided ‘Israel [with a] cover to expand these settlements.’⁵⁶ Sean McMahon explains how a long line of negotiations that included the 1993 Oslo Accords, the engagement of the Quartet, and the Road Map to a Two-State Solution were ‘not simply the means by which Israel’s colonization regime of Palestinian has been constructed. They are part of the regime of dispossession. They control Palestinian activity by structuring time and by isolating Palestinians from time.’⁵⁷ With continuous settlement expansion negatively impacting the daily lives of ordinary Palestinian citizens, negotiation has become discredited as a viable approach to settling the conflict not only at the leadership level but also in the eyes of the public.

But Trump’s DoC undermined the credibility of negotiations also among Israelis. The DoC gave Israel advantages that it could not achieve through 25 years of talks under international sponsorship: it recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and ‘legalized’ its illegal colonies without the need for any sort of concessions. In other words, the DoC left no incentive for Israel to engage in meaningful negotiations with the Palestinians, where both parties would be expected to make compromises to reach an acceptable solution and end their conflict. Trump’s recognition of Israel’s annexation of the Syrian Golan Heights, occupied in 1967, disincentivized further negotiation.⁵⁸

Alternatively, the DoC encouraged lobbying, rather than diplomacy and negotiation, as the most effective approach to scoring gains in regional conflicts. Hence, the lavish donations by ‘hard-line Zionist casino magnate Sheldon Adelson’⁵⁹ to Trump’s election campaigns and other projects, such as funding the US embassy’s move from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, marginalizing other conflict resolution approaches, i.e. negotiation. Under the DoC’s influence, conflict resolution measures between Israel and the Palestinians shifted from negotiators discussing the best interests of the two parties and their future generations to lobbyists exchanging favors in US election campaigns. This explains the return to political decisions likely to further complicate the conflict, prevent its solution, and leave it up to current and next generations to pay the price and suffer the consequences.

Mediation: Diminished Role of an Honest Broker

The US was always known to be a biased mediator in the Arab-Israeli conflict. As a senior state department official stated, ‘Many American officials involved in Arab-Israeli peacemaking, myself included, have acted as Israel’s attorney, catering and coordinating with the Israelis at the expense of successful peace negotiations.’⁶⁰ However, at least in theory, mediators can be biased and this does not prevent them from successfully resolving conflicts. Isak Svensson explains that mediators’ bias may stem from their historical relationship with one party, yet ‘they can deliver their party to costly concessions.’⁶¹ Biased mediators ‘can manipulate this special relationship, for instance, by withholding or increasing the resources that they give to their side.’⁶² Nevertheless, Svensson warns, biased mediators acting too one-sidedly may prevent them from playing a constructive role.⁶³ William Zartman agrees that a mediator can push only so far, lest he loses the entry completely.⁶⁴ Zeev Maoz and Lesley Terris elucidate that while mediators may maintain a biased attitude, yet contribute to a process’ overall effectiveness, they still need to be perceived as credible in order to be acceptable to the disputants,⁶⁵ which is what Trump failed to do entirely. Early in the US-led Israeli-Palestinian peace process, Edward Said warned that not only Israel but also the United States would oppose true peace, requiring Arabs and Palestinian to accommodate themselves to Israel’s reality with all its repercussions.⁶⁶ Their shared colonial interests in maintaining a Western-influenced presence in the region has dominated the relationship between the United States and Israel fairly consistently under all administrations since 1948.

The Palestinians tolerated this bias, if this ‘special relationship’⁶⁷ would provide Washington with enough leverage to convince, possibly even pressure, Israel to accept a just solution to the conflict. Instead, Trump has taken this bias to the next level by fully embracing the Israeli colonial agenda, specifically regarding the conflict’s core issues. In Elgindy’s words, ‘[i]t may well be the most serious reversal in US Middle East policy since the US took control of the peace process in the 1990s.’⁶⁸ With his drastic bias, Trump negated the very basic definition of mediation as a voluntary third-party intervention accepted by the primary parties of a specific conflict.⁶⁹ Thus, Palestinians fired him as a mediator and refused to engage in any mediation efforts directed by Washington. Thereby, the Trump DoC created a serious dilemma, incapacitating mediation as an approach to efforts to solve this conflict. It disenabled the United States from assuming its role of monopolizing the negotiation, while no other alternatives have emerged, and no credible intervenors have been found to fill the gap.

