By Husam Dughman
In 1973, the renowned Israeli diplomat Abba Eban quipped, “The Arabs never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.” Many educated Arabic-speaking people I know agree. But why? To put it bluntly, if there is one single factor that can explain the never-ending conflict between Israel and other countries in the Middle East, it is the consistent refusal of those nations- including the Palestinians- to genuinely recognize Israel’s right to exist. This, in a nutshell, is the core of the problem. Things first came to a head when the state of modern-day Israel came into being in 1948 in accordance with the United Nations proposal of 1947 which had allowed for a two-state solution, one Jewish and the other Arab. While the Jews accepted the UN’s proposal, the Arabs rejected it. The Palestinians and a number of countries in the region sent armed forces to attack Israel in 1948. They lost. It was that failure, not the resulting displacement of Palestinians, which was described as an-Nakba (The Catastrophe) by the Syrian historian Constantin Zureiq who coined that word for that particular purpose.
Since that time, Israel has been at war with many states in the Middle East. Although the Palestinians had the West Bank- including East Jerusalem- and the Gaza Strip from 1948 to 1967, they never made any significant effort to establish a Palestinian state in those areas. They left the Jordanians and the Egyptians to run them. In the June 1967 war, Israel took the West Bank, Gaza, the Sinai, and the Golan Heights. Israel then made offers of peace in exchange for land with Arabic-speaking countries, but to no avail. Following the conclusion of a summit of Arabic-speaking countries in Sudan in 1967, the Khartoum Resolution was released on the 1st of September of that year. It famously contained “The Three Noes” (Al-la’at Athalath, in Arabic): (1) No to the recognition of Israel. (2) No to negotiation with Israel. (3) No to peace with Israel. In the 1973 war, Egypt and Syria, along with some other Arabic-speaking countries, attempted to recover some of the lands lost in the 1967 war. In spite of early success, they ended up losing that war. Egypt later recovered the Sinai after concluding a peace agreement with Israel in the late 1970s.
Over a number of decades following the birth of modern-day Israel, various proposals have been made with the aim of resolving the aforementioned conflict once and for all. Of those, there are three major ones: The first is the one-state solution. This was, and still is, favoured by the Palestinians and their sympathizers. According to this perspective, there ought to be only one state called “Palestine” which should have all Palestinians, including the ones of the diaspora. Palestinian Christians, too, should be included. As for Jews, only the ones who had long been living in Palestine prior to 1948 should be allowed to stay. All other Jews have to “go back to their countries of origin,” even if they were born and raised in Israel. The second proposes a two-state solution. This was favoured by most Jews and Israelis for several decades, including some prime ministers and presidents. The Labour party in Israel was in many ways a supporter of the two-state solution. The right-wing Likud party- which was formed by Menachem Begin and Ariel Sharon, among others, in 1973- was less flexible with regard to the idea of peace with the Palestinians, although it was that very party, led by Begin, which concluded the historic peace agreement with Egypt in the late 1970s. When Likud became even more intransigent in its dealings with the Palestinians by the turn of the 21st century, moderate members of that party- headed by Ariel Sharon- formed the Kadima party in 2005, which included people like the future prime minister Ehud Olmert and the seasoned Labour politician- former prime minister and future president of Israel- Shimon Peres. Kadima strongly believed in a two-state solution for Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians. The third proposal, not supported by many, is a three-state solution which proposes a return to the pre-1967 war borders, where Jordan would run the West Bank and Egypt would run Gaza. Neither Egypt nor Jordan has shown much enthusiasm for this proposal.
The Israeli will never accept a one-state solution for at least one simple reason: Demographics. Ther are two million Arabs/ Palestinians within the state of Israel, two million in Gaza, three million in the West Bank, and six million of the diaspora. There are eight million Jews in Israel and half a million in the West Bank. That is thirteen million Arabs/ Palestinians vs. eight and a half million Jews. That would make the Jews a minority from the word go. If we add to this the higher birth rate amongst the Palestinians, the Jews would- over a number of decades- become a very tiny minority in that country. No Jew in his right mind would ever accept that. The three-state solution is not particularly popular with the Palestinians nowadays, and one seriously doubts if Jordan or Egypt would be willing to run the above-mentioned Palestinian territories. That leaves us with the two-state solution.
Although many people in different parts of the world- both at the popular and political levels- had earlier believed that the two-state proposal was the best solution for the said conflict, all attempts at making that happen have so far met with failure. The Oslo Accords of the 1990s suffered from numerous problems: One was Israel’s complaint that the PLO was doing very little to disarm, neutralize, or overcome terrorist activities aimed at Israel from its territories, something which was aggravated by a massive campaign of anti-Jewish and anti-Israeli brainwashing, the outcome of which was considerably higher numbers of Israeli casualties than in the previous three decades combined. For its part, the PLO complained that Israel was not doing much to stop the increase in Jewish settlements in Palestinian areas, something which was seen as undermining the chance of achieving a genuine peace. Additionally, the continual accusations made by both sides that the other was violating the agreement created a strong sense of mutual suspicion and mistrust between the two sides which became increasingly debilitating. Furthermore, the idea of “autonomy” and a self-governing “entity” for the Palestinians fell short of their declared desire for an independent, sovereign Palestinian state, something which the said accords did not specifically appear to address. To make matters worse, there was no clear indication in the accords of how to resolve some outstanding issues such as the final status of Jerusalem or the fate of Palestinian refugees.
