Two State Solution: how could it actually practically work?

Great Debates
21

No. Territorial details *are *the key to long-term peace.

There have been thousands, maybe tens of thousands of programs like you suggested over the years, so much so that it’s almost a cliche. They may help a bit, they might not, but they’re certainly not going to bring peace. And frankly, no offence, but I find suggestions like yours slightly patronizing. Nobody ever suggested ending the Cold War by bringing American and Russian children together, right? That’s because civilized people like you fight wars on the basis of actual disputes and philosophies, money and land, while us brown folk are driven by baser impulses. It’s bullshit. Arabs and Israelis hate each other because we’re fighting a war - we’re not fighting a war because we hate each other. Once we resolve our concrete issues I suppose we could all get along just fine, or at least get back to ignoring each other.

22

Yes, exactly.

The idiot Arafat was the worst leader to happen to the Palestinians, a man with nothing but the most incompetent instincts for politics outside of his circle. He must bear huge responsibility for the failure of the last good peace opening, the one which had the real chance. And for contributing to the opening of the door to the extremist annexation in disguise wing of the Israeli politics.

But since the time of Arafat it has been the exercise in the futility - no reasonable politician like an Abbas can gain the sufficient credibility to suppress the extremists when by the structure of the occupation and the never ending expansion of the settlements, any such actions look like nothing but the Collaboration with what to any Palestinian eyes or our eyes is clearly the long-term program of the Netanyahu types to slowly, slowly annex and slowly slowly try for their dream of the ethnic cleansing of the West Bank. (it is not to put this on all the Israelis, but it is easy in this dynamic for the minority of the extremists to strangle the birth of any compromise, it only takes the dead end idiocy of the Hamas to play into this).

23

International manufacturing for the US and europe is probably not the Palestinians comparative advantage. They could provide low cost labor for Israeli businesses and could be a center of global tourism. They have great beaches on the Mediterranean and there are 10s of millions of Christians who would love to spend Christmas in Bethlehem. If the Palestinians ever could get their act together in terms of violence then they could have a prosperous economy.

24

FWIW I laid out what I believe is the most realistic path for a hypothetical two-state solution, if one were to truly be attempted. My actual belief in the “real world”, is the two-state solution is dead. It’s going to be a one state solution, and I think the West Bank will eventually be annexed outright. With only the Arab population in the West Bank, Jews will still have a large demographic majority in the total country especially with the high Jewish Israeli birth rate (3/woman, actually on par with the Palestinian Arab birthrate.) Since the West Bank settlements will only continue to grow, eventually there will be a point where Israel just feels comfortable enough to annex it.

For years, one of the biggest drivers within Israel of the two state solution was the belief (based in the best demographic evidence of the time) that the one state solution would mean the eventual minority status of Jews in Israel, due to the higher birth rate of Palestinian Arabs. While the demographics in Israel and Palestine are probably the most politically charged demographics in the world, with things like exact population numbers in the West Bank and birth rate claims being made by a lot of questionable people, I do think the broad survey of evidence indicates the West Bank’s population is around 2.5m Palestinians and around 400,000 Israeli settlers and another 300,000 or so who are in the legal territory of the West Bank but not in settlements (areas in the West Bank on the Israeli side of the border wall and in East Jerusalem.)

I think there’s simply too many Israelis now in the territory, and they feel comfortable enough in their new demographic reality to just plow ahead with a one state solution (that likely will exclude Gaza.)

The Palestinians definitely got a raw deal in all this. And while I’m quick to point out I don’t remotely hold Israel blameless, I do view the largest culprit in it all the great powers for creating the untenable situation of 1947, and the Arab world for invading Israel on two occasions and creating the strategic justification for Israel’s actions. There’s a lot of power brokers in the Arab League countries that have long felt it was in their interests to use the Palestinians as pawns in a regional strategic game against Israel.

To be frank, we have started to move into a world where territorial annexations, while not common place, aren’t unprecedented nor are they punished vigorously. It’s hard to imagine at some point Israel won’t take advantage of it.

You’re also seeing changing lines of allegiance. Israel is actively cultivating better relations with both China and Russia–two countries that hold territory that isn’t legally theirs under international law, and that might have designs on eventually holding more, while they supported the most recent (toothless) resolution, given enough time for these relationships to grow I’m not sure these countries would go to the point of supporting UN backed sanctions or even more drastic actions because they themselves don’t like the idea of the international community intervening in illegal occupations.

