10 Questions to be answered before a Palestinian state is proposed!

With the war between Israel and Hamas still raging, the Western world has dusted off the Two-State solution. There have been extensive noisy marches in Western cities in support of the Palestinian victims of this war. Too often the chants at these rallies are antisemitic and even genocidal. Any reasoned analysis cannot place blame on Israel for this war. Nevertheless, governments do need to show some sort of action to their voting public, especially their Muslim base, so they triangulate the issue by calling for a Two-State solution, with two countries, Palestine and Israel, living side by side in peaceful harmony. Never mind the refusal by Palestinian leaders to accept a state some 7 times in the last 7 decades. Never mind the example of what happened when Israel unilaterally left Gaza in 2005 thereby establishing a de-facto Palestinian state. There was no peaceful co-existence. The dream turned into a nightmare for Israel with 20 years of terrorist attacks, rockets raining down on its cities and the most recent massacre of its citizens in an unprovoked attack. So one must ask "What do these Western leaders really think?" Are they deluding themselves, or are they just playing petty politics trying to keep faith with their Muslim voters? Certainly, the Israelis now have no illusions, with the virtually unanimous rejection of a two-state solution.

In response to the revival of the push for the 2-stte solution Steven Zipperstein in his blog raised the question "What would the Palestinian state of a two-state solution look like?

In response he has posed 10 questions, the answers to which would define this new state. 

I will let you read the full article, which I recommend. But here are the questions

1. Will the State of Palestine sign a peace treaty with Israel on Day One? Or will it view Israel as an enemy?
2. Will the State of Palestine be a democracy or an autocracy? Will it be secular or theocratic? Will Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and other terrorist organizations be banned, or will they be allowed to play a role in governing the State of Palestine?
3. Will the State of Palestine have an army, or will it agree to be demilitarized?
4. Will the State of Palestine abide by the broken commitments the PLO undertook in the Oslo Accords to renounce terrorism? Will the State of Palestine continue the Palestinian Authority’s pay-for-slay policy for terrorists and their families?
5. Will the State of Palestine maintain trade and other economic relations with Israel? Will it renounce the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel?
6. Will the State of Palestine stop teaching its schoolchildren to hate Jews? 
7. Will the State of Palestine aspire to borders stretching “from the River to the Sea”? Or will it be content with statehood encompassing only the West Bank and the Gaza Strip?
8. Will the State of Palestine drop the various cases it is pursuing against Israel in the international courts?
9. Will the State of Palestine establish alliances with Iran, North Korea, Hezbollah, and the Houthis?
10. Will the State of Palestine agree to regular and robust international inspections to ensure it is not digging attack tunnels, acquiring or building rockets and other weapons of war, or undertaking any form of potential military or terrorist action against Israel?

These are excellent questions. No one should be proposing a state for the Palestinians without being very clear about the type of state they are proposing. Israel deserves peace for its citizens. It cannot be guaranteed without restrictions on the type of Palestinian state that is established. 

A Three State Solution - by Lisa Liel

We have all heard the repeated and now shrill calls for the Two State solution to bring peace between Palestinians and Israelis. Two independent states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side, peacefully, like many civilized states. Good neighbours living happily forever after. 

Well, that is the ideal, the panacea to solve what has been an intractable problem for 75 years. I tend to think that a two-state solution is currently dead. Why? Because neither the Palestinians, and after October 7, now not even the Israelis want it. Israel had agreed to a Palestinian state many times. But every time the Palestinians walked away. The Palestinian extremist groups, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Fatah, do not want Israel as a neighbour. They want all the land of Israel as their state. They want it all. "River to the sea". This position by the Palestinian leadership has not changed for well nigh 70 years.  

Despite this rather obvious flaw in the concept the Two state solution remains the only 'solution' proposed by much of the Western World. It cannot be becasue they believe it is a possible, given the history of failure. But I guess they support it to appease their Muslim minorities, They want to have a fall back option that gives hope to Palestinians. 

Of course the status quo is unacceptable for both Israel and the Palestinian population. The Palestinian leadership is to blame for failing their people. I guess that is a topic in itself. and I will leave it for another day

And I do have hope that if Israel is given the chance to eliminate Hamas as the ruling regime in Gaza there is an opportunity for creating leadership. If that works then of course the case for "River to the Sea" moves down a notch. Hard to visualise during a bloody war but "spiro spero".While there is breath there is hope.

I recently came across an alternative to the Two State solution. Lisa Liel has proposed A Three State Solution

This is a novel idea and has some compelling arguments for it.

In summary, she proposes an independent Palestinian state taking about 30% of Jordan in a section of Jordan not contiguous with Israel (see map). The idea is that all Palestinians from Gaza and the West bank would be relocated to this new state. 

There are some notable advantages of this proposal which Lisa identifies clearly.

• The total area of the proposed state is roughly equal to the combined areas of Gaza and the West Bank disputed territory.
• While Jordan loses some land, given that Jordan was historically intended to take all the Arabs of Palestine, it is not an unreasonable compromise. 
• In addition Jordan gains strategically by losing its border with Iraq and shortening its borders with Syria and Saudi Arabia
• Also the proposed land is currently not highly populated.
• Most importantly the Palestinian state would not border Israel, which would strategically be welcome presumably by both Israel, no more rockets, and Palestine, no more occupation
• While landlocked the land does have some water resources with a large fresh water basis. 
• it also has an airport and is located strategically between Jordan and Iraq so could offer trade opportunities
• UNRWA could be disbanded and the funds redirected to help build infrastructure for the new state

It is easy to dismiss such ideas, but history has shown such mass relocations have been possible if there is a will. 

Great work by Lisa in putting forward a novel idea!