Haaretz and others say that Obama will use the Cairo speech on June 4 to call for a Palestinian state as an urgent fulfillment of promises put off for decades. Even Nadia Hijab of IPS says that a "truncated" Palestinian state may actually be in the cards now. She says that political development might only represent the beginning of a new struggle.
In fact, the
achievement of a sovereign Palestine would require breaking with the
Oslo accords in which Palestinian negotiators signed away most aspects
of sovereignty during what was supposed to be a short interim period.
Since
many of the same leaders that negotiated those Oslo accords are still
in power, the prospects are not promising — unless either Hamas or
Palestinian civil society block a minimalist state and push for full
independence.
However, while Hamas is in favor of a two-state
solution and may be willing to accept pragmatic compromise, many civil
society leaders — particularly in the increasingly powerful boycott
and right of return movements — now believe in a one-state solution
and appear unwilling to invest energy in the two-state project. Unless
there is a shift in strategy, truncated statehood may be in the cards.
As
for Israel, its territory would cover over three-quarters of mandate
Palestine, much larger than envisaged by the United Nations partition
plan of 1947. Israel would have defined borders for the first time in
its existence — which would spell the end of the Zionist project to
gather world Jews into what was once Palestine.
