American efforts continue to help resolve intractable Israel-Palestine conflict. I. William Zartman, Amira Schiff, Galia Golan, Walid Salem, and Barry Steiner, seek here to enhance the American contribution to a two-state Israel-Palestine solution.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one of the most prolonged, contentious and divisive in the modern era. But, despite the volatile nature of the conflict, which frequently flares up in armed confrontations between the two, there have been advancements towards a settlement through an admittedly protracted peace process. In this book, Jacob Eriksson argues that the impact of small states, such as Sweden or Norway, should not be ignored when it comes to the ongoing efforts to negotiate between Israel and Palestine. Although small states lack coercive power, the talks they have sponsored in this particular instance (such as the Norwegian-mediated Oslo Accords) have transformed both the conflict and the conceptions of a solution to it. Of course, the diplomatic and financial power of larger states such as the USA is undoubtedly central to a negotiated solution. But by looking at conflict resolution from the perspective of the small state, Eriksson offers a unique analysis of power and diplomacy in the context of negotiations and efforts towards peace settlements.

The one-state solution demonstrates that Israeli settlements have already encroached on the occupied territory of the West Bank and Gaza Strip to the extent that any Palestinian state in those areas is unviable. It reveals the irreversible impact of Israel's settlement grid by summarising its physical, demographic, financial and political dimensions. Virginia Q.Tilley explains why we should assume that this grid will not be withdrawn - or its expansion reversed - by reviewing the role of the key political actors: the Israeli government, the United States, the Arab states, and the European Union. Finally the book addresses the daunting obstacles to a one-state solution - including major revision of the Zionist dream but also Palestinian and other regional resistance - and offers some ideas about how these obstacles might be addressed.

In each of the 24 cases examined in this volume, mediation was a multiparty effort, involving actors working simultaneously or sequentially. These accounts attest to the crucial importance of coordinating and building upon the efforts of other players.

"The widely held assumption that the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory is a temporary situation and that the 'peace process' will soon bring an end to Israeli abuses has obscured the reality on the ground today of Israel's entrenched discriminatory rule over Palestinians. A single authority, the Israeli government, rules primarily over the area between the Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea, populated by two groups of roughly equal size, methodologically privileging Jewish Israelis while repressing Palestinians, most severely in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), made-up of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza. Drawing on years of human rights documentation, case studies and a review of government planning documents, statements by officials and other sources, [this report] examines Israel's treatment of Palestinians and evaluates whether particular Israeli policies and practices in certain areas amount to the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution."--Page 4 of cover.

One Land, Two States imagines a new vision for Israel and Palestine in a situation where the peace process has failed to deliver an end of conflict. “If the land cannot be shared by geographical division, and if a one-state solution remains unacceptable,” the book asks, “can the land be shared in some other way?” Leading Palestinian and Israeli experts along with international diplomats and scholars answer this timely question by examining a scenario with two parallel state structures, both covering the whole territory between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River, allowing for shared rather than competing claims of sovereignty. Such a political architecture would radically transform the nature and stakes of the Israel-Palestine conflict, open up for Israelis to remain in the West Bank and maintain their security position, enable Palestinians to settle in all of historic Palestine, and transform Jerusalem into a capital for both of full equality and independence—all without disturbing the demographic balance of each state. Exploring themes of security, resistance, diaspora, globalism, and religion, as well as forms of political and economic power that are not dependent on claims of exclusive territorial sovereignty, this pioneering book offers new ideas for the resolution of conflicts worldwide.