I am starting this discussion with a mind mostly uncluttered by the facts in this regard, but that should provide a lot of material for comment.
I had this thought: If I ran the world, why not declare Gaza an independent State. Now, I find that there are 25 Israeli settlements and joint-use areas in Gaza, and something has to be done about those. Assume that the inhabitants of such can sell their property to Gazans, or accept Gazan citizenship, or at worst just forfeit it.
The Gazans can elect Arafat, or whoever they want as their head of state.
What would be the benefits of this?
To the Gazans:
They get (some of?) what they have been asking for: Independence. Later they can form some sort of union with any other present or future counties they want to. What I’m saying here is that I do not understand why it would be disadvantageous to Gazans to be granted independence before any being made part of a “complete” Palestinian state, which would probably consist of disconnected parts for the foreseeable future.
To the Israelis:
My thought was that this would demonstrate to the world that not all of the Palestinians’ problems are of Israel’s doing. Gaza is 360 square km (2x the size of Washington D.C.) with 1 million people. A source I saw said 63% of the population are in the service sector. I think that means a lot of them commute to Israel to work. I don’t think this is the recipe for a viable independent State.
It would reduce terrorism (?) I think relatively little terrorism originates in Gaza, but it might lessen nonetheless, because the change in the psychology of the situation. Also because some of the organizational energy that goes in to conflict with Israel probably would have to be shifted to running the new State.
So what are the flaws of this plan?