TWO STATE SOLUTION REMAINS ACCEPTABLE RESOLUTION
FOR VAST MAJORITY OF ISRAELIS & WEST BANK/GAZA PALESTINIANS
74% of Palestinians in West Bank & Gaza willing to accept Two State Solution
78% of Israelis willing to accept Two State Solution
MAJORITIES ON BOTH SIDES SUPPORT A NEGOTIATED PEACE
71% of Palestinians in West Bank and Gaza & 77% of Israelis feel Negotiations are ‘Essential’ or ‘Desirable’
ONEVOICE LAUNCHES TOWN HALL MEETINGS SERIES IN ISRAEL & PALESTINE
TO ADDRESS FINAL STATUS & MUTUAL RECOGNITION ISSUES
22 April 2009 / Jerusalem / Despite growing fears that the “Two State Solution” is losing purchase on the ground in Israel and Palestine, today the OneVoice Movement (www.OneVoiceMovement.org) released the findings of a new poll which demonstrates that the two state solution remains the only acceptable resolution for the vast majority of Israelis and Palestinians.
OneVoice is an international grassroots collective using civic engagement to mobilize citizens and their leaders to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with a mutually-acceptable two state agreement which ends the occupation, guarantees the security of Israel , and establishes a viable, independent Palestinian state at peace with Israel.
The poll was commissioned by OneVoice in collaboration with Dr. Colin Irwin of the Institute of Irish Studies at the University of Liverpool (www.peacepolls.org), and in conjunction with Dr. Nader Said of Arab World for Research and Development (AWRAD) in Ramallah and Dr. Mina Zemach of Dahaf Institute in Tel Aviv. The methodology, which had been piloted by Dr. Irwin in Northern Ireland and subsequently used in places as varied as Sri Lanka and Macedonia, involved a questionnaire designed through a series of interviews with civil society leaders and political figures on each side. The field work was conducted by Zemach in Israel and by Said in Palestine during February 2009, in the wake of the Gaza war and the Israeli elections.
The results indicate that 74% of West Bank & Gaza Palestinians and 78% of Israelis are willing to accept a two state solution77% of Israelis and 71% of Palestinians consider a negotiated peace ‘essential’ or ‘desirable.’ (an option rated on a range from ‘tolerable’ to ‘essential’), while 59% of Palestinians and 66% of Israelis find a single bi-national state ‘unacceptable.’ Additionally, according to the data, Ninety-four percent of Palestinians and 74% of Israelis think that the people must be continually informed on the negotiations process.
The poll also reveals that consensus still needs to be built. The findings imply that mainstream Israeli and Palestinian populations still have yet to acknowledge the significant priorities and fears on the other side. While the issue of greatest significance for Palestinians is freedom from occupation (94% deem it a ‘very significant’ problem in the peace process, ranking it the primary issue on the Palestinian side), only 30% of Israelis find it to be ‘very significant,’ ranking the issue 15th on the Israeli side. Similarly, the primary issue on the Israeli side is stopping attacks on civilians (90% rate it a ‘very significant’ issue). This issue meets with 50% approval on the Palestinian side, and ranks as 19 in a list of 21 issues. Significant gaps in public consensus persist as well on the issues of settlements and refugees – two issues on which there was no single proposed solution which met with majority approval on both sides.
To address the critical gaps that still exist on some recognition and final status issues, OneVoice is launching a Town Hall Meetings Series in Israel and Palestine to present the findings of the poll and discuss the various issues – from mutual recognition to settlements, refugees, and Jerusalem – that both sides will need to confront in order to reach a two state agreement. Progress at the negotiating table is only one step in the process of reaching an agreement that can be implemented. An end to the conflict will only come when the leaders come to an agreement that their peoples are ready to understand, accept, and support. The series will be launched in May and will be implemented throughout the rest of 2009. It will use the findings of the poll as a starting point for discussions.
Five hundred interviews were completed in Israel and six hundred in the West Bank and Gaza to produce representative samples of both populations in terms of age, gender, social background and geographical distribution. As the polls were conducted during a particularly difficult time on both sides – immediately following the Gaza war and the Israeli elections – the continued insistence of both sides on a negotiated and mutually-acceptable resolution could offer significant legitimacy to political leaders looking to push for negotiations toward a two state agreement.
About the OneVoice Movement:
The OneVoice Movement is an international mainstream grassroots movement with over 600,000 signatories in roughly equal numbers both in
Israel
and in
Palestine
, and 2,000 highly-trained youth leaders. It aims to amplify the voice of Israeli and Palestinian moderates, empowering them to seize back the agenda for conflict resolution and demand that their leaders achieve a two-state solution guaranteeing both the end of occupation and the establishment of a viable Independent Palestinian state as well as the safety and security of the state of Israel - allowing both people to live in peace with all their neighbors. OneVoice counts on its Board over 60 foremost dignitaries and business leaders across a wide spectrum of politics and beliefs, joining as OneVoice for conflict resolution. Learn more by visiting www.OneVoiceMovement.org
Full Polling Report Available for Download
In his latest piece for the Shalom Hartman Institute website, Rabbi Dr. Donniel Hartman calls the two-state solution a "Jewish and moral obligation," even though implementation has been poor. - http://hartman.org.il/Opinion_C_View_Eng.asp?Article_Id=324
Posted by: Alan Abbey | April 23, 2009 at 01:31 AM
Two state solution is good, but how about the borders (esp. West Bank)? How about Israeli Arabs, will they according to thinking of the 78% Israelis supporting the two-state solution be citizens with full rights?
