No solution to the Israel Palestine conflict because there is no trust

The argument

This position holds that the obstacle to a settlement is not the absence of a workable plan but the absence of the trust any plan would require in order to be signed. Every proposed solution, whether one state, two states or some variant, asks each side to give up something concrete now in exchange for a commitment about the future. That trade only makes sense if the commitment is believed, and the claim here is that on neither side is it. Taken from the Israeli side, the threat of violence through groups like Hamas is said to make a lasting peace impossible. Israelis are not willing to make concessions to a population that could compromise the safety of Israeli citizens at any moment, because a concession is by its nature difficult to reverse in a way that a promise of restraint is not: territory handed over, or a security arrangement relaxed, cannot easily be recovered if the promise fails. The chain that follows is short and, on this account, unbreakable. Without concessions there will be no agreement, and without an agreement there will be no peace. The same structure holds in reverse. Palestinians do not trust Israelis not to deprive them of rights under a one-state solution or of territory under a two-state one, which means that the two leading frameworks each carry, for Palestinians, a particular form of the risk that the other side will not keep its side of the bargain. Because the mistrust runs both ways, it cannot be dissolved by one party moving first; whichever side acted would be exposing itself to precisely the outcome it fears. Until both sides can trust the other to negotiate in good faith, a solution will remain elusive, which is why this position treats the conflict as having no solution rather than an as-yet-undiscovered one.

Context

In order for there to be a solution, both sides need to come to the negotiating table secure in the knowledge that the other party will abide by any agreement signed. Neither side trusts the other to stick to an agreement. Therefore, there cannot be lasting peace.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Other international governments can broker peace. Even if neither side trusts the other to implement a solution, they might trust an international government to use its diplomatic or financial leverage to pressure the other side into upholding an agreement. Therefore, the inclusion of governments like the US, Egypt, Jordan or Saudi Arabia in the peace negotiations could bring about a solution to the conflict.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] A solution could be brokered by an international government that both sides trust.