Washington’s loss of its mediating role in this conflict is not without implications. As King Abdullah II warned, the DoC will undermine future efforts of US administrations to resume the peace process.⁷⁰ Not only will Palestinians distrust the US after Washington presented them with a plan that confined them to ghettos controlled by Israel. Also, Trump’s successors will be reluctant to re-engage in mediation and revive the so-called peace process because they will have to overcome the enormous barriers he created (by moving the embassy to Jerusalem and recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital). Future US administrations will be reluctant to invest political capital and intervene. Unsurprisingly, Biden announced in his July 2022 visit to Israel and Palestine that the time is ‘not ripe’ yet to restart Israeli-Palestinian talks.⁷¹ This development has left this conflict in a deep crisis because no other credible intervenors, acceptable to both parties of the conflict, are easily available to play the vacated by the US. Russia and/or the EU, even if they were willing to act as mediators, have in the past been firmly rejected by Israel, accepting no country other than the US in this role. Only with the US playing the sole mediator’s role, Israel would be capable of continuing its settlement project in the West Bank as has been the case since the signing of the Oslo Accord in 1993, which granted Israel the privilege. In other words, the DoC has caused a mediation crisis in which potential candidates are rejected by either the Palestinians (the US) or Israel (Russia, the EU), leaving a negative and long-term impact on the chances of solving the conflict through mediation.

Conflict Venue: Regionalism versus Internationalism

The DoC’s marginalization of both the negotiation and mediation approaches to conflict resolution has pushed the Palestinian and Israeli sides toward seeking other venues and alliances to develop new conflict strategies and pursue their objectives. The Palestinians resorted to internationalism, which includes but is not limited to approaching the UN, the Quartet, and the ICC, while Israel capitalized on what the DoC offered them and resorted to regionalism, especially Arab alliances in the so-called Abraham Accords.⁷² As Rory Miller puts it, Israel’s strategy ‘is a move from a bilateral (Israel-Palestine mediated by [the] US) to a multi-party framework with a focus on the regional actors (Saudi [Arabia], UAE, Egypt) rather than external powers.’⁷³ Both Israelis and Palestinians have reacted to the international and regional environment, albeit in different ways. Since its foundation, Israel has opposed ‘foreign’ interference, whether initiated by states or international bodies such as the United Nations, human rights organizations, or any other global body. Alternatively, Israel has focused on bilateral relations with relevant parties, especially the US. The so-called Abraham Accords gave Israel a chance to transform this bilateral approach into a regional strategy.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE tacitly welcomed Israel’s regional approach, hoping that it may counter-balance Iran’s growing power in the region. Their security concerns regarding Iran, the changing US foreign policy priorities, and growing external involvement in regional affairs have generated a threat perception that forces the Arab Gulf states to seek an alliance with Israel.⁷⁴ By moving towards regionalism, Israel aimed to deepen its de-internationalization approach, allowing the country to avoid compliance and accountability in terms of international law, international covenants, and related resolutions. Moreover, Israel has strengthened its confrontational position vis-á-vis Iran, which serves Israel’s colonial objectives and has further weakened the Palestinians, sidelining their plight. By normalizing its relations with Arab states, Israel aims to widen the rift between the Palestinians and their Arab neighbors. This approach aims to halt Arab states’ political and financial support of Palestinians. This will alienate and increasingly weaken Palestinians, deepen the imbalance of power, and allow Israel to proceed with its colonial approach with minimal resistance.

For Palestinians, bilateralism is no longer viable strategy being pursued since 1993 and led to the fiasco of the Oslo Accords. While regionalism has failed to forcefully address Palestinian rights considering the 2020 normalization efforts between Israel and some Arab countries. To counter Israeli colonialism and the failure of the US to act as an honest broker, Palestinians are placing their hopes on internationalism (but without totally abandoning regionalism), involving Europe, Russia, China, and the United Nations, in addition to the US. On several occasions, Palestinians have called for the re-activation of the Quartet’s role (UN, US, Russia, EU),⁷⁵ expressing their readiness ‘to resume talks with Israel under the auspices of a Quartet, plus on the basis of international law and United Nations resolutions.’⁷⁶

As Palestinians resorted to internationalism, they have submitted formal applications to join international organizations in moves fiercely opposed by the Trump administration. Thus, in 2018, the Trump administration closed the PLO office in Washington while accusing Palestinians of ‘seeking to punish Israel through the Court,’⁷⁷ and Washington withdrew from the UN Human Rights Council in protest of the Council’s position that criticized Israel for its treatment of Palestinians.⁷⁸ In 2019, the PA submitted a letter seeking membership of the State of Palestine to join the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).⁷⁹ Moreover, during the Trump administration, Palestinians joined the Organizations of the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons,⁸⁰ the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC),⁸¹ and the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).

