| Publication |
2014.
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| Summary/Abstract |
An outsider observing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict might ask him or herself why, after so many attempts and initiatives have been placed on the negotiations table, the adversaries have failed to reach a settlement. Indeed, the "two-state solution" paradigm has been accepted by the majority of people in both societies for over a decade now (Bar-Tal, Halperin, & Oren, 2010), but the parties appear still far from reaching the desired resolution. Moreover, the solutions proposed over the years of negotiations by both officials and non-officials follow a similar paradigm and have in fact established clear contours to a possible peaceful resolution of the conflict. In fact, the Clinton Parameters from 2001, the Arab Peace Initiative from 2002, and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's proposal from 2008 all identify the need to partition the land along the 1967 borders, transfer control of the eastern neighborhoods of Jerusalem to the Palestinians, find a fair solution to Jerusalem's holy sites, and formulate a just and agreed-upon solution to the Palestinian refugee problem (Lavie, 2010). Thus, one might ask: If the solution is so clear, what is holding the parties back?
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