Chicago – February 18, 2024
The world is once again talking about a Palestinian state.
The issue has caused a deep rift between Israel and its closest ally, the United States. US President Joe Biden keeps pressing for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejects any talk of an independent Palestine. Meanwhile, the United Kingdom said it would consider recognizing a Palestinian state, while Saudi Arabia insists that without a resolution to the statehood question, there can be no normalization of ties with Israel.
In all that back and forth about their future, the voice of the Palestinian people has been largely missing. Watching world leaders debate their fate, many Palestinians are not holding their breath. They’ve heard it all before.
Khalil Shikaki, the director of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PCPSR), said that most Palestinians are beyond the point of putting their hopes into statements made by foreign leaders, regardless of how friendly they might sound.
“No rhetoric, no matter from where, is going to be helpful at all to convince the Palestinians that there is a viable political process that could end the Israeli occupation and give them statehood in their own country,” he told CNN in an interview in Ramallah, the administrative center of the Palestinian Authority in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
“What they need to see is action on the ground,” he said. “They want to see Israeli occupation ending – and the two most important signs of Israeli occupation are the settlement construction and the control over land.”
Israel captured the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza in the 1967 war. It later annexed East Jerusalem and withdrew its troops and settlers from Gaza.
Under the Oslo Accords peace agreement, the West Bank has been split into three distinct areas, depending on who is in charge. The plan was for Israel to gradually hand over control over more and more areas, but that has never happened. Israel has full administrative and security control over 60% of the West Bank area, which it continues settling its citizens in.