More importantly, the internationalization of the colonial conflict in Palestine has not been limited to the official level but widely extends to other international non-governmental institutions engaged in education (e.g. universities), the media, and the justice system. This is particularly significant because US policy has continuously been based on the ‘pro-Zionist bias’ of not only politicians but also most American media and intellectuals.⁸² During the 2021 Israeli war on Gaza, several highly influential academic institutions issued statements signed by hundreds of faculty members who condemned the Israeli attacks and declared their unequivocal support to the Palestinians in their struggle against the occupation. In an unprecedented step, a wave of statements came from US elite universities such as Harvard,⁸³ Stanford,⁸⁴ Princeton,⁸⁵ Yale,⁸⁶ Georgetown,⁸⁷ Brown,⁸⁸ and the University of California, Berkley.⁸⁹ Most recently, The American Anthropological Association membership overwhelmingly voted (71%) for a resolution to boycott Israeli academic institutions.⁹⁰

US universities have thus become a new battleground for the Israel-Palestine conflict, and the call to boycott Israel ‘has fundamentally transformed the discourse related to Palestine-Israel in the US academy[,] … also generat[ing] important struggles over issues of censorship, campus governance, and neoliberal university structures.’⁹¹ A clear manifestation of this struggle is the formation of the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI) that provides a national platform advocating for the academic and cultural boycott of Israel. This organization started with a handful of scholar-activists in 2009 and has twelve hundred endorsers today. The increasing influence of the group made it ‘register for Zionists in the US and Israel as a strategic threat to Israel’s legitimacy,’⁹² with Israel’s lobby aiming to silence all protests by portraying it as fundamentally opposing Israel’s existence rather than its policies towards Palestinians.

The US legal system has become another battleground for Palestine’s increasingly internationalized colonial conflict. In 2020, American journalist Abby Martin sued Georgia Southern University for revoking her invitation to speak at the International Critical Media Library Conference after she refused to pledge not to engage in a boycott of Israel. The university asked Martin to sign a contract stating,’you certify that you are not currently engaged in, and agree for the duration of this agreement not to engage in, a boycott of Israel, as defined in OCGA [Official Code of Georgia].’⁹³ Martin contended that the contract ‘infringed on her free speech, free association and due process rights.’⁹⁴ In 2021, Martin won the case, as the Court ruled that Georgia’s law prohibiting state contractors from boycotting Israel ‘violat[es] the First Amendment and the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.’⁹⁵

However, as Palestinians adopt the tactic of pursuing internationalism, they have not abandoned regionalism to counterbalance Israel’s territorial expansion. Both the PA/PLO, as well as Hamas and Islamic Jihad, have pursued strategies aiming to strengthen their regional relations. The PA/PLO’s strategy aims to strengthen ties with critical Arab capitals (especially Cairo, Riyadh, and Amman), attending Arab summits and other regional forums and repeatedly stressing the need to revive the abandoned Arab Peace Initiative put forward by Saudi Arabia in 2002. Hamas and Islamic Jihad focus instead on the so-called Axis of Resistance that includes primarily Hezbollah, Iran, and Syria. Through this strategy, Palestinian Islamists aim to secure financial and military support for Gaza and for the mounting armed resistance in the West Bank, especially in Jenin and Nablus.⁹⁶ In the past couple of years only, Israel launched two wars against Iran-supported Islamic Jihad in Gaza, while armed resistance against Israeli settlers in the West Bank has taken unprecedented levels. Both Hamas and Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for most of the attacks against Israeli settlers in the West Bank. In a clear sign of regionalism, Netanyahu accused Iran of being behind attacks that killed an Israeli settler in Hebron in August 2023.⁹⁷

Conclusion

Power asymmetry in colonial settings may, at least temporarily, lead to some form of imposed stability and/or force weaker parties to surrender because they cannot afford the conflict’s high cost. In Palestine, however, the deepened power asymmetry caused by Trump’s approach has exacerbated the conflict. It has muddled the vision for a resolution (the two-state solution), undermined a diplomatic approach to its resolution (negotiation and mediation), and moved the venue of the conflict from a bilateral to a regional and international arena. Relevant literature has shown that power imbalances lead to hegemony and, in Galtung’s words, domination and oppression.

Surrender is not an option for Palestinians, as they refuse to live under domination, oppression, and the potential extinction as a group with a national identity. If Palestinians accepted Trump’s DoC due to the deep asymmetric power relations, they would have to live in ghettos and under a reproduced form of twenty-first-century apartheid. Thus, the Palestinians have no choice but to fight back because their losses will be less costly than accepting apartheid, oppression, and eventual elimination. Peoples worldwide continue to preserve their right to self-determination, resisting injustice until they realize emancipation; they may postpone their independence, but they do not give up.⁹⁸

As the US government sponsored approach to end the conflict has further complicated it, a new conflict resolution approach that speaks to the setter colonial nature of the conflict is very much needed. This is not a conflict between two equal parties that requires a creative policy solution but a situation of a severe power imbalance between a powerful occupying force and an occupied population experiencing continuous attempts to be replaced with new incoming settlers from abroad. As such, justice must be at the center of any approach to end this conflict. As Azmi Bishara puts it, ‘the question of Palestine is not simply a dilemma awaiting creative policy solutions, but rather a question of injustice that can only be resolved through the application of justice.’⁹⁹ In fact, justice has become a galvanizing force for many international efforts addressing the injustices caused by this conflict, but for such efforts to succeed an entirely different strategy is needed. Such a strategy should be based on a bottom-up internationalized solidarity movement, similar to South Africa, and capable of ending the existing power imbalance and its accompanying oppression.