Then, there was the 2000 Camp David Summit. Former president Bill Clinton has recently said that, in those negotiations, Arafat was offered a Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank, with East Jerusalem as its capital, minus 4% of the area of the West Bank to satisfy Israel’s security and other concerns, in return for which the Palestinians had the option of choosing to take any 4% of Israeli land in compensation, plus two of the four quadrants of the Old City of Jerusalem. Yet, Arafat turned down the offer. It seems that the negotiations failed over the “right of return” of the Palestinians of the diaspora to their former homes in what is now the state of Israel. For reasons of demographic stability and cultural and religious integrity in Israel, it seems that the Israelis believed that the Palestinians of the diaspora should live in the proposed Palestinian state, except for around 100,000 of them who would be resettled within the state of Israel on the basis of family reunifications and other considerations. Israel said it would contribute to the resettlement elsewhere of the other Palestinians of the diaspora, as well as their compensation through a fund amounting to tens of billions of dollars, all in coordination with other contributors. Nevertheless, the Palestinians, headed by Arafat, rejected the deal. It is said that when Arafat once said to Clinton, “You are a great man,” Clinton retorted, “I am not great. I am a failure. You have made me one.” In 2008, former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert came up with a similar plan. Again, it was turned down by the Palestinians, this time headed by Mahmoud Abbas. Since the terrorist attacks of the 7th of October 2023, Israel has been vehemently opposed to the two-state solution, seeing it as a reward for Hamas’s abhorrent acts of terrorism, as well as a grave danger to Israel’s security in consideration of the very ambiguous nature of any potential future Palestinian leadership. Enter US president Donald Trump.
In recent weeks, many people from all over the world have watched with dismay and bewilderment as US president Trump wasted no time in enacting numerous promises and pledges which he had earlier said he would put into action. Nothing seems to have instantaneously winded countless people, however, more than what appears to be his outlandish solution for the Israel-Gaza conflict: Remove Gazans from Gaza. Settle them in neighbouring countries. Clean up Gaza. Turn it into a Riviera. Open the place for business. Let many people from other parts of the world go and live there.
On the face of it, the Gaza proposal seems to be a reflection of Trump’s many foibles. It comes across as such a bizarre idea that people by and large have been unable to make heads or tails of it. To this day, a large number of people think that he is crazy. They point to his other peculiar declarations as evidence that he could not have been in his right mind when he made such strange claims: Turning Canada into the 51st US state, taking over Greenland from Denmark, and withdrawing from NATO. Yet, the key to a more sober understanding of the way Trump operates is to examine his own background: He is essentially a businessman. Businessmen make deals. They enter into negotiations. They wheel and deal. They up the ante. They butter up. They bluff. They go to extremes in order to wrest concessions from their adversaries by subsequently pretending to compromise over things which they had never held dear to begin with. That is how they make their deals. That is how he makes his.
It is true that no one really knows for a fact what is on Trump’s mind with regard to Gaza. However, one does suspect that his eccentric solution to the Israel-Gaza conflict is not more than a highly exaggerated suggestion aimed at wresting major concessions from various actors in the Middle East, something that might not be achievable were it not for his over-the-top proposals. Arabic-speaking nations have now been pushed into a corner. They are currently struggling in a series of meetings to come up with a viable alternative to Trump’s Gaza plan. Based on their first meeting on the 21st of February 2025, some reports indicate that their plan includes setting up a technocracy in Gaza that is not affiliated with Hamas or the Palestinian Authority; that Gazans stay in the Gaza Strip but live in mobile homes or shelters until reconstruction- which can take up to 10 years and cost over $50 billion- is completed; that Hamas cannot exercise governance in Gaza; and that the Gazan police is to be made up of Palestinian Authority police officers who stayed on in Gaza following Hamas’s takeover of that region two decades ago. Moreover, an American security firm which has been doing work at various checkpoints in Gaza is to continue to do so.
Although as yet undeclared, it appears that what Trump really wants is the following: The disarmament of Hamas and the complete removal of its higher-ranking fighters and leaders from Gaza; the realization of the much-needed rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Israel- which had been scuppered by the 7th of October 2023 terrorist attacks- all without the Saudis’ laying down as a precondition an Israeli acceptance of the establishment of a Palestinian state; the deradicalization of the Gazan population; and large-scale contributions in money and services by neighbouring countries to the reconstruction of Gaza. If those were granted, Trump would in all likelihood reciprocate by backing down from his declared intention of “owning Gaza” by way of removing Gazans from Gaza and resettling them in countries like Jordan and Egypt. If one is right in one’s assessment of the situation at hand, then this certainly comes across as a clever ploy on the part of Trump, one that can deliver some results which may just be more effective than all of the proposed solutions that we have so far had to the conflict in question. If that is accomplished, Trump’s Gaza plan may not be that outlandish after all.
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About the author
Husam Dughman is a Libyan Canadian political scientist, religious thinker, linguist, and an expert on immigrants and refugees. He received his formal education in Libya and the UK. Mr. Dughman later worked as a university professor of political science in Libya. Due to confrontations with the Qaddafi regime, he resigned from his university position and subsequently worked in legal translation. Mr. Dughman has been working with new immigrant and refugee services in both Canada and the US since 2006.
Husam Dughman has published a book entitled Tête-à-tête with Muhammad. He has also written numerous articles on politics and religion. He has just completed the full manuscript of a book which he hopes to have published in the near future. The new book is an in-depth examination of Islam, Christianity, Judaism, and the non-religious school of thought.
