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

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For decades, the international consensus has been in favor of a two-state solution, but that doesn't seem to be working.

The main problem, as far as I can tell, is that Israel doesn't want to give up the militarily-strategic hills/mountains, e.g. the Golan Heights and much of "Area C" in the West Bank. Indeed, giving up those areas would be militarily suicidal for Israel.

However, as long as Israel insists on holding on to Area C (and allowing Israeli settlements there), Palestine cannot function as a true independent country. Note that Area C -- administered by the Israeli government -- is the only administrative area of the West Bank that is contiguous. The West Bank's Areas A (administered by the Palestinian Authority) and B (administered jointly by the PA and Israel) are each sets of many small isolated islands in a sea of Area C. Alternatively, Area C can be envisioned as a slice of Swiss cheese, with lots of little holes consisting of Areas A and B. (For details, see explanations here, here, here, here, and here, and an interactive map here.)

The division of the West Bank into areas A, B, and C was originally intended to be temporary and transitional (as per the Oslo II Accord of 1995), but the end is nowhere in sight, because Israel dares not give up the military advantage it has gained by controlling the hilly areas of the West Bank.

And that's why a 2-state solution can't possibly work, in my opinion.

So the only possible solution, it seems to me, would be some kind of one-state solution encompassing both the people who are currently "Israelis" and the people who are currently "Palestinians."

Most Israeli Jews have so far rejected the idea of a one-state solution, because they fear that if Jews ever become a minority, the one-state would become another Nazi Germany (in terms of how it treated Jews). And this fear is not unfounded, given the long history of conflict in the region.

Therefore, any workable one-state solution would probably need to be organized as a federation, with iron-clad constitutional and organizational protections both for Jews and for the various religious and ethnic groups currently under the umbrella of "Palestinian" and/or "Arab."

Besides solving the basic ongoing Israeli-vs.-Palestinian conflict, a sufficiently well-organized one-state solution might also help to solve another problem: the persecution of religious minorities. For example, Hamas is a specifically Sunni Muslim organization that persecutes Shi'ite Muslims, despite the help it has received from Shi'ite Iran.

The question is: What kinds of protections would be adequate to address everyone's fears? Exactly how should such a government be organized?

I don't think it is possible. Either the Jews will have to go, or the Palestinians will have to go.

When the French were booted out of Algeria, French-Algerians (known colloquially as the "pieds-noirs") moved to France. Jews in Israel have nowhere to go. We found out during the 20th century that Jews could not count on being able to live safely in Europe.

Israel probably wasn't a good place for a Jewish state, given that people in that part of the world have been slaughtering each other for thousands of years. The same was true of Europe, until the cold war forced people to hunker down.

So, I don't know what the solution is. Things are probably only going to continue to get worse.

Although, given demographic changes--Israeli Arabs and Palestinians are generally having larger families than Israeli Jews, except for the Ultra-Orthodox Jews, who want the Jewish state to be peacefully dismantled--it is possible that a one-state solution will eventually come to pass. It is probably more likely that we'll have been wiped out by World War III before that happens.

Depends which ultra-Orthodox Jews. The indigenous Jews -- the ones whose families were living there before the 1880's or so -- tend to be anti-Zionist. But, these days, there are also plenty of immigrant ultra-Orthdox Jews, who also tend to have lots of babies but tend to be fiercely pro-Zionist.

Zionism was originally a secular movement. To the extent that it had religious backing, that backing has long tended to be more Christian than Jewish. But there are now more and more religious Jewish Zionists.

I really hope there is SOME way to structure a single state so that everyone now there can live together peacefully. After all, as you point out:


So my question is: How would it be possible to structure a single state so that everyone now in Israel/Palestine could live together peacefully, and with everyone's rights protected?

Everyone, let's put our thinking caps on, preferably with input from people here (such as Boo) who actually live in the Middle East.

Well, George Bush invaded Afghanistan and Iraq with the best of intentions, and everything fell apart.

My point is that even if Israel hadn't become a homeland for Jews, the different groups of native people would be at each others' throats. Living together peacefully wouldn't seem to be in the cards.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WboggjN ... l=layniann

But, perhaps things might have been better during the Ottoman Empire, minus, say, the Armenian genocide, when Ottomans kept everyone in his place.

Exactly. Jewish Zionism was secular nationalism. The Orthodox Jews opposed the Jewish state regarding it as blasphemy.

Israel is supposed to return, but God supposed to do it. Not these nonreligious nationalists.

But after 1948 the Orthodox gradually accepted Israel as a fait accompli, and ironically became one of the fiercist Zionist interest groups in Israel with disproportionate power in Israel. But some Orthodox are holdouts who still oppose Zionism. Also ironic is how the Orthodox have a higher birthrate than other Jews, and are even making more babies than than the Palestinian Arabs (who had a high third world type birth rate for most of Israel's history, but are starting to have fewer kids than before). Soon the Orthodox may out number both other Jews AND Arabs in Israel Palestine. Or thats what some say.

Have very many indigenous Orthodox Jews (and by "indigenous" I mean Jews whose ancestors lived there throughout the many centuries before Zionism was a thing) become fiercely Zionist, or mainly just the Orthodox Jewish immigrants?

Last edited by Mona Pereth on 18 Oct 2023, 10:39 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Whether he had the "best of intentions" is debatable. In any case, I'm not proposing that the U.S. invade Israel/Palestine.


How much they would be "at each others' throats" would depend on many factors.

