Israelis and Palestinians must make peace themselves, no one else can do it for them - opinion

Since the Oct. 7 attack, Palestinians and Israelis have awoken every morning with a rising death toll on both sides. The death ratio of 40 Palestinians for each Israeli is more than horrible to digest or excuse. Blaming either side is not helpful at all. The pain in every family on this or that side is the same. The blood spilled on either side is of the same color. If some people think that one type of blood is purer than the other, I must remind them that they are not only wrong but are following the path of horrible mistakes that led to World War II. No more hints are needed; I guess everybody got the point.

This is not about whom to blame. The blame game should have been over years ago when Palestinians and Israelis were on the verge of reaching a final status agreement by the end of the five-year interim Oslo Accords in 1999. In 2000, then-President Bill Clinton hosted a new round of talks between the Palestinian delegation led by the late Yasser Arafat and the Israeli delegation led by Ehud Barak. There were ups and downs. Some positive ideas emerged. Others were shelved. The awkward eventuality was when Mr. Murphy and his law came to visit. “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong,” says the law. At Camp David, everything went wrong.

Former President Clinton invited the two sides for talks only a few months before his second term at the White House ended. Some, myself included, believed that had he started earlier, he could have had more time to succeed in his effort. There were lots of expectations. And so were the feelings of frustration that floated immediately after the negotiations collapsed. The second Palestinian intifada broke out, and the rest of the story is known. In short, the Middle East was again pushed deep into a storm of insanity that was characterized by armed clashes, targeted assassinations, suicide bombings, house demolitions, Jewish settlement expansion, and much more.

Last week, between Tuesday and Thursday, Jordan hosted a conference at the Dead Sea co-sponsored with Egypt and the UN for representatives of some 75 countries. They all gathered to discuss the urgent humanitarian response to the war-wrecked Gaza Strip. The conference was the best adequate platform to discuss what Gaza needs now and what the whole region needs immediately after the war in Gaza is over.

Reflecting on history in a broken present 

True, history doesn’t repeat itself. But some things happen in a way that looks identical to what happened in the past. At the conference, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken made promising remarks. However, I have become profoundly frustrated over the years when I expected the US administration to do something tangible to end this conflict or at least push the two sides to end it. Yet, with all past frustrations, I still believe in the two-state solution that ends the Israeli occupation that started in June 1967, creates an independent state of Palestine alongside Israel on the pre-1967 borders, and forms a new war-free Middle East. Therefore, I want to give peacemakers another chance, which might be the last.

What mattered most at the Dead Sea conference was the US draft peace plan Blinken’s team circulated among the participants. The plan outlining the US policy on the Palestinian-Israel conflict was carefully worded. Clarity was there. The so-called “constructive ambiguity” wasn’t.

It's too bad President Biden followed former President Clinton’s path. He started too slow and too late, triggering many to question what the Biden Administration could have done in the last few months that it didn’t throughout the previous three years. Until November’s upcoming US presidential elections, I believe the US administration can do a lot. Blinken is not stupid; he won’t unveil a plan if he doubts the administration can promote it. Therefore, it isn’t that late.

I would love to call the draft plan circulated at the conference “The Biden Parameters,” a reminiscence of the 2000 Clinton Parameters. I promise I won’t charge the US president copyright fees if he endorses the name.

The document was tangibly important, yet, it lacked the wheels to roll. Turning it into a binding roadmap for Israel and Palestine, as well as for whatever administration enters the White House after November, can genuinely bring Palestinians and Israelis to agree. It happened in the past. The PLO and Israel secretly reached the Oslo Accords. They immediately headed to Washington for the signing ceremony because they both needed the US to guarantee that their agreement would stand on its feet and survive.

Nothing has changed. Palestinians and Israelis must make peace between themselves. No one can do it for them if they cannot do it. They still need the US administration’s acute and impartial involvement to solve the conflict instead of managing it. This conflict must be resolved now. We’ve seen what conflict management brought on our heads, Palestinians and Israelis alike.

Let’s be clear on one thing. Israel is not the only side that needs US guarantees to soothe its security worries. Israel is the occupying power and has the overriding control of everything that moves in the West Bank. The Palestinians are the ones who need US guarantees much more than the others. Israel still denies their national right to self-determination, although it has already obtained PLO recognition twice: a de facto recognition in the 1988 Palestinian Declaration of Independence in Algiers and a de jure recognition in the letters of mutual recognition exchanged in 1993 between the late leaders, Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin.

The Palestinian leadership has plenty of reasons to endorse the Biden Parameters. Yet, it is hesitant because trust no longer exists in Palestinian-US relations. Washington needs to restore the lost trust through practical moves that convince the Palestinian leadership and people that the big brother in the White House is strongly willing to help. In Arabic, there is a saying that goes, “Naked whoever is covered with a US blanket.” Washington must work hard to change this perception about the US that runs fast throughout the Arab world and not only among the Palestinians.

Elias Zananiri is a veteran journalist from east Jerusalem who has held several senior positions in the PLO as a political adviser and media consultant over the past two decades.