You’re also seeing some long time Sunni Arab enemies of Israel seeing Israel as a potential ally against Iran.

I think it’s a tragedy for the Palestinians, and I think it’s a shame hard liners have taken over Israel, and that things have gone the way they’ve gone–but I think the hard realist view is there will never be two states in any meaningful sense.

25

It was a constant theme by some during the Cold War that there needed to be more people to people contact between the East and West blocs. That was naive to some degree, certainly in its more exaggerated forms it was, but not entirely baseless. I agree it’s not in itself a fundamental solution, and the Israeli’s and Palestinians have a very concrete issue dividing them, both want the same land, more concrete than the East/West divide of the Cold War actually.

That said, the cultural attitudes of each side have a big impact. They aren’t going to resolve the concrete issue as long as a) a significant faction has total elimination of the other side as a long term goal, and b) the side or sides with that faction don’t have a unified leadership which can suppress that faction to get on with any number of compromises which would work if such factions weren’t significant and/or could be controlled/suppressed by a majority insisting on acceptance of the compromise.

And IMO there’s no reason for false ‘even handedness’ on that aspect: that’s a much deeper problem on the Palestinian side, w/ no apparent prospect of solving it. Back to the original point, that is also somewhat related, though not solely caused by, stuff like the education system and general social environment. Why take a (arguably from Palestinian POV pretty crummy) compromise instead of believing in long term total victory over and annihilation of Israel? Or perhaps the more relevant debate is whether there’s any basis in reality for such a dream.

26

I agree the TSS is dead for now… But the OSS has so many problems, I can’t see it arising. It would almost inevitably come with so many restrictions on Palestinian rights that the “apartheid” charges would become true (as they are not true today.)

Just as one example, many Palestinians, if citizens of a single country, would want to exercise their right of return – now an ordinary right to travel – to locations inside what is Israel today. They’d want to create “settlements” of their own in Jerusalem and other areas. The new state would (probably) put limits on such freedom to relocate, in order to preserve the ethnicity of those regions. Today’s problems would still exist.

27

I have come to the opinion that I suspect more people hold, that the only reason why a two state “solution” gets proposed again and again, has nothing at all to do with actually fixing anything.

It would only accomplish one thing: it would allow a lot of politicians to turn their backs on the mess.

28

Seems to me that the best solution would simply be to return those lands to Egypt and Jordan, both of whom are now at peace with Israel.

29

I would wholeheartedly agree with that…but Egypt and Jordan don’t want the Palestinians, so that solution can’t work.

30

It’s not so much that they don’t want them, since they already have a ton of Palestinians and other troublesome minorities. It’s that they don’t want to relieve Israel of the problem, and they can’t make problems for Israel the way they did before, by having Palestinian militants attack them from Egyptian and Jordanian territory.

31

It would only work if people wanted to make it work on a day-to-day basis. Lots of silly ideas work just fine (referendums in Switzerland) because there is a dedication by the population to make it work. Some fine idea (racial integration in the United States) work poorly because of sabotage by people looking out for only their own short-term interests.

When everyone in the area has gone to enough funerals, they will decide to do what must be done to make peace.

32

Well, there’s only one side regularly going to those funerals, but they don’t seem to get the point yet. Although I think that has more to do with what the paymasters of the terrorists want than what the Palestinian people want.

33

I actually think this is the only solution that has a possible chance of surviving long term. Yes I know Egypt and Jordan don’t want them, but in most cases everyone has a price.

If Egypt and Jordan were offered enough incentives, say massive development aid from the global community for west bank / gaza over a 30 year period plus some additional land back from israel as a sweetener could they possibly be convinced to take them? Gazan’s getting Egyptian citizenship and West Bank Palestinians getting jordanian citizenship with everyone getting full freedom of movement within those nations seems to me like a much more realistic sustainable solution.

Is this even considered as an option in diplomacy? As they say Everyone has a price, is there any price that would convince Egypt and Jordan to take this deal?

34

Not at this time. But if the Arab world wanted peace, then it would be doable.

35

There might be some price for Egypt, at some indeterminate time in the future when/if its recent political instability dies down. But probably high because Egypt is a big country population wise requiring a lot of largess to make a difference for average Egyptians. Although that’s the same reason it’s relatively more plausible for them to absorb Gaza (they previously were responsible for it but treated it separately) without changing the nature of their country.

