If poverty, unemployment and restricted movement were the principal causes of Palestinian violence, why have repeated periods of greater economic opportunity, international aid, political autonomy and diplomatic engagement failed to produce lasting peace? The uncomfortable answer is that material deprivation may intensify conflict, but it does not fully explain it: alongside legitimate Palestinian grievances exists a persistent political and ideological rejection of Israel’s permanence, and until that problem is confronted, prosperity alone is unlikely to end the conflict.

Why Prosperity Alone Won’t Bring Peace

For years, one explanation for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has enjoyed considerable appeal: improve Palestinian living standards and violence will diminish. Give people jobs, better infrastructure, greater freedom of movement and a stake in economic prosperity, and they will have more to lose from conflict. By contrast, poverty and humiliation, the argument goes, provide fertile ground for extremism.

There is some obvious logic to this. Prosperity can strengthen institutions, broaden political horizons and make stability more attractive. But as an explanation for the persistence of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it is incomplete. Economic deprivation may aggravate political grievances. It does not explain the longevity of a conflict in which rejection of Israel has repeatedly survived periods of diplomatic opportunity, economic assistance and improved living conditions.

The historical record matters.

For more than a century, Palestinian and Arab leaders have rejected a succession of proposals that envisaged some form of territorial partition or coexistence between Jewish and Arab states. The Peel Commission proposed partition in 1937. The United Nations Partition Plan of 1947 envisaged separate Jewish and Arab states. Arab governments and Palestinian leaders rejected the plan, and war followed Israel’s declaration of independence.

After the 1967 war, the Arab League’s Khartoum summit became associated with its famous “three no’s”: no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel and no negotiations with Israel.

Later opportunities met a similar fate. The Camp David negotiations in 2000, the Clinton Parameters and subsequent proposals associated with Israeli prime ministers Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert all failed to produce a final settlement.

The details of those proposals differed greatly, and it would be simplistic to suggest that every Palestinian........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)