Israel-Palestine: Thinking out of the box

This letter of mine appeared in the Jerusalem Post on 3 March 2021

          Neither of the March 2 articles on the Israel-Palestine situation (“How Palestinian elections will impact Israel” and “What Biden should do to advance Israel-Palestine peace”) acknowledge that:

          1. Hamas, ruling over two million Palestinians in the Gaza strip, is opposed to Israel’s very presence on what it regards as sacred Palestinian soil, or:

          2. Fatah shares that position, but is prepared to play a long game in its pursuit of an eventual Palestine “from the river to the sea”.

          Experience demonstrates that direct Israel- PA negotiations around variations of the two-state solution are ineffective. The reason is simple. Any PA leader signing a peace agreement with Israel is probably also signing his death warrant. PA President Mahmoud Abbas, like Yasser Arafat before him, took negotiations to the wire, but dared not sign a deal that acknowledges Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state. The political backlash would have been unmanageable.

          A sovereign Palestine within something like the pre-1967 lines would be economically unstable and vulnerable to a Hamas takeover, by elections or military action. Nor would it be able to resist infiltration by some other Iran-supported fundamentalist group. The PA itself must be aware of this. Israel and Jordan are. Israel has no desire to have an Islamist enemy ensconced in the West Bank threatening Tel Aviv or Ben Gurion Airport from up close. Jordan doesn’t like the idea of a weak entity on its borders, unable to defend itself against a determined Iran-supported actor.

          Out-of-the-box thinking is called for. The answer could lie in a confederate structure embodying Jordan, Israel and a newly sovereign Palestine. The Israel Defense Forces would act in concert with the defence forces of the other parties to guarantee the security of Israel and that of the confederation as a whole. From the moment it came into legal existence, the confederation could make it clear that any subsequent armed opposition, from whatever source, including Hamas, would be disciplined and crushed from within.

          A confederation of three sovereign states, dedicated to providing hi-tech security and economic growth and prosperity for all its citizens – this is a configuration offering the possibility of a peaceful and thriving Middle East.

British Mandate Palestine reconceived as a three-state Confederation of Jordan-Israel-Palestine (JIP). In a confederation constituent states maintain their sovereign independence while amalgamating certain aspects of administration such as defence, infrastructure, and economic development.