Anyhow, it seems to me that the residual tensions amongst various subgroups of "Arabs" and "Palestinians" (e.g. Muslims vs. Christians, Druze, and Samaritans; Sunni Muslims vs. Shi'ite Muslims; Bedouins vs. other "Arab" ethnicities) could perhaps actually be harnessed to help, rather than hinder, the creation of a multi-ethnic, multi-religious state in which everyone including Jews could be safe -- somewhat similarly to how the proliferation of Protestant sects, in the British American colonies of the 1600's and 1700's, eventually led to the development of religious freedom in the U.S.A. after centuries of bitter religious wars in Europe.

But the constitution of a unified Israel-Palestine would need to be written by some very smart and knowledgeable people. I doubt that American-style non-establishment of religion would work well in the Middle East, especially in the "Holy Land" of three major religions plus a few longstanding minor ones. What would be needed, instead, might be some kind of constitutional balance of power amongst the various groups.

Last edited by Mona Pereth on 18 Oct 2023, 10:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I usually do not agree with you politically but I do here. I would add that since both sides believe there is no place that would accept them they are willing to fight to the death. The Palestinians have good reasons to feel that way. Do you see any countries expressing support saying you are welcome to come to our country? For the Jews this is not quite as clear, the U.S. seems an obvious place that would accept them but in the back of their minds it is remembered that prior to the Nazi rise to power, Jews were integrated and successful in Germany reminiscent of what they have been in America in recent decades. So this is going to take a long time.

Anti-Zionism among many Orthodox Jews is mainly about the religious belief that Israel is illegitimate because the Messiah has not come.

I'm aware of this, yes.

My question is whether, in Israel/Palestine, this belief is still held by the majority of indigenous Orthodox Jews. Obviously, it's not held by the increasingly many Diaspora Orthodox Jews who have been moving to Israel for religious reasons.

Maybe this is an ignorant comment from an outsider but why do Palestinians have to live in zones?

Do black or Hispanic people have to live in certain areas in the US. Of course many choose to but it’s not forced.

Why don’t Palestinian and Israeli’s live in mixed towns like everywhere else in the world?

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campa ... apartheid/

I think you're getting to the heart of what Mona is asking.

One way of looking at Israel and Palestine, which obviously removes some of the nuance, is like looking at them like the US and Canada. They're different countries with different citizens and different priorities. Probably the conventional majority view among Westerners who have a passing interest in the area is that Palestinians should be allowed to govern themselves and Israelis should as well. There are Israeli Arabs living in Israel and participating in Israeli society, but most Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza want to govern themselves, and many think Israel should not exist at all (this is the position of Hamas for example).

A better model might be Yugoslavia. Sure, Croatians, Serbians, Bosnians, and so forth could theoretically all live in the same place, but ethnic tensions were simply too high. We're not talking about white Americans being suspicious that black people they pass on the street are criminals, we're talking about ethnic cleansing and genocide. Self-determination and self-governance helped end the conflict in Yugoslavia, and for many people this seems like a possible model for Israel and Palestine which has many of the same problems.

There are a few issues with this approach, though:

- fundamentally, it doesn't seem to have enough support from either Israelis or Palestinians. Generally speaking, politicians in those countries seem to question the legitimacy of the other state, and they do so because that's what their voters or supporters believe. Israel continues to build settlements in occupied Palestinian territory.

- there is no incentive to build a consensus, even an uncomfortable one requiring compromises, between Israelis and Palestinians.

- "Palestine" as it is, is ungovernable - it's too fragmented and basically relies on Israeli goodwill. There is no realistic prospect of it developing into an advanced economy as a result.

In answer to the OP, I don't actually think there is any easy solution, and if there was then we'd already have found it. You'd need an iron-clad way of protecting the rights of both groups within this new federation, which probably means devolution and self-governance, which immediately raises the same issues. Israelis, understandably, are not going to want to share a country with people who they think (reasonably, given human history) want to exterminate them. Palestinians aren't going to be happy about illegal settlements and being under military scrutiny. Ethnostates are bad, but sometimes necessary when an ethnicity is being persecuted, and there's fundamentally no apparent way to address that tension.

Nope it's not possible, both sides are infected by radicalism. Parties and ideologies such as this Jewish cleric, Hamas and Hezbollah are simply cannot be coexisted with.

https://scontent.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.254 ... ore_type=0


The Lebanon model has proven its failure, the Christians are itching for a Christian state because they no longer want to live according to Hezbollah's foreign policy; and I think soon they may fight for it. They are very loudly threatening that if Hezbollah drags Lebanon to war, then they are going for division, that includes Hezbollah's biggest Christian ally.


Related:

https://epc.ae/en/details/featured/the- ... federalism

The US DOES have something called "Indian reservations".

All non indigenous races (Whites Blacks Asians and Hispanics) are equivalent to the Jews in Israel. And the native Americans are the equivalent to the Palestinians.

Gaza and the West Bank are equivalent to the tribal Indian reservations we have.

In the US immigrants out number the natives by about 200 to one (less than one percent of the US population lives on reservations and IDs as members of specific tribes). And the immigrants have all of the industry and weaponry.

So the natives stopped fighting 150 years ago here in the US.

But image if it were more even. Imagine if the Natives and post Columbian newcomers had similar population sizes. And both got arms aid from outside powers. Israel is slightly more powerful than the Palestinians but its not nearly as lopsided as Indians vs immigrants in the US.

So instead of 300 million invaders vs 1.5 million natives...imagine if the US were divided between 150 million on each side. Thats Israel/Palestine.

If the first thing to occur is Hell freezing over, then I'm sure the one-state solution might stand a chance of working.