Israel/Palestine -- how could a one-state solution work?

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I understand that the point of this thread is to debate the topic in detail, I'd just like to point out that there never will be any sort of solution. Interestingly, insisting there always has to be a solution for every problem has always been typical of Americans. I'm curious how non-Americans here see this as opposed to Americans. Actually I think insisting there's a solution just makes things worse, because it causes you to judge every act committed on the basis of whether or not that act advances the solution, and if not, then you condemn whoever committed that act, leading to further atrocities.

There are Israeli Arabs and Palestinians, some are members of the Knesset. There is discrimination and segregation with similarities to American blacks. I do not want to conflate America and Israel too much. Despite it’s image and it being a democracy Israel is a middle eastern country not an American or European one.

I’m familiar with the Indian reservations a similar system operates in Australia for aborigines.

It’s not the same though as these places were setup to allow them to live their ancient life on their own land.

If they want to live in traditional houses hunt on the land nobody is going to bother them or impose a modern life ( sounds attractive lol)

But it’s a choice an Indian or Aborigine can choose to live a modern life elsewhere, work in an office, have a microwave etc..,

So it’s not comparable

The Palestinians don’t live nomadic lives either

The American Indian reservations were just set up to get the Indians out of the way. Not to allow them to live their ancient life on their own land. There was, for example, the Indian Removal Act.

https://guides.loc.gov/indian-removal-act

Illinois was named for the Illini Indians who once lived in the area, but were forced to move to reservations further west.

The Nazis actually used our methods as a template for Generalplan Ost.

Israel doesn't have an endgame worked out

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-ea ... 6c3675c604

Here is a bit on the anti-Zionist ultra-Orthodox Jews

https://www.myjewishlearning.com/articl ... i-zionist/



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVuHgaT ... eraEnglish

Egypt and Jordan don't want to take in Palestinian refugees

https://apnews.com/article/palestinian- ... ubscribers

No Arab state wants anything to do with this conflict, and it's kind of shameful to see it, but honestly the fact that we're calling them "refugees" is saying the quiet part out loud: We're admitting that Israel are the aggressors. And I have a feeling that, in another week or two, "Don't call them refugees" is going to be a big Israeli talking point.

Almost but not quite.

They are equivalent to what the Indian reservations were when they were originally created, which were places where the indigenous people were confined to. These days, indigenous Americans are no longer confined to the reservations.

In a hypothetical unified Israel-Palestine, I think both Gaza and Areas A and B in the West Bank should be turned into what the Indian reservations are now: places that are reserved for indigenous people, but not places they are confined to.

In a hypothetical unified Israel-Palestine, I also think that some parts (but not the entirety) of what is now Israel should be reserved for Jews. The parts reserved for Jews should be (1) places where indigenous Jews traditionally lived before Zionism was a thing and/or (2) at least some of places that were truly uninhabited and uninhabitable before European Jews began arriving in the late 1800's and began irrigating the place.

But I also think a significant part of the land mass (including Area C of the West Bank plus various parts of what is now Israel, including the sea port of Jaffa, parts of Jerusalem and its vicinity, and corridors connecting these areas to each other and to West Bank area C, Gaza, and the Golan Heights) should be a federal area where all citizens would be allowed to live and travel. The Golan Heights would also be part of the federal area.

As I envision it, both the Jewish-only areas and the Palestinian/Arab areas would have local governments subordinate to the federal government.

The federal area would be contiguous and would contain all (or at least most of) the militarily strategic highland areas. The military would be systematically integrated.

Also, and very important: There should be a policy of NO EVICTIONS. People who were living in a reserved area before it was declared to be reserved should not be evicted just because they are of the wrong religion/ethnicity. They would just be prohibited from moving there if they didn't already live there, and/or from buying land there if they didn't already own it.


Yes, and a big sticking point in a unified Israel-Palestine would be maintaining the population balance.

In a unified Israel-Palestine, there would probably need to be a constitutionally mandated immigration policy that would balance the "right of return" of diaspora Jews against the "right of return" of Palestinian refugees. Both could become citizens at a rate determined by the current population balance. (On the Jewish side, immigration policy might also favor Jews from countries where they are actually being persecuted over Jews from countries where they are not being persecuted.)

Last edited by Mona Pereth on 19 Oct 2023, 3:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Great post, Mona, a lot of good points, especially the last paragraph about the right(s) of return.

