Click to read a copy of LFI’s latest policy pamphlet: Towards Two States the Path to a Palestinian State.
Pamphlet cover
LFI today publishes a strategic roadmap to delivering a Palestinian state, urging learning lessons from failed efforts over the past three decades and a focus on both high-level diplomacy and a renewed push towards radically reforming and bolstering the Palestinian Authority.
The paper calls for a “new flexible and balanced” UN Security Council Resolution and urges third-party states like Britain to use incentives, such as recognition of a Palestinian state, wisely.
“Since 7 October, Israelis and Palestinians have endured devastating violence and injustice. The urgency to initiate a diplomatic process aimed at resolving this conflict has never been greater,” author Dr Toby Greene, a visiting fellow at the Middle East Centre at LSE and lecturer in the Department for Political Studies at Bar Ilan University, writes in Towards Two States: The Path to a Palestinian State. “Despite the depth of despair, it is essential to focus on constructing pathways to a more peaceful future.”
“Third party states must play their cards – including incentives relating to recognition – carefully in the service of long-term objectives, and not squander them in response to short-term pressures,” Greene argues. “A new flexible and balanced UN Security Council resolution, endorsing a new roadmap to Palestinian statehood but conditioning it on measures including Palestinian commitments to Israeli security, may provide a way of setting a new international framework as part of this process.”
The paper emphases the need for a two-state solution to both realise Palestinian national rights and secure Israel’s future as a Jewish and democratic state. It outlines the potential for regional integration and prosperity by leveraging the Arab-Israeli normalisation processes. But it also warns about mutual distrust between Israelis and Palestinians, the weakened state of the Palestinian Authority, and the influence of external actors like Iran. The paper sets out proposals including:
- the establishment of an interim governing authority – led by Palestinians with international support – to replace Hamas and manage security and the reconstruction of Gaza;
- a medium-term process to re-establish the authority of the PA in Gaza, with both reforms – including an end to the PA’s policy of paying salaries to terrorists – and measures – such as halting construction beyond the settlement blocks and increasing the size of territory in the West Bank governed by Ramallah – undertaken by both Palestinians and Israelis;
- and regional security agreements – backed by Arab and western powers – to ensure an eventual Palestinian state will remain demilitarised; its leaders committed to coexistence; and that it can never ally with Iran or other enemies.
Click for a PDF copy of Towards Two States the Path to a Palestinian State.