By James M. Dorsey
The Gaza ceasefire negotiations, coupled with recent opinion polls, suggest the time may be ripe for more than an end to the Gaza war. They raise whether it may also be time for a robust effort to achieve a two-state resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The ceasefire talks demonstrated that Israel is susceptible to US pressure.
Polling in seven Arab countries, including Palestine, suggested that Arab public opinion favours the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, not instead of the Jewish state, despite having been fed a 15-months-long diet of images of the human and physical carnage Israel inflicted on Gaza.
Equally counterintuitive may be the notion that President-elect Donald J. Trump is possibly the man to pull off an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement notwithstanding his past unambiguous support for Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s hardline policies towards Hamas, Iran, the occupation of Palestinian and Syrian lands, and Palestinian rights.
The proof will be in the pudding, but recent progress in achieving a Gaza ceasefire and prisoner exchange suggests that Mr. Trump has the kind of leverage and will that outgoing US President Joe Biden lacked.
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