For several generations, the Middle East has witnessed political confrontation and religious antagonism. Conflicts within the Muslim community have not diminished, nor have differences between Muslims and historic minorities. The most deadly confrontation remains the one between Israel and the Palestinians — a political problem with no foreseeable solution.

Let’s start with Israel. It is a small country devoid of strategic depth. Desert buffers and the advantage of fighting on internal lines help, but their great disadvantage is demographic. Its overriding strategic objectives are to avoid attrition, ensure Egypt and Syria never mount a coordinated attack, and never fight a war while dealing with a Palestinian uprising. These are permanent problems.

Israeli success depends upon an external patron — since 1967, it’s been the United States. But there is no guarantee that Israeli and American interests will remain compatible. America’s Arab interests have constrained Israel’s relations with the Palestinians, but geopolitical realities ensure Israel cannot abandon the occupied territories. Its chief problem, therefore, is how to manage a long-term confrontation punctuated by occasional conflict. Victory is impossible because, ethical considerations aside, repression of the Palestinians would risk uniting its Arab neighbours and add stress to Israel’s relationship with the Americans. Either could lead to a genuine existential threat.

Geopolitical constraints on the Palestinians add to regional difficulties. Granting that the Palestinians are a nation (something which is contested both by Israel and by Muslim states), they’re a nation without a state — rather like the pre-Israel Jewish people — and they lack the appurtenances of statehood, such as a military. The territory they inhabit is not what they recognize as their own. The organization that speaks in their name, the Palestinian National Authority, does not speak for all Palestinians.

The much-ballyhooed ‘two-state solution’ is DOA, at least in the Arab world.

Worse, the claims of the Palestinians are opposed by all of Israel’s Arab neighbours. Those who dream of a greater Syria include in it both Lebanon and Palestine/Israel; some include Jordan. The 1976 Syrian invasion of Lebanon aimed to extinguish the Palestine Liberation Organization. Nor would the Jordanians welcome a Palestinian state. In 1970 they attacked the PLO and exiled them to Lebanon and the tender mercies of the Syrians. Egypt has never been pro-Palestinian. In 1948 they herded the Palestinians fleeing the war in Israel into the “Gaza Strip,” which they considered Egyptian.

Nasser’s dream of a United Arab Republic would have incorporated the Palestinians and also aimed at the Saudis and Jordanians. Yasser Arafat was part of Nasser’s plan but, as the father of Palestinian nationalism, he was distrusted both by the Israelis and everybody else in the neighbourhood. This made perfect sense: Only the Palestinians think a Palestinian state is in their interest. The much-ballyhooed “two-state solution” is DOA, at least in the Arab world.

Constrained by indifference and hostility, Palestinian interests are also limited by the separation of Gaza and the West Bank, and the differences between an entirely dependent Gaza and a more self-sufficient West Bank. If the two entities were united, Gaza would be by far the largest Palestinian city — another reason the two parts have grown apart. Moreover, the inhabitants of both places are dependent on external aid and on the Israeli economy for their livelihood. Any peace treaty would increase the dependency of the Palestinians on the Israeli economy.

The Palestinians seek the destruction of Israel but lack the capability. Nothing in the history of the Arabs’ actions towards Israel could reasonably give them hope of assistance. And if Israel should suddenly evaporate overnight, there would be no reason to expect a Palestinian state to emerge afterwards.

In short, the Middle East — the confrontation between Israel and the Palestinians in particular — is a difficult place because fragmented religious identification is reinforced by incompatible geopolitical interests. There are no apparent solutions to the political problems of the region — which means managing its difficulties is the only option.

Barry Cooper is a Fellow of the Canadian Defence & Foreign Affairs Institute and professor of Political Science with the University of Calgary

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