Seizing the global momentum for a two-state solution

The US's indispensable role

It is hard to exaggerate the indispensable role that the US must play to bring about a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Every US administration supported a two-state solution, including Trump's, which, in January 2020, released a peace plan that proposed a two-state solution, focusing on Israel's security and Palestinian self-determination. His position has shifted due to increased evangelical influence in his administration, which opposes the idea. For example, his appointment of Mike Huckabee, a strong critic of the two-state solution, as ambassador to Israel showcases the strong evangelical influence on his current policy.

Trump, who professes to care much about Israel's national security, should also know that, given the long and intensifying violent confrontations between the two sides, Israel's ultimate national security rests with a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Gaza war only reaffirmed the dire unsustainability of the conflict, and that supporting Netanyahu's messianic government, aiming to re-create a greater Israel by displacing the Palestinians from both the West Bank and Gaza, is the recipe for continuing disastrous battles. It will increasingly destabilize the Middle East, depriving Israel of forging peace with many Arab states, while risking Israel's current peace agreements with six Arab states.

Given Trump's extraordinary popularity in Israel, he is, unlike any of his predecessors, in a unique position to forge the deal of the century. This is not to suggest that it will be easy to reach a peace agreement only because he wills it. The many conflicting issues, coupled with a complete distrust between the two sides, means it will take considerable time to negotiate an agreement. And once it is reached in principle, it will take a process of reconciliation of several years to mitigate the deeply embedded distrust between them.

Trump is for Trump. For one who badly covets the Nobel Peace Prize, ending the longest conflict since World War II will almost guarantee him receiving it. But more than anything else, he will end decades of strife, sacrifices, and suffering, and usher in regional peace and an unimaginable renaissance.

Is this too utopian to contemplate? Maybe. But then, show me what alternative both sides can agree upon to permanently end the conflict, short of a two-state solution.