(Bloomberg Opinion) -- The ‘Deal of the Century’ unveiled today in Washington is not a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians. It is a declaration by the United States that the Six Day War is over, and Israel has won.
The Palestinian leadership in the West Bank furiously rejects this verdict. It argues that most of the world opposes terms that recognize Israeli sovereignty over all West Bank settlements, the Jordan Valley and the important parts of East Jerusalem. This is true. But it isn’t going to do the Palestinians much good. Foreign friends will sympathize. Some may threaten sanctions. But the “international community” and the all-but-defunct Arab League are powerless to change the American-Israel understanding. And, surprisingly, some of the Sunni Arab states actually seem to be willing to at least consider it. At least three Arab ambassadors broke with a decades-long boycott and attended the ceremony.
The deal contemplates a demilitarized Palestinian entity in the majority of the West Bank — a state that will arise gradually within four years, contingent on an end to terrorism and a willingness to recognize Israel as the Jewish State. Bibi Netanyahu has been selling this “state minus” formula package for years to no avail. Today in Washington, Donald Trump signed the contract.
The leader of the Israeli opposition, Benny Gantz, is also on board. He has no choice; the mainstream of his center-left party supports the agreement. Once the Palestinians could count on solidarity from Israel’s strong dovish camp, but the Intifada of the early 2000s turned reduced them to a small flock of chirping idealists.
The Palestinian Authority in Ramallah is said to be planning mass demonstrations, but Israel’s Intelligence assessment is that President Mahmud Abbas doesn’t want an armed uprising. In any case, there appears to be scant appetite for street-fighting among the mainstream. Many West Bankers have jobs or business connections in Israel that would quickly disappear in the event of a new armed uprising.
In any case, the new deal won’t change most Palestinian lives. Israeli settlements already exist (and many West Bankers work in them). Very few Palestinians live in the Jordan Valley, which long ago became Israel’s de facto eastern border. The Al Aksa Mosque in Jerusalem will presumably remain under the custodianship of the Hashemite King of Jordan and be administered by the Wakf religious trust.
The deal might even turn out to be a good one for those Palestinians who prioritize quality of life over national ideology. Trump is offering them consolation prizes in the form of $50 billion dollars of U.S. and other foreign aid and investment. Israel, too, can be counted on to open its doors wider to job seekers and joint economic and infrastructure projects.
President Abbas is insulted by the idea that the Palestinian cause is up for sale. “We will never sell Palestine!” is his message. But Abbas is elderly and ill. His putative successors are already raising underground militias in anticipation of the day he no longer holds power. They have lived their adult lives under Israeli rule. Most speak excellent Hebrew as a result of long prison stints. They are not Zionists by any means, but they are practical men (there are no women vying for power) who understand that the revolutionary dream of Arafat and Abbas is not possible. There will be no mass return of fourth-generation refugees, no Palestinian army, no military pacts with like-minded Arab forces across the border. Better a small state than none at all.
Some of the Palestinian old-guard functionaries in Ramallah cling to the hope that this is a bad dream from which they will awake — perhaps to find President Barack Obama back in the White House. They got a shot of encouragement this week from Daniel Shapiro, the former U.S. ambassador to Israel, who published an article predicting that the next Democratic president, whether in 2021 or 2025, will unilaterally cancel Trump’s policies and return the conflict to the good old days of endless palaver.
I don’t think the Palestinians — or Ambassador Shapiro’s Israeli friends, to whom the article was addressed — should count on this. Even Obama at the top of his game didn’t have the muscle to force Israel into agreeing to an armed Palestinian entity, the evacuation of settlements and withdrawal from borders it considers indefensible.
It is very hard to imagine a new Democratic president opening a brutal fight by attempting to turn back the clock and back out of an official agreement. Israel enjoys too much support in the U.S. for that sort of bullying. True, Bibi’s policies are unpopular with liberal Zionists of the J-Street and Reform Jewish variety, but this isn’t a Likud deal. It has the endorsement of Israeli political parties who make up roughly 90% of Israel’s Jewish electorate.
Still, people here are not hanging out flags. Fifty-three years after the Six Day War, there is a too-good-to-be-true quality to what has transpired in Washington. It will take Israelis time to trust in their victory, just as it will take the Palestinians time to see that what they are being offered is not entirely a defeat.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Sarah Green Carmichael at sgreencarmic@bloomberg.net
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg LP and its owners.
Zev Chafets is a journalist and author of 14 books. He was a senior aide to Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and the founding managing editor of the Jerusalem Report Magazine.
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