While asking Israeli PM Netanyahu to "hold back a little" on settlements, US President Trump said he would accept a one-state solution to the Middle East conflict. Trump also said Palestinians need to recognize Israel.
Image: Reuters/C. Barria
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Trump: Two states not only Mideast solution
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US President Donald Trump and Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu at a press conference on Wednesday expressed confidence that relations between the two countries would reach new heights with Trump in the White House.
A history of the Middle East peace process
For over half a century, disputes between Israelis and Palestinians over land, refugees and holy sites remain unresolved. DW gives you a short history of when the conflict flared and when attempts were made to end it.
UN Security Council Resolution 242, 1967
United Nations Security Council Resolution 242, passed on November 22, 1967, called for the exchange of land for peace. Since then, many of the attempts to establish peace in the region have referred to 242. The resolution was written in accordance with Chapter VI of the UN Charter, under which resolutions are recommendations, not orders.
Image: Getty Images/Keystone
Camp David Accords, 1978
A coalition of Arab states, led by Egypt and Syria, fought Israel in the Yom Kippur or October War in October 1973. The conflict eventually led to the secret peace talks that yielded two agreements after 12 days. This picture from March 26, 1979, shows Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, his US counterpart Jimmy Carter and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin after signing the accords in Washington.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/B. Daugherty
The Madrid Conference, 1991
The US and the former Soviet Union came together to organize a conference in the Spanish capital. The discussions involved Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and the Palestinians — not from the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) — who met with Israeli negotiators for the first time. While the conference achieved little, it did create the framework for later, more productive talks.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/J. Hollander
Oslo I Accord, 1993
The negotiations in Norway between Israel and the PLO, the first direct meeting between the two parties, resulted in the Oslo I Accord. The agreement was signed in the US in September 1993. It demanded that Israeli troops withdraw from West Bank and Gaza Strip and a self-governing, interim Palestinian authority be set up for a five-year transitional period. A second accord was signed in 1995.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/A. Sachs
Camp David Summit Meeting, 2000
US President Bill Clinton invited Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat to the retreat in July 2000 to discuss borders, security, settlements, refugees and Jerusalem. Despite the negotiations being more detailed than ever before, no agreement was concluded. The failure to reach a consensus at Camp David was followed by renewed Palestinian uprising, the Second Intifada.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/R. Edmonds
The Arab Peace Initiative, 2002
The Camp David negotiations were followed first by meetings in Washington and then in Cairo and Taba, Egypt — all without results. Later the Arab League proposed the Arab Peace Initiative in Beirut in March 2002. The plan called on Israel to withdraw to pre-1967 borders so that a Palestinian state could be set up in the West Bank and Gaza. In return, Arab countries would agree to recognize Israel.
Image: Getty Images/C. Kealy
The Roadmap, 2003
The US, EU, Russia and the UN worked together as the Middle East Quartet to develop a road map to peace. While Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas accepted the text, his Israeli counterpart Ariel Sharon had more reservations with the wording. The timetable called for a final agreement on a two-state solution to be reached in 2005. Unfortunately, it was never implemented.
Image: Getty Iamges/AFP/J. Aruri
Annapolis, 2007
In 2007, US President George W. Bush hosted a conference in Annapolis, Maryland, to relaunch the peace process. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas took part in talks with officials from the Quartet and over a dozen Arab states. It was agreed that further negotiations would be held with the goal of reaching a peace deal by the end of 2008.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/S. Thew
Washington, 2010
In 2010, US Middle East Envoy George Mitchell convinced Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to agree to and implement a 10-month moratorium on settlements in disputed territories. Later, Netanyahu and Abbas agreed to relaunch direct negotiations to resolve all issues. Negotiations began in Washington in September 2010, but within weeks there was a deadlock.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/M. Milner
Cycle of escalation and ceasefire continues
A new round of violence broke out in and around Gaza in late 2012. A ceasefire was reached between Israel and those in power in the Gaza Strip, which held until June 2014. The kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers in June 2014 resulted in renewed violence and eventually led to the Israeli military operation Protective Edge. It ended with a ceasefire on August 26, 2014.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Paris summit, 2017
Envoys from over 70 countries gathered in Paris, France, to discuss the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. Netanyahu slammed the discussions as "rigged" against his country. Neither Israeli nor Palestinian representatives attended the summit. "A two-state solution is the only possible one," French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said at the opening of the event.