Through their internationalization of the conflict, the Palestinians have been able to rebalance some of their losses. They were able to generate support for themselves in places that formerly had provided blind support to Israeli policies. More importantly, this support is increasing over time, as can be seen in the growing international solidarity movement, particularly the Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) movement, and even the support given by governments, as almost all European governments publicly opposed Trump’s DoC. Internationalization is providing the most effective counterweight to Israel’s hegemony, as American and European elite universities and associations have publicly opposed Israeli policies that aim to subjugate the Palestinian people. Another emerging battleground is the American legal system, as challenges to US government policies that seek to protect Israel from being subjected to boycott have become widespread in American courts. In other words, the venue where power is rebalanced is no longer limited to the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea but extends to US universities and legal systems, among other sectors. Furthermore, it should also be noted that while Palestinians are capitalizing on the international support, they have not abandoned the regional dimension through the acceleration of armed resistance in the West Bank and Gaza, particularly with Hamas and Islamic Jihad benefiting from the support they are receiving from Iran and Hezbollah.

While Trump’s DoC failed to end the colonial condition on terms that aimed to deepen the imbalance of power and force Palestinians to surrender, it has caused substantial damage that makes the conflict’s resolution less likely, at least in the foreseeable future. The DoC accelerated the shift from the paradigm of a two-state solution to that of no vision, as apparent in the state of confusion that prevailed by the end of Trump’s term in office when the new administration vacillated between approaches to end this conflict. Observers debate competing models of a ‘one-state reality,’ bi-national state solutions, and federate or confederate arrangements. However, none of these models has received anything near consensus to serve as the leading paradigm, neither among analysts of this conflict nor with the parties themselves―in stark contrast to the support given to the two-state solution during, for instance, the Obama presidency.

Nothing has damaged the two-state solution formula and complicated the conflict’s resolution more than moving the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, recognizing Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel, and attempting to legalize the Israeli colonies. Furthermore, the DoC misled Israelis into believing that the conflict could be settled permanently without sharing the Holy City and while ignoring Palestinians’ legitimate claims to Jerusalem and other rights. Equally damaging, the DoC’s attempt to ‘legalize’ the Israeli colonies has exacerbated the conflict as it sought to undermine principles of international law and allow for the acquisition of territory by force.

Moreover, the DoC has undermined the potential of negotiation and mediation to contain the brutality of the colonial order. After over 25 years of negotiations to end the Israeli colonialization of their land, Palestinians found themselves being offered disconnected ghettos that are completely controlled by Israel. Simultaneously, the DoC made immense concessions to Israel regarding, for instance, Jerusalem and settlements without asking for compromises of any sort in return. Israel had not been able to achieve such a bounty in all the years of negotiations under the sponsorship of previous American administrations. Thus, the DoC has encouraged a predisposition towards lobbying over negotiating, signalling to the Israeli government that this is an effective approach to resolve conflicts and make political gains. Finally, what makes the DoC so damaging is that it severely hampers the prospects of solving the conflict, as successive US governments will struggle to reverse the new reality the DoC created.

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Additional information

Funding

Open Access funding provided by the Qatar National Library.

Notes

1 See Mounir Akash (2013) The right to sacrifice the other, America and genocide. (Beirut: Dar Riad Al-Rayes) [in Arabic].

2 See Robert Freedman, ed., Israel and the United States: Six Decades of US-Israeli Relations, (Westview Press, 2012). See also Khaled Elgindy. Blind Spot: America and the Palestinians, from Balfour to Trump. Brookings Institution Press, 2019.

3 Yasser Arafat ‘may have been poisoned with polonium,’ BBC News, November 6, 2013, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-24838061. Accessed on August 21, 2023.

4 Noam Chomsky (1999) Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel, and the Palestinians (London: Pluto Press).

5 Edward W. Said (2001) The End of the Peace Process: Oslo and After (Vintage Books).

6 Naseer Aruri (2003) Dishonest Broker: The Role of the United States in Palestine and Israel Publisher (South End Press).

7 Rashid Khalidi (2014) Brokers of Deceit: How the U.S. Has Undermined Peace in the Middle (Beacon Press).

8 United States Department of State (n.d.) The Abraham Accords Declaration. United States Department of State. Available online at: https://www.state.gov/the-abraham-accords, accessed on January 23, 2023.

9 See the full plan online at: Peace to Prosperity: A Vision to Improve the Lives of the Palestinian and Israeli People. Trump White House Archives (January 2020). Available online at: https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Peace-to-Prosperity-0120.pdf, accessed on Aug. 23, 2023.

