As France considers a UN resolution that would aim to impose a two-state solution by fiat, and rumors fly that a lame-duck U.S. president might endorse it, Eran Lerman explains why such a course of action cannot but backfire:

By advocating coercive pressure on Israel, the would-be “peacemakers” make peace impossible. For any Palestinian leader (particularly a weak and hesitant one), an imposed solution is a painless alternative to the difficult business of negotiating a compromise. Even the hint of such a possibility is enough to persuade Palestinian policymakers that it is better to cast their hopes on international intervention than to accept a negotiated outcome.

Saeb Erekat’s “Study No. 15” of 2014 (an extensive policy document in which he advocated a confrontational course and international pressure) is an example. It resulted in the failure of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to achieve a breakthrough despite an intense effort by the Obama administration to bring Mahmoud Abbas to the negotiating table.

[The] false assumption that a major international intervention against Israeli interests can force the government into major concessions is equally dangerous. It would be a myopic attempt to upset the status quo. True moral responsibility (which the so-called peace activists claim as their guiding light) requires a sober assessment of what would follow such an intervention. A systemic analysis, going from the end-game backwards, makes the tragic implications of an imposed solution all too obvious. . . .

The only implementing agency for an imposed solution, as was the case in Gaza in 2005, is the IDF, acting in support of a legitimate democratic decision. Such a decision can only be made if a decent compromise, ugly but equitable, has been achieved at the negotiating table. The alternative—that an elected Israeli government should impose great pain on its own people for no reward and under foreign pressure—is a fantasy. . . .

The lack of an imposed solution up to now reflects not political folly but diplomatic wisdom. It has never been attempted because even the most aggressive parties knew it would not work.

Yesterday, the Iranian foreign minister flew to Geneva to meet with European diplomats. President Trump, meanwhile, indicated that cease-fire negotiations might soon begin with Iran, which would presumably involve Tehran agreeing to make concessions regarding its nuclear program, while Washington pressures Israel to halt its military activities. According to Israeli media, Iran already began putting out feelers to the U.S. earlier this week. Aviram Bellaishe considers the purpose of these overtures:

The regime’s request to return to negotiations stems from the principle of deception and delay that has guided it for decades. Iran wants to extricate itself from a situation of total destruction of its nuclear facilities. It understands that to save the nuclear program, it must stop at a point that would allow it to return to it in the shortest possible time. So long as the negotiation process leads to halting strikes on its military capabilities and preventing the destruction of the nuclear program, and enables the transfer of enriched uranium to a safe location, it can simultaneously create the two tracks in which it specializes—a false facade of negotiations alongside a hidden nuclear race.