Image: Reuters/T. Samson
Deteriorating relations in 2017
Despite the year's optimistic opening, 2017 brought further stagnation in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. A deadly summer attack on Israeli police at the Temple Mount, a site holy to both Jews and Muslims, sparked deadly clashes. Then US President Donald Trump's plan to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem prompted Palestinian leader Abbas to say "the measures ... undermine all peace efforts."
Image: Reuters/A. Awad
Trump's peace plan backfires, 2020
US President Donald Trump presented a peace plan that freezes Israeli settlement construction but retains Israeli control over most of the illegal settlements it has already built. The plan would double Palestinian-controlled territory but asks Palestinians to cross a red line and accept the previously constructed West Bank settlements as Israeli territory. Palestinians reject the plan.
Image: Reuters/M. Salem
Conflict reignites in 2021
Plans to evict four families and give their homes in East Jerusalem to Jewish settlers led to escalating violence in May 2021. Hamas fired over 2,000 rockets at Israel, and Israeli military airstrikes razed buildings in the Gaza Strip. The international community, including Germany's Foreign Ministry, called for an end to the violence and both sides to return to the negotiating table.
Image: Mahmud Hams/AFP
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A number of statements from Trump indicated a dramatic shift in US Middle East policy, including an indifferent attitude toward a two-state solution, saying a single-state solution could also be acceptable if Palestinians and Israelis agree to it.
"I'm looking at two-state and one-state and I like the one that both parties like," Trump said. "I'm very happy with the one that both parties like."
He said it was up to the two sides to negotiate a peace deal and that both sides would have to make compromises to reach an agreement. The last round of substantive peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians occurred in 2014.
Trump also rejected "unfair and one-sided actions against Israel at the UN," referring to a UN resolution passed in December condemning Israeli settlements. The then-US ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power, abstained from the UN vote with the approval of President Barack Obama, clearing the way for the measure to pass without approval the measure without a veto from the permanent members of the Security Council.
Against the grain
Trump said that while he had previously held the belief that a two-state solution "would be easiest," then he conceded that as long as Israel and the Palestinians were satisfied, he could "live with either one."
Palestinians were alarmed at the possibility Washington might turn its back on efforts for an independent Palestinian nation.
"If the Trump administration rejects this policy it would be destroying the chances for peace and undermining American interests, standing and credibility abroad," said Hanan Ashrawi, a senior member of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
Multiple US administrations, led by both Republicans and Democrats, have called for Middle East peace that includes the creation of a state for Palestinians. The two-state solution has also long served as the basis for international peace negotiations.
Much of the international community - including Germany - supports the two-state solution.
'Hold back on settlements'
Trump called on Netanyahu to "hold back on settlements a little bit." The Israeli leader said settlements were not the core of the conflict, made no commitment to cut back settlement activity and said the conditions for peace were Palestinians recognizing Israel's right to exist and Israeli security control of the region west of the Jordan River.
Netanyahu also brought up the fact that a Middle East peace agreement could be better negotiated by regional partners.
"We can seize a historic opportunity, for the first time in my lifetime, and the first time in the life of my country," he said, "Arab countries do not see Israel as an enemy, but increasingly, as an ally."
The issue of Iran's nuclear ambitions also came up during the press conference. Trump repeated his opposition to the Iran nuclear deal brokered by the Obama administration. Netanyahu praised the Trump's administration's recent sanctions against Iran and expressed his hope that Israel would be able to work with the United States to curb Iran's nuclear ambitions – something he said was "long overdue."
