Vision to Reality: The Reut Blog

The New York Times and Ha’aretz both report on the Palestine Strategy Group which recently published a 52 page report which calls for the Palestinians to regain the ‘strategic initiative’ against Israel. Its main conclusion is that the Palestinians should reconsider its support for the two state solution.

The group is financed by the European Union and comprises 27 Palestinian intellectuals, academics, human rights activists, entrepreneurs and former government ministers and has been meeting since January in various places to work on the document.

It states that “If Israel refuses to negotiation seriously for a genuine two state outcome, Palestinians [should]…switch to an alternative strategy… the definitive closing down of the 1988 negotiation option, the reconstitution of the Palestinian Authority so that it will not serve future Israeli interests (something Reut calls Deluxe Occupation)…and the shift from the two state outcome to a single state outcome as the Palestinians’ preferred strategic goal.”

This study group is one in a series of increasing signs that the Palestinian national movement is reconsidering its support for a negotiated two state solution. The Reut Institute first began to discuss this trend in November 2004 and presented a power-point presentation on the topic at the Herzliya Conference in January 2007.

While traditionally, this idea could be found on the fringes, it has recently spread to mainstream Palestinian discourse, with many ‘moderate’ Palestinians who question the feasibility of the two state solution beginning to consider it. The idea is also spreading into the international arena.

The failure of negotiations could be ‘the tipping point’ of this trend. Israel needs to prepare accordingly.