That's the other side to this whole refugee thing: Arab countries are hesitant to take Palestinian refugees because, as far as the Israelis are concerned that's a one-way trip. There won't be any right of return for these people; the split-second any Arab country opens its doors for refugees, Israeli soldiers will violently shove Palestinians through that door and slam it behind them. And the ones who, for whatever reason, can't flee? Take a wild guess what happens to them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=picfmk1 ... eDailyShow

Egypt’s greatest fear is the Muslim Brotherhood, surely they don’t want more of them who will certainly be among a lot of the refugees (Hamas forces).

Jordan has a very bad history with armed Palestinians: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_September

With tons of financial resources and weapons from Iran, a Hamas presence can easily become a state-within-state and seek to replace the host regimes, or even to attempt to take over the host country as a replacement country. It happened in Jordan and it happened (in much worse fashion) in Lebanon.

They should really restrict refugees status to women, children and elderly only. No young men (even tho the PLO historically had a lot of armed female recruits among the Fedayeen, but the modern Hamas doesn’t seem so).

So yeah, of course the neighboring Arab stares will be wary.

On what basis do you insist there NEVER will be any sort of solution?

Back in early modern Europe, it probably seemed that there would "never be any sort of solution" to the endless religious wars there either.


Yes, American culture has long glorified the "can do" attitude. Admittedly, this can all too easily turn into toxic positivity and excuses for blaming the victim. Nevertheless, up to a point at least, I think a can-do attitude is more productive than assuming there is no solution. At the very least, it is worth trying to find solutions to serious problems, rather than giving up without having even tried at all.

On the other hand, attempted solutions that have already been tried at great length, and found not to be workable, should be abandoned.


That's a pitfall we should aim to avoid, but I don't think it's a necessary consequence of seeking a solution.

Thanks for this info. Sheds a lot of light on the overall situation.

A hypothetical unified Israel-Palestine would certainly need to vet its citizens and would need to place at least some restrictions on foreign aid to its subordinate local governments and to other organizations within its borders.


Separating young men from their families doesn't sound to me like a good idea. Would likely radicalize the young men even more, it seems to me.

Hopefully there's a finer-toothed way to vet people?

EDIT: Your mention of Black September reminded me of a story I read a long time ago about how the PLO managed to dismantle the Black September terrorist group by helping its members get married. See All You Need Is Love by Bruce Hoffman, The Atlantic, December 2001. This article ends with:

Last edited by Mona Pereth on 19 Oct 2023, 8:23 pm, edited 3 times in total.

It might help to ask yourself who would convince the parties involved to cooperate and how. As I see it, those parties are less inclined than ever to even be in the same room with each other let alone get together to work out some sort of coexistence arrangement. Most Palestinians, from things I've seen in the past (e.g. what I can recall as being their primary school curriculum) will never accept a large Jewish presence in their land. They expect to return to everything that existed before the founding of Rishon Le Tzion. If they do negotiate some sort of land-sharing agreement, it will probably be in the belief that it's a first step in the direction of full return. Plus there are powerful actors who don't want peace in that region e.g Iran and Russia. To me, the One State and Two State solutions are just thought experiments.

The 'two state solution' has always seemed a travesty to me. Pretty much any such 'solution' would almost certainly be masterminded by Israel and the USA, with the Palestinians playing a subsidiary role, and would inevitably be some kind of limited reworking of the present situation. That's to say, the Israeli settlements remaining largely in situ on the West Bank, and the Arabs getting a 'state' composed of a number of fragmented territories.

The only viable Palestinian state would surely have to comprise the greater part of the West Bank plus East Jerusalem, but how could that ever come about without the removal of most of the Israeli settlements? I remember reading in the late 1990s that these settlements covered 45% of the inhabited land on the West Bank, and that's over a quarter of a century ago - it's probably over 50% by now.

I also remember reading that the Palestinians were at that time offered a state that fulfilled about 99% of their territorial demands, but that their leadership (Arafat?) turned it down. Can that possibly be true? How many of their settlements would the Israelis have been willing to dismantle? I've only known them in the past to remove a token number of them, comprising a few hundred residents.

One really has to wonder where today's Israeli state under Netanyahu is heading. Just a couple of days ago I saw a TV report about the evictions of Arab residents taking place in East Jerusalem, and an interview with the Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem, who belligerently stated that Israel was a Jewish state for Jewish people, with the clear implication that any other residents were of secondary importance. How does that square with their claim to be a modern democratic country?

I've often wondered, what would happen if a Palestinian Arab tried to buy a property in one of the West Bank settlements (though he or she would probably be crazy to want to), or more interestingly perhaps, if an Arab Israeli citizen applied to do so.