In 2000, then-President Bill Clinton presented Ehud Barak and Yasir Arafat with a plan for the creation of a Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank, based on a near-complete Israeli withdrawal to the pre-1967 lines with land-swaps allowing Israel to retain the major settlement blocs. Since then, these guidelines have been treated by politicians and diplomats in Israel and elsewhere as the natural solution to the conflict. Gershon Hacohen argues that, since much has changed since the turn of the century, it’s time for a new approach:
The [basic purpose of] the Oslo Accords, [an] end to Israeli control over Palestinian citizens, [has] largely been realized. It was already so in January 1996, when Israel concluded the withdrawal of its forces from the populated territories of the West Bank. The Palestinian population living in [what the agreement designated as] Areas A and B, or approximately 90 percent of the total Palestinian population of the West Bank, has been controlled since then by the Palestinian Authority (PA). . . .
[Now] the Israeli government must re-clarify the complex of security interests inherent in Israel’s control over Area C. In this reexamination, Israel must depart from the idea of two states as [generally understood]. . . . An Israeli reassessment has the potential to introduce a change in Jerusalem’s position by renewing its demand for the preservation of a defensible area, which depends on consistent Israeli hold over Area C. . . .
Senior security officials who support withdrawal [from the remainder of the West Bank] assure the public that the army would be able to meet the country’s security challenges even with withdrawal to the 1967 lines. Their position ignores important changes that have taken place. If, after the withdrawal, the West Bank is taken over by an organization similar to Hamas in Gaza—Hizballah, in all likelihood—the IDF would struggle to provide an adequate response to the possibility of simultaneous attack on Israel on several fronts. These officials claim that even after uprooting the Jewish residents, the IDF would be able to operate throughout the area. But they ignore the level of forces that would be required for this undertaking. Without the mass presence of a Jewish population, the IDF will be defeated, and will withdraw as it did from south Lebanon in May 2000. . . .
In short, without a constant hold on the whole of Area C, Israel has no defensible borders. The way Yitzḥak Rabin delineated the expanse of Area C demonstrates his farsighted understanding of the importance of those areas beyond the 1967 borders, which must be in Israel’s full control. It is time to emphasize that there is more than one way to realize the two-state logic. It is [thus] in Israel’s security interests that it embark on full-scale construction in Area C.
Read more on BESA Center: https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/two-state-solution-just-not-according-clinton-parameters/