10 Tariq Dana and Ali Jarbawi (2022) Whose Autonomy? Conceptualising ‘Colonial Extraterritorial Autonomy’ in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Politics, 43 (1), p. 107.

11 Ilan Pappe (2020) The Steal of the Century: Robbing Palestinians of Their Past and Future, The Arab World Geographer, 23 (1), p.9.

12 Ibid.

13 Patrick Wolfe (2006) Settler Colonialism and the Elimination of the Native, Journal of Genocide Research, 8 (4), p. 387–409. See also on settler colonialism and indigenous resistance: Honaida Ghanem (2022) The Palestine Question: From the Balfour Declaration to the Deal of the Century in The Oxford Handbook of the Sociology of the Middle East, ed., Armando Salvatori et al., (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press).

14 United States Department of State (n.d.) The Abraham Accords Declaration. United States Department of State. Available online at: https://www.state.gov/the-abraham-accords, accessed on August 9, 2022.

15 In his book: Rashid Khalidi (2020) The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine (Metropolitan Books: Henry Holt and Company), Khalidi divides the Palestinian struggle for statehood into six stages that he describes as six “declarations of war.”

16 Richard Little (2007) The Balance of Power in International Relations: Metaphors, Myths and Models (New York, Cambridge: University Press); Hidemi Suganami (1996) On the Causes of War (New York: Oxford University Press Inc.).

17 John A. Vasquez (1996) Distinguishing Rivals that go to War from Those That Do Not, International Studies Quarterly, 40 (4), p. 531–58.; Thazha. Paul (2006) Why Has the India-Pakistan Rivalry Been so Enduring? Power Asymmetry and an Intractable Conflict, Security Studies, 15(4), 600-630.

18 Claude (2000) Power and International Relations (New York: Random House), p. 55-56.

See also Ho-Won Jeong (2000) Peace and Conflict Studies: an Introduction (Virginia, George Mason University: Routledge).

19 C. R. Mitchell (1991) Classifying Conflicts: Asymmetry and Resolution, The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 518 (1), pp. 23-38.

20 Giorgio Gallo and Arturo Marzano (2009) The Dynamics of Asymmetric Conflicts: The Israeli-Palestinian Case, Journal of Conflict Studies 29, pp. 33-49.

21 Ben Baruch (2012) An interview with Johan Galtung. Peace Insight (March 12). Available online at: https://www.peaceinsight.org/en/articles/interview-johan-galtung/?location=sudan&theme=peace-education, accessed January 21, 2022.

22 Girogio Gallo and Arturo Marzano (2009) The Dynamics of Asymmetric Conflicts, Journal of Conflict Studies, 29, p. 45.

23 Ho-Won Jeong (2000) Peace and Conflict Studies: An Introduction (Aldershot: Ashgate), p. 109.

24 Johan Galtung (1990) Cultural Violence, Journal of Peace Research, 27 (3), p. 291; David G. Gil (1998) Confronting Injustice and Oppression: Concepts and Strategies for Social Workers (New York: Columbia University Press); Toran Hansen (2008) Critical Conflict Resolution Theory and Practice, Conflict Resolution Quarterly 25(4), pp. 403-427.

25 Ghazi-Walid Falah (2021) How Should One Read Trump’s Map of the ‘Deal of the Century’?, Third World Quarterly, 42 (12), p. 3030.

26 Kenneth Waltz (1979) Theory of International Politics (New York: Random House), p. 127.

27 Stuart J. Kaufman, Richard Little, and William C. Wohlforth (2007) The Balance of Power in World History (London: Palgrave Macmillan UK).

28 Michael Stohl and Mary Chamberlain (1972) Alternative Futures for Peace Research, Journal of Conflict Resolution, 16(4), p. 527.

29 Chuck Thiessen and Marwan Darweish (2018) Conflict Resolution and Asymmetric Conflict: The Contradictions of Planned Contact Interventions in Israel and Palestine, International Journal of Intercultural Relations 66, p. 75.

30 Khaled Elgindy, author of Blind Spots: America and the Palestinians from Balfour to Trump; author’s email correspondence, August 2018.

31 Tareq Baconi (2021) Gaza and the One-State Reality, Journal of Palestine Studies, 50 (1): p. 79. Regarding how US as a mediator ended the two-state solution, see also Rashid Khalidi (2014) Brokers of Deceit: How the US Has Undermined Peace in the Middle East (Boston: Beacon Press).

32 Lovatt is an Israel-Palestine expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations; author’s email correspondence, July 2018.

33 Mussa Qawasma (2021) Is the Two-State Solution Still Viable?. Foreign Affairs (August 24). Available online at: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ask-the-experts/2021-08-24/two-state-solution-still-viable?fbclid=IwAR1VRHOjo5H64CFkWyOJ6o0GOfzOnMkA43R3HpltIeTB5FODQpgHb09EyK4, accessed on August 21, 2023.

