LETTER | Let two-state solution be the gold standard

LETTER | When the United Arab Emirates (UAE) recognised Israel as a full state, the most basic condition attached to the process is that Israel should cease and desist from any settlement activities in the West Bank.

But there was no effort to specify how and when that will begin, merely an aspiration that the UAE would like to see on the ground. There are more than 650,000 settlers in Israel, staying in the occupied land of Palestine wrested from King Hussein of Jordan in the 1967 Six-Day War.

If the settlers have already considered this occupied land as their home, which is against the Geneva Convention, the UAE's move amounts to rewarding the action of the Likud government, especially the coalition lead by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The fact is that since the Madrid Dialogue in 1990, as approved by the late US president George Bush Senior with the consent of then Israeli prime minister Izhak Shamir, a two-state solution had always been in the offing.

When the Spanish process could not make any headway, Professor Herbert Kelman at Harvard University helped along. Kelman invited scholars and government officials of both sides to speak in their private, albeit semi-official, capacity, to what is otherwise known as the Track Two Dialogue. This was a field explored in great detail by Phar Kim Beng, a former Harvard teaching fellow in 1998-2001.

When confidence was gained by both sides, the Norwegian government took over to sponsor the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks leading to the 1994 Oslo Peace Accord signed between the late Israeli prime minister Yizhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat who was representing the People's Liberation Organisation.

But since then, Netanyahu, who has won five elections in Israel, has not taken the Oslo Accord seriously.

If the UAE does not understand the peril of the peace process, especially how brittle it can be, it should not unilaterally recognise Israel. There are three dire strategic implications here.

First, the ultra-conservative elements in Iran have considered the UAE a "legitimate target"; potentially to be attacked. This is not healthy for regional dynamics.

Secondly, with Turkey against the plan, it will likely lobby members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) to challenge the leadership of the US and Israel to hamper any progress. This will create a split in Nato at a point when it is already very weak due to the absence of American leadership.

Finally, if the UAE works with the US and Israel, the much sought Muslim unity will fray, as the Islamic world will begin to question the legitimacy of the global order. 

A two-state solution is the only gold standard that can satisfy the Palestinians, and all those who who have had the misfortune to witness their displacement.

The writer is Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) chairperson and a Bersatu supreme council member.