Israel-Palestine Conflict on TEPAV’s Agenda In his last report, Geoffrey Aronson of Foundation for Middle East Peace offered solutions for the Obama government that puts emphasis on the “era of transition”

ANKARA – The U.S. policy on the Israel-Palestine conflict on top of the world’s foreign policy agenda was discussed with a meeting at TEPAV on Thursday, 19 November 2012. The meeting hosted Dr. Geoffrey Aronson, Director of Research and Publications at the Foundation for Middle East Peace as a key note speaker and Nebil Maoruf, Palestine Ambassador to Turkey.

The roundtable meeting named after Dr. Geoffrey Aronson’s latest study “U.S. Policy in a Time of Transition, Ending Occupation, Enhancing Israel’s Security, Realizing Palestinian Sovereignty” was moderated by Dr. Bülent Alirıza, Director of the TEPAV USA Center.

Giving information about the latest developments, Aronson stated that the West Bank and Gaza were run by different security systems, where the West Bank was dominated by Israeli security system and Gaza had its own security system. Maintaining that Israel had concerns about its domestic politics and Palestine’s application to the UN, Aronson said that the presence of a third international party was essential for a solution in the region. Referring to the U.S. as a potential candidate for this role, he stressed that Israel and the West Bank were incapable of coming to a solution while U.S. neither had a strong position as it used to do have nor energy for a plan B. He talked about a two-pillar policy based on an end to Israeli occupation and the creation of a Palestinian state in the first pillar and a U.S.-led international monitoring mechanism in the second pillar. He stressed that from a realistic perspective the U.S. was obliged to draw a picture of the future of relations between Israel and Palestine that will advance its own interests or it would continue to be frustrated in its pursuit of a diplomatic solution otherwise.

Ambassador criticized U.S. policies

Nebil Maoruf, Palestine Ambassador to Turkey, stated that peace was yet to be built despite two decades since the signing of the Oslo agreement, a critical milestone in Palestinian-Israeli conflict and harshly criticized the U.S. policy.

The meeting ended after the contributions and questions of the audience.

Please click here for Aronson’s cited study.