34 Ian S. Lustick (2020) The One-State Reality: Reading the Trump-Kushner Plan as a Morbid Symptom, The Arab World Geographer, 23 (1), p. 27. See also, Leila Farsakh (2011) The one-state solution and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Palestinian challenges and prospects, The Middle East Journal, 65 (1), p. 55-7, on the challenges and opportunities for the one state solution. And Virginia Tilley (2010) The one-state solution: A breakthrough for peace in the Israeli-Palestinian deadlock (University of Michigan Press), on the one-state solution: a breakthrough for peace in the Israeli-Palestinian deadlock.

35 Peter Beinart (2020) Opinion | I No Longer Believe in a Jewish State. The New York Times (July 8). Available online at: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/08/opinion/israel-annexation-two-state-solution.html, accessed on August 21, 2023.

36 Michael Barnett, Nathan Brown, Marc Lynch, and Shibley Telhami (2023). The One State Reality, What is Israel/Palestine? (New York: Cornell University Press).

37 Bashir Bashir and Rachel Busbridge (20182019)The Politics of Decolonisation and Bi-Nationalism in Israel/Palestine, Political Studies, 67 (2), p. 388.

38 Jeruslem Embassy Act of 1995 (n.d.) Authenticated U.S. Government Information. Available online at: https://www.congress.gov/104/plaws/publ45/PLAW-104publ45.pdf, accessed on August 21, 2023.

39 Baconi, “Gaza and the One State Reality,” pp. 77-90.

40 Abdul Rashid Moten (2018) US Embassy in Jerusalem: Reasons, Implications and Consequences, Intellectual Discourse 26(1), pp. 5–22.

41 Dana Chwatt (2019) Framing of the U.S. Embassy Move to Jerusalem: A Comparative Qualitative Study, Elon Journal of Undergraduate Research in Communications, 10 (1), p. 46.

42 It should be mentioned that what was exactly shared in the Camp David Negotiations and what role the US administration played remains a very debatable issue in the literature.

43 Raja Shehadeh (2011) Sheikh Jarrah and the Renewed Israeli-Palestinian Violence. The New Yorker (May 11). Available online at: https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/sheikh-jarrah-and-the-renewed-israeli-palestinian-violence, accessed on August 21, 2023.

44 Aseel Jundi (2021) Save Sheikh Jarrah: The Online Campaign Giving Hope to Palestinian Refugees in East Jerusalem. Middle East Eye (March 22). Available online at: https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestine-save-sheikh-jarrah-campaign, accessed on August 21, 2023.

45 The significance of these protests is that the come across space in the different areas of Israel’s settler colonial project and all types of indigenous Palestinian communities joining the protests. See also, Walaa Alqaisiya, (2023) “Beyond the Contours of Zionist Sovereignty: Decolonization in Palestine’s Unity Intifada.” Political Geography, 103.

46 United Nations Security Council (2016) Resolution 2334. United Nations. Available online at: https://www.un.org/webcast/pdfs/SRES2334-2016.pdf accessed on January 23, 2022.

47 BBC (2019) Israel and the Palestinians: Can the Settlement Issue Be Solved?. BBC News (November 18). Available online at: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-38458884, accessed on January 23, 2022.

48 Joseph Krauss (2021) Pompeo Is 1st Top US Diplomat to Visit an Israeli Settlement. AP NEWS (November 19). Available online at: https://apnews.com/article/race-and-ethnicity-israel-boycotts-west-bank-jerusalem-38f09415fb4990ebdcbfea15dccff514, accessed on January 23, 2022.

49 Kali Robinson (2021) What Is U.S. Policy on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict? Council on Foreign Relations (July 12). Available online at: https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/what-us-policy-israeli-palestinian-conflict accessed on January 23, 2022.

50 David Newman (2020) The Changing Geopolitics of Settlements and Borders in Trump’s Deal of the Century, It Is Time to Think beyond the Territorial Box, The Arab World Geographer, 23 (1), p. 29.

51 Muriel Asseburg and Sarah Ch. Henkel (2021) Normalisation and Realignment in the Middle East A New, Conflict-Prone Regional Order Takes Shape. SWP (July 28). Available online at: https://www.swp-berlin.org/10.18449/2021C45/ accessed on January 23, 2022.

52 Author’s email correspondence, July 2018.

53 John J Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt (2007) The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy (New York: Farrar Straus Giroux).

54 Manny Rodriguez (2020) The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict in the Trump Era: A Human Rights Perspective (Hartford, CT: Trinity College, Senior Thesis).

55 Martin S. Indyk (2020) Biden Can Clean up Trump’s Israeli-Palestinian Policy Mess, but Can He Broker Peace? Council on Foreign Relations (Novembee 17). Available online at: https://www.cfr.org/article/biden-can-clean-trumps-israeli-palestinian-policy-mess-can-he-broker-peace accessed on January 23, 2022.