It’s less plausible for Jordan. Absorbing the West Bank Palestinians changes the demographics of the country too much and as it is Palestinian citizens of Jordan have long been a basic challenge the monarchy has faced to remain in power. It’s not necessarily any more politically feasible from Jordanian POV to absorb (most of) the West Bank Palestinians with full rights in ‘one state’ of Jordan than it is for the Israeli’s to do so by annexing the territories and granting full rights as Israeli’s, and just as unworkable to officially absorb them as second class citizens as it would be for Israel.

The ‘three state solution’ (eventually just Egypt, Jordan and Israel) isn’t much more workable in the foreseeable future than one state. Right now two state, unlikely as it is to happen any time soon, is still the most plausible IMO.

36

I’m not necessarily sure that is true, Israeli Arab citizens in Israel proper enjoy basically some of the greatest civil freedoms of any Middle Eastern Arabs (probably the most, now that I think of it.) I think there’d likely be some period post-annexation where they had a transitional government for the West Bank, a sort of Levant “One County, Two Systems” (ala China/Hong Kong) situation, where the West Bank is governed by different laws than Israel proper, but just based on past Israeli behavior in Israel itself I don’t think if they made the WB part of Israel proper they’d persist this forever.

I don’t believe the faction that wants the OSS would pull the trigger until a point when they felt they could implement it without having to establish a permanent apartheid, which if they pull the trigger at a point where the Palestinians are still too uneducated, too poor, they’d almost have to to avoid a destabilizing movement of low income low skill migrants.

37

Arabs moved en masse (minus weapons & rockets) from Gaza Strip (Hamastan) to a large chunk of land on Jordanian/Israeli Border abutting part of the West Bank set aside as the New Palestinian State (With 4 Trillion in infrastructure & societal funding over ten years provided by a consortium of countries )

38

In citing Armenia and Azerbaijan, I was referring to the feasibility of an exclave separated by an unfriendly country, not two-state solutions in general.

39

(Snipped only for brevity, not content or context…)

I think the same problem might pertain as I suggested in a one-state-solution, merging Israel and the West Bank: would Egypt and/or Jordan want these new Palestinian citizens to have free movement throughout their countries? Wouldn’t they, instead, much prefer the residents of Gaza stay in Gaza, and the residents of the West Bank stay in the West Bank? The power establishments of these two countries don’t like Palestinians very much.

Even though Jordan has large numbers of Palestinian citizens, many of them are still living in refugee camps, rather than being fully assimilated. Wouldn’t that situation continue if Jordan took over the West Bank?

40

Most societies in history and even many now would not grant a minority the size of the Israeli Arabs full rights, and that’s a credit to Israel. However it’s a numbers game. If there were a lot more even of them, even Arabs somewhat assimilated into Israel*, it wouldn’t work. A much larger number of much less friendly Palestinians with full rights, unworkable. Only in some idealized future, in which a two state solution would work first anyway.

This is my usual puzzlement of people proposing one state except those who’d have the Palestinians (or the Jews) driven out, or who openly propose the Palestinians be official second class citizens unlike Arab Israeli’s. If the Palestinians could function within Israel as a large minority (along with the Arab Israeli’s) with full rights and not make Israel another Lebanon (not to mention the loss of Jewishness many Israeli’s feel is important), then they could live in peace with Israel in a state of their own. It seems overwhelmingly likely to me they’d reach the two state threshold in their development as a people before they reached the one state threshold, though not close to either now.

Back to comment I made earlier, AFAIK too much of Palestinian society thinks it can eventually dictate terms to Israel, for the Jews to go elsewhere or some remain in situation like pre 1947 except in an Arab state not British mandate. Some forms of that hoped for future could be under the general heading ‘OSS’. So, is that an impossible dream? As long as you can’t convince them it isn’t there is no solution, except for that dream to come true. The existence or even prospect of a Palestinian ‘silent majority’ which believes in the necessity of accepting any kind of half loaf compromise with Israel, with any number of states, is doubtful IMO. Too many think time is on their side, as hopeless as that may seem to many outsiders.

*the Arab Israeli’s are not a happy minority, they think they are de facto second class citizens, although again by real world standards Israel’s treatment of them is within reason, and it’s not an accident that it’s not a focal point of external criticism of Israel.