Rohan Jayasekera

Everybody has a idea how to win peace for Israel and Palestine. Here’s mine. The two-state solution isn’t totally dead. I think that a key problem is Israel’s aversion to defining the borders of a Jewish state alongside a Palestinian one.

My view is that the US & Europe should take a page out of the Sykes-Picot playbook and define the borders for them, solely for the purposes of US & EU decision making, on sanctions, aid, treatment of minorities and general policy. Three zones – one indisputably Israeli, one indisputably Palestine and a third subject to negotiation, possibly based in part on existing municipal borders.

Attacks by Israel on the Palestinian zone and vice versa would be treated by the US & EU as acts of war and subject to a response based on established law of conflict.

The third zone, mainly Jerusalem and some (very much not all) settlements, would be the focal point of US & EU diplomatic intervention. It would also serve as a buffer in places and for a while, probably be subject to a lot of violence, even as the violence in the other two zones declined.

Neither warring side will care for this very much, as its arbitrariness and arrogance is glaring, but the purpose of it would be to unblock US & EU diplomatic efforts for peace in the region, not win allies there.

The truth is that the US & EU will never have friends there, but they are the only parties who can lever an end to this savage stalemate. They have to impose diplomatic terms that they can work from - and bring the two state principle back to life, like it or not.