Well?
just?
Letting Israel have the land it won fair and square in 1967, no attacks.
Palestinians finding there own land somewhere else.
viable: Nope.;j
- Return to 1967 borders excluding the Golan, not including any comparable land exchange between Israel and the putative Palestine.
- Internationalization of holy sites in Jerusalem (the entire Old City and perhaps the Mount of Olives).
- Partial resettlement of refugees on a case-based situation, with financial recompensation an alternative.
- Protected right of passage between West Bank and Gaza.
- Demilitarized Palestine for probably a decade or so, with Israeli monitoring stations kept at strategic locations for a decade or so (Jordan River).
- Gradual opening of borders between Israel and Palestine with free trade treaties.
- Enforced guarantees from the PA for outlawing and arresting extremist groups bent on Israeli destruction. Also, reigning in extremist imams and toning down anti-Israeli language on Palestinian media and in school books.
- Perhaps a mutual extradition treaty.
- Port space at Ashkelon for Palestinian authority.
- Some compromise on electricity, water rights, air traffic, etc.
- Guarantees for an implemented constitution with democratic elections in Palestine.
In short, not exactly what most people acknowledge Barak to have put on the table at Camp David and Taba, but close to it. If Camp David had been the launching point for a series of negotiations on final status rather than a new intifada, then we could have clearly seen these points implemented by now.
One man’s just and viable is another man’s unfair and illegitimate.
Once you KEEP attacking civilians…your cause is NOT just.
There is no land suitable for a viable Palestinian state while ensuring that Israel has secure borders. The search for a Palestininan state strikes me as futile.
My proposal: a transfer of assets.
Let’s say West Bank + Gaza = 5 million Palestinians.
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Give each one US$1mn - more than enough for each family to buy a home, and generate a reasonable income.
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Offer Lebanese, Jordanian, Syrian, Saudi, or any other government US$1mn per head for each Palestinian they accept. Enough to build the additional schools and clinics and other infrastructure to handle the extra population.
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Evacuate Gaza and the West Bank, and provide some sort of special Muslim symbolic status to holy sites in Jerusalem.
The money could come from the US and other western countries. It would total US$10 billion - a couple of years’ current US aid to Israel and Egypt.
I’m sure I won’t be the first to point this out. But, assuming $1mn = $1,000,000, then a $2 million payoff to each Palestinian would be the equivalent of $10 trillion dollars, which is slightly more. 3 orders of magnitude is just a little inaccurate, even in astronomy.
Giving each one $10,000 may do it, though. But I doubt it. Land means more in the region than life.
Damn, that’s what I was gonna say. Except the last point would maybe be asking for too much, sadly.
And I would add (12) an international peacekeeping force by the borders, especially the Palestinian borders with Jordan and Egypt.
The ideal solution for Palstine would be a Kosovo-style UN protectorate. An Arafat government would inevitably be corrupt, harshly dictatorial and really incompetent. But it’s a pipedream.
But Edwino, why do you call yourself pro-IOsraeli?
Heh, not that close.
It should be pointed out here that the material value of the land isn’t really what matters. THe problem is the historical and religious ties to that one tiny piece of real estate, which both groups are claiming.
If it were just a matter of real-estate, there could be a solution. The trans-Jordan region is very large, and the Palestinians could be relocated there. The Israelis, with world aid, could undergo a massive effort to reclaim the land, industrialize it, irrigate it, etc. It could be turned into a valuable area.
But that doesn’t solve the problem of holy sites and historical claims. That’s the real sticking point here.
Whoops - slip of the calculator. Anyway, the point is - a payoff.
This conference discussed it in great detail. One proposal worked out a formula that would cost $25bn. Others were higher.
The most just solution would be based on land ownership. Prior to the establishment of the state of Israeli, the Yeshuv owned slightly less than 6% of the total land area of Palestine. Jews owned 1,491 square kilometers (exclusive of urban property) out of a total of 26,323 square kilometers in Palestine. Jewish land ownership amounted to 5.6 percent of the total area of the country. In contrast, the non-Jewish Palestinians owned the rest of Palestine, including all the areas that were categorized as public domain.
(Appendix IV, to the Report of Sub-Committee 2, UN Doc. A/AC 14/32, 11 November 1947, p. 270.).
