Lawrence Solomon: The solution to Israel-Palestine isn’t two states, it’s several states

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The two-state solution, the choice of moderates everywhere, would see a Jewish and a Palestinian state co-exist side-by-side. This is and always has been a non-starter. Arabs over the last century have without exception opposed the two-state solution, whether proposed by the British, the United Nations or the United States — accepting any Jewish state in their midst, regardless of where the borders were drawn, has always been unthinkable to the broad Arab leadership and especially to jihadists, who have repeatedly assassinated those few leaders who were willing to co-exist with the Jews.

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Lawrence Solomon: The solution to Israel-Palestine isn’t two states, it’s several states Back to video

Arabs aren’t about to accept a two-state solution now — no Palestinian leader has either the inclination or the overwhelming moral authority needed to negotiate such a treaty. But even if Palestinians were willing, Israelis today would be wary, for fear of finding themselves with another terrorist state on their borders. After Israel unilaterally ceded Gaza to the Palestinian Authority a decade ago, Hamas soon took over Gaza in a coup and then launched thousands of missiles at Israel, leading to Israeli retaliations and a perpetual state of war.

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If the world powers imposed a two-state solution, war would be inevitable. With neither side having accepted the other, both sides would be arming themselves for war from Day One.

A one-state solution — Jews and Arabs living together — would be preferable to a forced two-state solution, but only in the short term. Moderate Israelis and most Western leaders fear a unitary state: They expect the higher Arab birth rate would eventually make Jews a minority within Israel, leading Jews to deny Arabs the vote to preserve the Jewish State. As Secretary of State John Kerry put it recently, under a one-state scenario Israel either “can be Jewish or it can be democratic.”

This one-state solution would be welcomed by many Palestinians, including many senior Palestinian officials. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, in fact, often threatens to force a one-state solution on Israel by abandoning two-state negotiations, believing that Palestinian Arabs would, over time, be able to overwhelm the Jews, whether through terrorism or a higher Muslim birth rate.

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Right-wing Jews favour one state for opposite reasons. They believe Jews can out-populate Arabs through their own high fertility rate — now the highest in the Western world, and trending to exceed that of Arabs. But even if Jews can win this demographic war, sectarian strife would loom since large numbers of Arabs, resenting Jewish rule, would want to be governed by their own kind.

Many Arabs in the Palestinian West Bank would also dislike Israel’s Western-style democracy, which exists nowhere in the Arab world, despite past attempts by the West to impose it on Arab societies. Palestinian society is clan-based, as is Arab society generally. Despite attempts by the Palestinian National Authority to undermine local rule, Palestinians’ allegiance is mainly to their own clans, not to the national government, which they often hold in contempt. Palestinians tend to marry within their clan, and to trust only members of their own clan as business partners. Apart from providing the dominant social structure, clans — because they’re often heavily armed — also provide security, not against Israelis but in disputes against other clans.

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The one-state solution, as a stepping-stone to a multi-state solution, provides a mechanism through which Palestinians truly can live alongside and among Israelis in peace. As a first step, Israel should annex the entire West Bank, and offer all 1.65-million Palestinians full Israeli citizenship, with equal voting rights and rights to the country’s schools, hospitals and other institutions. At the same time, Israel should offer the West Bank Palestinians — most of whom live in seven geographically-distinct clan-based communities — the option of being self-governing in their own emirates, through locally held referenda. The emirates would enjoy free trade with Israel and their citizens would be able to travel freely throughout Israel, and also to have equal access to Israel’s schools and hospitals. They would police themselves but would not have their own armies, just as Monaco and numerous other small sovereign states don’t have their own armies.

Some West Bank Arabs might choose Israeli citizenship for the benefits of democracy — as they well know, the Arab 20 per cent of Israel’s current population is for the most part proud to be Israeli. But others, perhaps most, would choose to be citizens of their local emirates, preferring to maintain their familiar laws, customs and traditions. Emirates in the West Bank that would want to voluntarily ally with each other would be able to, as have the seven emirates of the United Arab Emirates.

A multi-state solution would offer Israel’s Jews and Arabs the best of both worlds. The Arabs would be free to choose citizenship in Israel or in their home emirate, in both cases benefitting from the Israeli economy, and the Jews would not worry about losing either their democracy or their country.

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