Trump and Netanyahu pave way to end Arab-Jewish conflict
The spectacularly successful and ongoing USA-Israel attack on Iran has opened up the real prospect of finally resolving the 130-year-old Arab-Jewish conflict.
This will require a sea-change in current political thinking, which has been calling for the creation of a Palestinian Arab State between Jordan and Israel (two-state solution) since the Arab League adopted the Arab Peace Initiative in 2002.
The two-state solution was rejected by Israel’s Knesset (Parliament) on 18 July 2024 by a vote of 68 to 9:
“The Knesset of Israel firmly opposes the establishment of a Palestinian state west of the Jordan (river). The establishment of a Palestinian state in the heart of the Land of Israel would pose an existential danger to the State of Israel and its citizens, perpetuate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and destabilize the region”
It is difficult to see President Trump not respecting this decision following the USA-Israel successes in Iran and Gaza.
It is possible to see Trump and Netanyahu agreeing to pursue an end to the Arab-Jewish conflict based on the following facts:
- The territory formerly called Palestine comprised land located on both sides of the Jordan River between 1920 and 1946 (Mandate Territory)
- The Jewish people were authorised in 1922 by the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine (Mandate) to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in the Mandate Territory located west of the Jordan River (western Palestine) – preserved by article 80 of the United Nations Charter.
- On 21 September 1922, a joint resolution of both Houses of Congress of the United States unanimously endorsed the Mandate.
- Jordan and Israel are the two successor States to the Mandate – Jordan sovereign in 78% of the Mandate Territory, located east of the Jordan River (eastern Palestine) and Israel sovereign in 17% of western Palestine
- Sovereignty in the remaining 5% of western Palestine – the Gaza Strip and Judea and Samaria (West Bank) remains unallocated
The solution:
- Jordan and Israel divide sovereignty in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) between their two respective states
- Israel, Jordan and Egypt divide sovereignty in the Gaza Strip between their three respective states in direct negotiations – once the Secretary-General of the United Nations certifies that the provisions of Security Council Resolution 2803 have been effected.
- America, The United Nations, Arab League and Organisation of Islamic Cooperation would be co-signatories.
Israel could support such a solution – especially as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations on 11 December 1984, where he said :
Clearly, in Eastern and Western Palestine, there are only two peoples, the Arabs and the Jews. Just as clearly, there are only two states in that area, Jordan and Israel.
The Arab State of Jordan… does not allow a single Jew to live there… It contains four-fifths of the territory originally allocated by the predecessor of this body, the League of Nations, for the Jewish National Home.
The other State, Israel … contains less than one-fifth of the territory originally allocated to the Jews under the Mandate….
It cannot be said, therefore, that the Arabs of Palestine are lacking a state of their own. The demand for a second Palestinian Arab State in Western Palestine, and a 22nd Arab State in the world, is merely the latest attempt to push Israel back into the hopelessly vulnerable armistice lines of 1949.
Jordan may require some convincing – but President Trump is positioned to guarantee that the Hashemite rulers of Jordan will continue to rule the newly merged territory of Jordan and part of Judea and Samaria (West Bank) whilst retaining control over the Islamic Holy sites in Jerusalem.
The world did not listen to Netanyahu in 1984. Perhaps it will in 2026.
Author’s note: The cartoon was drawn in 2015 by Yaakov Kirschen aka “Dry Bones” – one of Israel’s foremost political and social commentators – who passed away on 14 April 2025 and whose cartoons graced the columns of Israeli and international media publications for decades.