56 Ahmed Abukhater (2019) Palestine - Peace by Piece: Transformative Conflict Resolution for Land and Trans-Boundary Water Resources (Cham, Switzerland: Springer), p. 22.

57 Sean F. McMahon (2016) Temporality, Peace Initiatives and Palestinian-Israeli Politics, Middle East Critique, 25 (1), p. 6.

58 As’ad Ghanem (2020) The Deal of the Century in Context – Trump’s Plan Is Part of a Long-Standing Settler-Colonial Enterprise in Palestine, The Arab World Geographer, 23 (1), p. 45–59.

59 Mouin Rabbani (2019) Jerusalem and the Trump Administration Transforming the Status Quo (Beirut: Institute for Palestine Studies), p. 22.

60 Aaron David Miller (2005) Israel’s Lawyer. Washington Post (May 23). Available online at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/2005/05/23/israels-lawyer/7ab0416c-9761-4d4a-80a9-82b7e15e5d22/ accessed on January 23, 2022.

61 Isak Svensson (2009) Who Brings Which Peace? Neutral versus Biased Mediation and Institutional Peace Arrangements in Civil Wars, Journal of Conflict Resolution, 53 (3), p. 448.

62 Ibid. p. 449.

63 Isak Svensson (2019) Biased mediation, in Research Handbook on Mediating International Crises, edited by Jonathan Wilkenfeld, Kyle Beardsley, David Quinn (Massachusetts: Edward Edgar publishing), p. 325.

64 William Zartman (2023) UN Mediation in the Syrian Crisis: From Kofi Annan through Lakhdar Brahimi to Staffan de Mistura, in Ibrahim Fraihat and Isak Svensson, Conflict Mediation in the Arab World (Syracuse University Press).

65 Zeev Maoz and Terris Lesley (2009) Credibility and Strategy in International Mediation, in Jacob Bercovitch and Scott Sigmund Gartner (eds) International Conflict Management: New Approaches and Findings (London: Routledge), pp. 69-95.

66 Edward W. Said (2003) The End of the Peace Process: Oslo and After (Vintage Books). See also Naseer Hasan Aruri (2003), Dishonest Broker: The U.S. Role in Israel and Palestine (Cambridge, Ma: South End Press).

67 Ilai Z. Saltzman (2017) Not so ‘Special Relationship’? US-Israel Relations during Barack Obama's Presidency, Israel Studies, 22 (1), pp. 50-75.

68 Khaled Elgindy (2017) Trump Just Sabotaged His Own Peace Process, The Brookings Institution (December 7). Available online at: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/markaz/2017/12/07/trump-just-sabotaged-his-own-peace-process/ accessed on January 23, 2022.

69 Jacob Bercovitch (2002) Introduction: Putting mediation in context, in Studies in international mediation: Essays in honor of Jeffrey Z. Rubin’, ed., Jacob Bercovitch (New York: Palgrave Macmillan); See also Saadia Touval and I. W. Zartman (2001) International mediation in the post-Cold War era, in Turbulent peace: The challenges of managing international conflict, Chester Crocker, Fen Osler Hampson, and Pamela Aall, ed., (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press), pp. 427-43.

70 Moten, “US Embassy in Jerusalem,”.

71 Jenny Leonard and Justin Sink (2022) Bloomberg - Are You a Robot? Bloomberg (July 15). Available online at: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-07-15/biden-says-time-not-ripe-to-restart-israel-palestinian-talks accessed on January 23, 2022.

72 Ahmad Mudhofarul Baqi (2022) From Foes to Friends: The Normalization of the United Emirates Arab and Israel Relations, Insignia: Journal of International Relations, 9 (1), p. 80.

73 Email discussion with the author, July 2018.

74 Muddassir Quamar (2020) Changing Regional Geopolitics and the Foundations of a Rapprochement between Arab Gulf and Israel, Global Affairs, 6 (4-5), p. 1. See also Ibrahim Fraihat (2020) Iran and Saudi Arabia: Taming a Chaotic Conflict. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

75 Reuters Staff (2020) Palestinian Leader Calls for U.N.-Led Peace Conference Early next Year. Reuters (September 25). Available online at: https://www.reuters.com/article/un-assembly-palestinians-int-idUSKCN26G2Y6 accessed on January 23, 2022.

76 Richard Engel (2020) A Conversation with Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh of the Palestinian Authority. Council on Foreign Relations (November 17). Available online at: https://www.cfr.org/event/conversation-prime-minister-mohammad-shtayyeh-palestinian-authority accessed on January 23, 2022.

77 Steve Holland (2018) Trump Administration Takes Aim at International Criminal Court, PLO. Reuters (September 10). Available online at: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-icc-idUSKCN1LQ076 accessed on January 23, 2022.

