Deadlocks · trust lock
Each side reads the other through its worst quote
Israelis read Palestinian nationalism through 'we are only Palestinian for political reasons'; Palestinians read Zionism through 'there is no such thing as Palestinians'.
What many Israelis fear
The Palestinian national movement is a weapon, not a people's wish: a state would be 'a new means to continue the struggle against Israel'.
What feeds it: Zuheir Mohsen of the PLO in Trouw (1977); the PLO Charter's claim to the whole land (1968); Hamas's charter; rejection of partition in 1937 and 1947.
What many Palestinians fear
Zionism's aim is to erase Palestinians as a people, so any deal is a step towards their disappearance.
What feeds it: Golda Meir's 'there was no such thing as Palestinians' (1969); Smotrich's 'there is no such thing as a Palestinian people' (2023); the Nakba; talk of 'voluntary emigration'.
Which solutions it blocks
- Two states — Each side sees the other's state as a staging post for its own destruction.
- Two states, one homeland (confederation) — Open borders need trust that the other side accepts you exist.
- Local rule: clans, cities and cantons — Local leaders who deal with the other side get branded as collaborators or traitors.
- One democratic state with equal rights — Sharing a state with a people whose movement denies yours feels suicidal.
- One state with equal rights that remains a Jewish state — Palestinians won't accept a state whose leaders said they don't exist.
Where a lock like this was broken
- The 1993 letters of mutual recognition: Arafat recognised Israel's right to exist, and Rabin recognised the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people. A founding quote was officially overwritten on both sides.
- Sadat's speech in the Knesset (1977): one act by the leader who had launched the 1973 war changed how Israelis saw Egypt.
Questions to sit with
- What would a leader on the other side have to say or do for you to stop reading them through that quote?
- Which of your own side's quotes does the other side read you through, and has anyone on your side overwritten it?