Sure everyone with a brain wants peace, question is if someone needs to give up things (beyond irrational ideologistic ideas of non-exiting Israel or the land Zion).
Sorry for the scepsis, but I feel motives of the votes being not only based on the idea of neighborhood and, maybe, friendship, to which Jahwe / Allah may guide us, but on the idea of complete separation. May real peace in the hearts come, in sha Allah.
Posted by: JPB | April 29, 2009 at 06:22 AM
We need to be careful about what we hope for. Negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians will fail - with catastrophic consequences - if the two sides use the model of negotiations they've used in the past. I've written a paper in which I deonstrate why this is true. I also show that the model of negotiations developed by the Harvard Project on Negotiations is the ONLY road to peace. Here is a 722 word summary of my argument:
In light of the ongoing violence between, and pervasive hopelessness among, Israelis and Palestinians, one of the many tragedies of their conflict is that we already know the outlines of a final agreement:
• Two independent states living side by side with the 1967 border modified by mutual agreement and a 1:1 swap of land,
• A symbolic return of refugees to Israel, with varying compensation for the remaining refugees based on whether they settle in Palestine or elsewhere,
• In East Jerusalem, Israeli sovereignty over Israeli neighborhoods and Palestinian sovereignty over Palestinian neighborhoods,
• Some arrangement for shared sovereignty over the Old City, with guaranteed access to and protection of the holy sites, and
• Security arrangements guaranteed by an international peacekeeping force.
The devil, of course, is in the details, which is why the two sides must at all costs avoid another potential tragedy. The details cannot be resolved using the zero-sum model of negotiations employed at Camp David. If and when they decide to negotiate, they must therefore reject that model and instead use the mutual gains model developed at Harvard.
However generous Ehud Barak may have been at Camp David, and however much Yasir Arafat wanted peace, Camp David failed because Barak’s final proposal met Israel’s needs on every one of the issues they discussed – at the expense of the Palestinians. This is consistent with the labor-management model of negotiations they were employing, which assumes the stronger side gets more of what it wants and the weaker side has to accept what the stronger is willing to concede. This was something Arafat could not accept, just as Barak could not have accepted an agreement that met Palestinian but not Israeli needs.
The question needs to be asked, can there be a true and lasting peace if one side expects to gain at the other side’s expense? Even if Arafat had accepted Barak’s offer, the people in the street never would have, and the result would have been a peace on paper but not in reality.
The model of negotiations used at Camp David assumes all things are negotiable. For example, in his book, The Missing Peace, Denis Ross quotes himself telling Martin Indyk during the negotiations, “We’d better think of ways to compensate the Palestinians for what they won’t be able to get from the Israelis on Jerusalem.” The assumption was, everything is negotiable. But the one thing the Israelis and Palestinians agreed on was that the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif was non-negotiable. Each had said they would never sign an agreement that did not give sovereignty to their side. The zero-sum labor-management model has no way to reconcile those positions.
Fortunately, there is a negotiations model that can resolve this and the other issues that divide the Israelis and Palestinians. It was developed at Harvard by the Project on Negotiations. This model assumes the interests of both sides are inextricably interwoven with one another. If the Israelis and Palestinians truly want peace, the only way they can achieve their own self-interest – a true and lasting peace – is by negotiating an agreement that not only works for them but also for the other side. That is the only kind of agreement both sides would be willing to sign and implement.
The Harvard model establishes procedures for negotiating such an agreement and uses trained facilitators to make sure the negotiators adhere to the model and not revert to zero-sum tactics.
One of the ancillary benefits of the Harvard model is the relationships that develop as the two sides work cooperatively to discover ways to meet the needs of both parties. Such a cooperative spirit will be necessary for the successful implementation of an agreement, a spirit that would never emerge from the zero-sum model in which each side does all it can to maximize its gains and resents every concession it has to make.
It may be too much to expect two peoples who harbor such deep anger and resentment toward one another to enter into negotiations that would require them, in their own self-interest, to meet not only their own needs, but also the needs of the other. But zero-sum negotiations will never produce peace. So if the day comes when the Israelis and Palestinians decide they truly want peace, it would be a tragedy to squander the opportunity.
__________
If you'd like to read the entire 15-page paper, email me at btaylor@oakton.edu
Posted by: Bill Taylor | May 01, 2009 at 12:46 PM
Great analysis, but the writer neglects to mention that "win-win" and "expand the pie" are just not in the Middle East mindset, Israeli or Palestinian or anyone else's. In a region where resources are visibly finite and two people seem to be standing on the same space without any "open frontier" for expansion (i.e., the American mindset), there is no possible way to conceive of "win-win." It is ingrained here that the only way I win is if YOU LOSE. And to lose is to be a "fryer," (Hebrew slang for "sucker." I am sure there is Arabic slang for same.) No one wants to be a fryer. If they cannot get themselves to believe there is a "win-win" available, they cannot "get to yes" even if - perhaps especially if - it is in their own self-interest, as a disinterested third-party observer might feel.
Posted by: Alan Abbey | May 17, 2009 at 05:22 AM
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