78 Gardiner Harris (2018) Trump Administration Withdraws U.S. from U.N. Human Rights Council. The New York Times (June 19). Available online at: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/19/us/politics/trump-israel-palestinians-human-rights.html accessed on January 23, 2022.

79 UNCTAD (2018) State of Palestine Expresses Intent to Join UNCTAD. UNCTAD (May 24). Available online at: https://unctad.org/news/state-palestine-expresses-intent-join-unctad accessed on January 23, 2022.

80 State of Palestine Joins the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (2021). OPCW (November 13). Available online at: https://www.opcw.org/media-centre/news/2018/06/state-palestine-joins-organisation-prohibition-chemical-weapons accessed on January 23, 2022.

81 State of Palestine Joins Convention (2021) United Nations Climate Change (November 13). Available online at; https://unfccc.int/news/state-of-palestine-joins-convention accessed on January 23, 2022.

82 Noam Chomsky (2015) Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel, and the Palestinians (London: Pluto Press).

83 Statement by Harvard Faculty in Support of Palestinian Liberation (n.d.). Google Docs. Available online at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vQP5aNY9fTLf8-1cVbw7vJNYElWNzs6GLfhIM0NUo-Y5Krama8MyINIhaiehSGOzhhiB2nxM3ERBYkF/pub, accessed June 3, 2021.

84 Stanford Community Protests Israeli State Violence against Palestinians (n.d.). Google Docs. Available online at: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdc1XUNvjE8zjpTgXBFdWaukRJAorMYHjwb_cHq-AXitdCsew/viewform, accessed June 3, 2021.

85 Princeton University Community Statement of Solidarity with the Palestinian People (n.d.). Google Docs. Available online at: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScxG4x4MOkooD0dfraFiCNX6Xsg6Oxo9l-lhhRpYD_A6OwTbg/viewform, accessed May 18, 2021.

86 Statement by the Faculty in Ethnicity, Race, and Migration on Palestine | Ethnicity, Race, and Migration (n.d.). Yale University. Available online at: https://erm.yale.edu/news/statement-faculty-ethnicity-race-and-migration-palestine, accessed May 17, 2021.

87 Georgetown Faculty, Staff & Students Statement of Solidarity with Palestinian People (n.d.). Google Docs. Available online at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vRbhVKx-7quTcBA5B62ck8zh3DFFhJg0HXQMsOQJZX_akZyfnZaT_Qk6gX3xmOh5RhnJmxw2d_BzKdz/pub, accessed June 3, 2021.

88 Brown Community’s Letter of Solidarity for Palestine (n.d.). Google Docs. Available online at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OKPkIl7tI061zumkOOKxjRSHJzB-4ifXotgqn4WlDT0/edit, accessed May 15, 2021.

89 UC Berkeley Faculty and Staff Statement in Support of Palestine (n.d.). Department of Ethnic Studies UC Berkly. Available online at: https://ethnicstudies.berkeley.edu/uc-berkeley-faculty-and-staff-statement-in-support-of-palestine/, accessed May 20, 2021.

90 AAA Membership Endorses Academic Boycott Resolution. July 2023. https://tinyurl.com/26reqo6j Accessed on Aug. 24, 2023.

91 Sunaina Maira (2018) Boycott!:The Academy and Justice for Palestine (Oakland, California: University of California Press), p. 7.

92 Ibid, p. 56.

93 Heidi Johnson (2021) Federal Judge Finds Georgia Anti-BDS Law Unconstitutional. Legal News & Commentary (May 26). Available online at: https://www.jurist.org/news/2021/05/federal-judge-finds-georgias-anti-bds-law-unconstitutional/ accessed on January 23, 2022.

94 Ibid.

95 Ibid.

96 See Raz Zimmt (2023) Declarations of Senior Iranian Officials Concerning the West Bank Point to Intensifying Iranian Effort to Expand Its Influence in this Arena, The Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center. Available at: https://www.terrorism-info.org.il/app/uploads/2023/02/E_029_23.pdf accessed on January 23, 2022.; Udi Dekel (2023) The Palestinian Resistance Axis Converges with the Iran-Hezbollah Axis, The Institute for National Security Studies. Available online at: https://www.inss.org.il/publication/palestinian-iran-axis/ accessed on January 23, 2022.

97 Netanyahu says Iran behind attacks as Israeli killed in Hebron shooting. Aljazeera, Aug. 2023, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/8/21/one-israeli-dead-one-wounded-in-shooting-near-hebron.

98 Adeeb Ziadeh (2020) Europe’s Stand on Jerusalem and the US “Deal of the Century, Siyasat Arabiya, 8 (43), pp.51–65.

99 Azmi Bishara (2022) Palestine: Matters of Truth and Justice (London: Hurst), p. 2.