The land in excess of the 5.6% was seized from those who owned it, in violation of the very Resolution which paved the way for the establishment of the state of Isreal.
UN General Assembly Resolution 181, dated November 29, 1947, states
‘No discrimination of any kind shall be made between the inhabitants on the ground of race, religion, language or sex.’
‘No expropriation of land owned by an Arab in the Jewish State (or by a Jew in the Arab State) shall be allowed except for public purposes. In all cases of expropriation full compensation as fixed by the Supreme Court shall be paid previous to dispossession.’
Relocating the Palestinians to somewere else would be a war crime under the Geneva Civilians Convention of 1949 to which Israel and the Arab countries are signatories. Article 49 prohibits “regardless of motive” the transportation or deportation of protected persons (civilians) from the occupied territories.
All of the Jewish Settlements in the occupied territories have to go. They are a war crimes under the same article which also prohibits the occupying power from transferring its own populatiion into the area it occupies.
The fairest solution would be for Palestine to be re-partitioned with 5.6% of the total land area to be set aside for a Jewsh state, the remaining 94.4% becomming a free and independant Palestinian state.
It’s nice to have a coupla LarryDLs here to balance the many Vanillas.
While Sam is correct I have one item to note:
Sam may not be aware that while Jordan is quite large, most of its territory is quite useless, being desert or near desert scrub. There isn’t that much watered land to go about. Part of the reason both Chebaa Farms and Golan are not really’security issues’ per se, they are water issues.
I will add that the ‘fairest’ solution above is pure poppycock. Such math forgoes the Arab expulsions of Jews. While the mythology of Arabs fleeing the land is pernicious, so is the idea that the issue is seperate from Arab explusion of Jews, even allowing for Israeli collusion and cooperation with a few operations (e.g. North Africa).
Israel exists, it is not going to disappear no matter what fairy tales one spins.
15 years ago or so ago, I hit upon the idea of establishing an “International Holy Land” as a buffer between Israel and a Palestinian state. It would include Jerusalem and a strip along the western edge of the West Bank containing the greatest concentration of Jewish settlements. Also perhaps some adjacent sections of Israel that were Arab under the original partition plan but fell on the Israeli side in 1949. And possibly the Golan Heights. Jewish settlements further to the east would be have to dismantled. The borders should be drawn to shoot for equal numbers of Jews and Muslims (or maybe, since there are a lot of Palestinian Christians, a 3-way split). Security would be provided by some arrangement of troops from the UN or US or the international community. There would be considerable international media attention paid to the situation there so that, with luck, a positive atmosphere could be fostered. Pilgrims of all faiths could visit their holy sites without them being under occupation by the other side.
But I realise now that that’s just silly. I’m just throwing it out there for the heck of it. I’ve long since abandoned the idea in favor of doing nothing and letting the violence spiral out of control.
I don’t believe that peace is possible until one side beats the shit out of the other militarily. Its unfortunate but I don’t think peace will be negotiated. It has to be won.
Look at Jordan and Egypt. Isreal had to win a war(s) and take land from them. It may not be the best or most desireable course but it works.
I can’t improve on what Edwino, David Weman and LarryDL have said, but I am bouncing for joy that I’m not the only one to recognize that Israel is in direct violation of Resolution 181, and that Israel and its chief financial support, the U.S., must treat Palestine fairly if there is ever going to be an end to the cycle of violence and hatred.
CLedet–Israel only ‘won’ that war with substantial U.S. backing, and it only continues to exist because of substantial U.S. aid. If the U.S. pulled its support, we’d see who would “get the shit beat out of them.”
I can’t improve on what Edwino, David Weman and LarryDL have said, but I am bouncing for joy that I’m not the only one to recognize that Israel is in direct violation of Resolution 181, and that Israel and its chief financial support, the U.S., must treat Palestine fairly if there is ever going to be an end to the cycle of violence and hatred.
CLedet–Israel only ‘won’ that war with substantial U.S. backing, and it only continues to exist because of substantial U.S. aid. If the U.S. pulled its support, we’d see who would “get the shit beat out of them.”
Ahem, I’m not in agreement with LarryDL, and I’m willing to bet a considerable sum that Edwino isn’t either.
(I think I’ll adopt this weird custom of bolding names, so I can feel like a ‘Doper’. I belong!)