Feb 9, (Reuters) - Israel has taken steps to help settlers acquire land in the occupied West Bank and widen its powers in parts of the territory where Palestinians have some self-rule - measures they said aimed to undermine the two-state solution.
It marks the latest blow to the idea of establishing a Palestinian state co-existing peacefully alongside Israel in territory Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war. Long backed by world powers, this vision formed the bedrock of the U.S.-backed peace process ushered in by the 1993 Oslo Accords.
But the obstacles have only grown with time. They include accelerating Jewish settlement on occupied land and uncompromising positions on core issues including borders, the fate of Palestinian refugees and the status of Jerusalem.
WHAT ARE ISRAEL'S NEW DECISIONS?
They would expedite settler land purchases by making public previously confidential West Bank land registries, and also repeal a Jordanian law governing land purchases in the West Bank, which was controlled by Jordan from 1948 until 1967.
Further, Israel would expand "monitoring and enforcement actions" to parts of the West Bank known as areas A and B, specifically "regarding water offences, damage to archaeological sites and environmental hazards that pollute the entire region", a statement by the finance and defence ministers said.
The West Bank was split into Areas A, B and C under the Oslo Accords. The Palestinian Authority has full administrative and security control in Area A - 18% of the territory. In Area B, around 22%, the PA runs civil affairs with security in Israeli hands. Most Palestinians in the West Bank live in areas A and B.
Israel has full control over the remaining 60% - Area C, including the border with Jordan.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said the measures violate international law and aim to undermine Palestinian institutions and a future two-state solution.
Ultranationalist Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called the decision a "real revolution" and said "we will continue to kill the idea of a Palestinian state".
WHAT ARE TWO-STATE SOLUTION'S ORIGINS?
Conflict ignited in British-ruled Palestine between Arabs and Jews who had migrated to the area, seeking a national home as they fled antisemitic persecution in Europe and citing biblical ties to the land throughout centuries in exile.
In 1947, the United Nations agreed on a plan partitioning Palestine into Arab and Jewish states with international rule over Jerusalem. Jewish leaders accepted the plan, which gave them 56% of the land. The Arab League rejected it.
The state of Israel was declared on May 14, 1948. A day later, five Arab states attacked. The war ended with Israel controlling 77% of the territory.
Some 700,000 Palestinians fled or were driven from their homes, ending up in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria as well as in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
In the 1967 war, Israel captured the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, from Jordan and Gaza from Egypt.
Although 157 of the 193 U.N. member states already recognise Palestine as a state, it is not itself a U.N. member, meaning most Palestinians are not recognised by the world body as citizens of any state. About nine million live as refugees in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and territories captured by Israel in 1967. Another 2 million live in Israel as Israeli citizens.
HAS A DEAL EVER BEEN CLOSE?
The Oslo Accords, signed by Israeli Prime Minister Yizhak Rabin and Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat, led the PLO to recognise Israel's right to exist and renounce violence. Palestinians hoped this would be a step towards independence, with East Jerusalem as their capital.
The process suffered multiple reverses on both sides.
Hamas, an Islamist movement, killed scores of Israelis in suicide attacks and in 2007 seized Gaza from the PA in a brief civil war. Hamas' 1988 charter advocates Israel's demise, though in recent years it has said it would accept a Palestinian state along 1967 borders. Israel says that Hamas stance is a ruse.
In 1995, Rabin was assassinated by an ultranationalist Jew seeking to derail any land-for-peace deal.
In 2000 U.S. President Bill Clinton brought Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak to Camp David to clinch a deal, but it failed, with the future of Jerusalem, deemed by Israel as its "eternal and indivisible" capital, the main obstacle.
The conflict escalated with a second Palestinian intifada (uprising) in 2000-05. U.S. administrations sought to revive peacemaking - to no avail, with the last bid collapsing in 2014.
HOW BIG ARE THE OBSTACLES TODAY?
While Israel withdrew settlers and soldiers from Gaza in 2005, settlements expanded in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, their population rising from 250,000 in 1993 to 700,000 three decades later, according to Israeli organisation Peace Now. Palestinians say this undermines the basis of a viable state.
Jewish settlement in the West Bank accelerated sharply after the 2023 start of the Gaza war.
During the Second Intifada two decades ago, Israel also constructed a barrier in the West Bank that it said was intended to stop Palestinian suicide bombers from entering its cities. Palestinians call the move a land grab.
The PA led by President Mahmoud Abbas administers islands of West Bank land enveloped by a zone of Israeli control comprising 60% of the territory, including the Jordanian border and the settlements - arrangements set out in the Oslo Accords.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government is the most right-wing in Israeli history and includes religious nationalists who draw support from settlers. Smotrich has said there is no such thing as a Palestinian people.
Hamas and Israel have fought repeated wars over the past two decades, culminating in the attacks on communities in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, that ignited the Gaza war.
(Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi, Ali Sawafta, Maayan Lubell, Tom Perry; writing by Tom Perry; editing by William Maclean and Mark Heinrich)
