alternatives ʺʥʴʥʬʧ in the israeli-palestinian conflict Daniel Egel C. Ross Anthony Shira Efron Rita T. Karam Mary E. Vaiana Charles P. Ries C O R P O R A T I O N rr-a725-1_cover_7x10_v15.indd All Pages 2/3/21 4:09 PM For more information on this publication, visit www.rand.org/t/RRA725-1 Library of Congress Control Number: ISBN: 978-1-9774-0648-4 Published by the RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, Calif. © Copyright 2021 RAND Corporation R® is a registered trademark. Cover design by Rick Penn-Kraus. Limited Print and Electronic Distribution Rights This document and trademark(s) contained herein are protected by law. This representation of RAND intellectual property is provided for noncommercial use only. Unauthorized posting of this publication online is prohibited. Permission is given to duplicate this document for personal use only, as long as it is unaltered and complete. Permission is required from RAND to reproduce, or reuse in another form, any of its research documents for commercial use. For information on reprint and linking permissions, please visit www.rand.org/pubs/permissions. The RAND Corporation is a research organization that develops solutions to public policy challenges to help make communities throughout the world safer and more secure, healthier and more prosperous. RAND is nonprofit, nonpartisan, and committed to the public interest. RAND’s publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors. Support RAND Make a tax-deductible charitable contribution at www.rand.org/giving/contribute www.rand.org Preface For decades, the two-state solution has dominated efforts to resolve the Israeli- Palestinian conflict. Today, there is a growing belief among analysts and the Israeli and Palestinian publics that the two-state solution might not be feasible any longer, owing to political and demographic trends and structural developments on the ground. The growing doubts about the viability of the two-state solution raise the question of which, if any, of the possible alternative futures (henceforth, “alternatives”) in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict could succeed, if appropriately supported by the interna- tional community, in ending this conflict. To examine this question, we set out five plausible alternatives that capture the range of what has been proposed and then conducted 33 focus groups in the region to gather both qualitative and quantitative data on perspectives toward the viability of each. The focus group exercise collected detailed opinions of more than 270 indi- viduals, including West Bank Palestinians, Gazan Palestinians, Israeli Jews, and Israeli Arabs. These data provide a novel tool for investigating whether there are any areas of overlap between Palestinians and Israelis that might form the basis for renewed dialogue. Our data were collected over a two-year period (the first 16 focus groups were con- ducted in July 2018, the remaining 17 in May 2019) that was marked by a great deal of unrest in the Middle East and political uncertainty in Israel, including two Israeli elections. U.S. President Donald Trump released his long-awaited proposed peace plan in January 2020. Although we had completed our research in December 2019, the release of the Trump plan injected new concepts into the policy debate. Therefore, sec- tions of this report addressing Trump’s plan were added in February 2020. This report was also written before coronavirus disease 2019 became a worldwide pandemic with significant global and regional social and economic effects, which could reduce inter- national attention to this important topic, and before the Israel–United Arab Emirates agreement (the Abraham Accords) in August 2020. This work should be of interest to Israeli, Palestinian, U.S., and other interna- tional policymakers, in addition to policy and civil society influencers who inform the discourse surrounding the conflict at the grassroots and policy levels and are commit- ted to finding a permanent and peaceful resolution to the conflict. iii iv Alternatives in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Funding The study was supported by a generous gift from Peter and Carol Richards. About the RAND Center for Middle East Public Policy This research was conducted within the RAND Center for Middle East Public Policy, a center within International Programs at the RAND Corporation. The center brings together analytic excellence and regional expertise from across RAND to address the most critical political, social, and economic challenges facing the Middle East today. For more information about the RAND Center for Middle East Public Policy, visit www.rand.org/international/cmepp or contact the director (contact information is pro- vided on the webpage). Contents Preface ................................................................................................. iii Figures and Tables ...................................................................................vii Summary .............................................................................................. ix Acknowledgments ................................................................................. xvii Abbreviations ........................................................................................ xix CHAPTER ONE Introduction ........................................................................................... 1 1.1. The Post-Oslo Status Quo ....................................................................... 2 1.2. A Panoply of Proposed Alternatives ............................................................ 3 1.3. Existing Analyses of These Alternatives ........................................................ 6 1.4. Analytical Approach .............................................................................. 7 1.5. Design of Focus Group Discussions ............................................................ 8 1.6. Organization of This Report ...................................................................12 CHAPTER TWO The Five Alternatives ................................................................................15 2.1. Key Characteristics of the Alternatives ........................................................16 2.2. Status Quo ........................................................................................17 2.3. Two-State Solution ..............................................................................19 2.4. Confederation ....................................................................................19 2.5. One-State Solution .............................................................................. 23 2.6. Annexation ...................................................................................... 23 2.7. Other Proposals ................................................................................. 26 CHAPTER THREE Quantitative Evidence ..............................................................................29 3.1. Assessment of Viability of Five Alternatives ................................................. 30 3.2. The Factors Underlying Support for Alternatives ............................................32 3.3. Benchmarking RAND Focus Group Results to Random Sample Poll Results ......... 38 3.4. Comparison of Findings with Polling Data ................................................. 43 3.5. Implications of Findings for Potential Resolution to the Conflict .........................47 v vi Alternatives in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict CHAPTER FOUR Israeli Jewish Qualitative Analysis ...............................................................49 4.1. The Status Quo ................................................................................. 50 4.2. Two-State Solution ............................................................................. 54 4.3. Annexation of Area C ...........................................................................59 4.4. Confederation ....................................................................................65 4.5. One-State Solution .............................................................................. 68 4.6. Concluding Thoughts ...........................................................................71 CHAPTER FIVE Palestinian Qualitative Analysis ..................................................................75 5.1. Two-State Solution ...............................................................................76 5.2. One-State Solution ..............................................................................81 5.3. Confederation ....................................................................................85 5.4. Status Quo ........................................................................................89 5.5. Annexation of Area C .......................................................................... 90 5.6. Overall Skepticism About the Alternatives ...................................................91 CHAPTER SIX Israeli Arab Qualitative Analysis .................................................................95 6.1. Two-State Solution .............................................................................. 97 6.2. Confederation ................................................................................... 99 6.3. One-State Solution ............................................................................ 101 6.4. Status Quo ...................................................................................... 103 6.5. Annexation.....................................................................................