The latest trend in the debate on Israeli-Palestinian peace is to trumpet the inevitability of a one-state solution. The recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel by the administration of US President Donald Trump has depressed many involved in the peace process.
Saeb Erekat, the main Palestinian negotiator, responded that it was time to “struggle for one state with equal rights for everyone living in historic Palestine, from the river to the sea.” Several veteran participants in the peace process agree that a one-state solution is increasingly likely.
This narrative ignores both what Israel wants and what it can do. Let’s start with what it wants.
State of affairs post-1967
Since occupying the West Bank and Gaza in 1967, Israel has wished to control strategic areas while incorporating a minimal number of Palestinians. As Levi Eshkol, who was prime minister at the time of the Six-Day War, explained, Israel had received “a nice dowry of territory, but along with a bride whom we don’t like.” What Eshkol, who died in office in 1969, meant by this was that control over the West Bank was necessary for Israeli security but swallowing the Palestinian population could undermine its existence.
To solve the problem, Israeli general Yigal Allon formulated the “Allon Plan” in 1967, which would see Israel annex lightly populated areas of strategic significance and return heavily populated areas to Jordan. Whatever their ideological proclivities, Israeli governments have since played variations on Allon’s theme.
The supposedly hardline Likud government of Menachem Begin (1977-83) supported autonomy in the Palestinian municipalities. Later, the purportedly dovish government of Yitzhak Rabin (1992-95) implemented a plan to establish an autonomous Palestinian Authority, while cementing Israeli control over strategic areas through settlement expansion. Every Israeli government, with no exceptions, has toyed with this logic.
Importance of the Jordan Valley
The Jordan Valley has consistently been at the center of this approach. Early on, Israel was concerned that the Iraqi military would use Jordan as a springboard for invasion. The Jordan Valley was intended for use as a natural “anti-tank ditch.”
Operation Desert Storm removed the conventional threat from the east. However, Israel became increasingly concerned about asymmetrical threats, fearing that withdrawal from the West Bank would put population centers within missile range. These security interests, along with constant settlement expansion, facilitated continued control of strategically important areas.
Israel still feels that remaining in the West Bank is an important security interest. The current government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fears that withdrawal would be followed by rocket fire into the greater Tel Aviv area and Ben Gurion Airport. Tunnels similar to those coming out of Gaza might also be built, threatening murderous infiltration.
However, the threat of a one-state solution is greater. It would likely lead to the end of the Jewish state and civil war. Israeli attempts to rule the Palestinians directly without granting citizenship would also lead to strategic disaster from the Israeli perspective. It would likely lead not only to a third Intifada but to an internal moral crisis coupled with international pressure. Israel remembers this unappetizing experience from the First Intifada (1987-93).
If forced to choose, Israel will prefer a third and less threatening option. It will unilaterally withdraw from remaining positions near Palestinian population centers, while annexing the settlements in the West Bank.
Naftali Bennett and his Jewish Home party ran on this platform successfully in the 2013 elections. The plan, given the Orwellian name “the tranquilizing plan,” is no extremist fantasy. The areas surrounding the settlements contain a mere fraction of the Palestinian population but most of the strategically valuable areas, including the Jordan Valley. Israel could theoretically ravish the coveted bride while paying a sensible dowry. The Palestinians would be left to form a rump state and be given the “freedom” to live in a truncated series of municipalities.
So much for what Israel wants. But what can Israel do?
Israel is not South Africa
The argument against this option is that Israel would be creating “Bantustans” along the lines of the artificial protectorates designed by apartheid South Africa in the 1970s to deny citizenship to its minorities. The strategy was a dismal failure, and the apartheid regime collapsed within two decades.
Morally this is a strong argument. The “tranquilizing plan” would indeed be an illegal assault on Palestinian self-determination. But strategically speaking, the argument is weak.
Israel is unlikely to pay the steep price Pretoria did. There are three practical reasons for this.
First, Palestinian society cannot engage seriously in civil or violent resistance as black South Africans did in Soweto or Sharpeville. Israel benefits from the geographical ease of using the Green Line in a manner that was impossible in spatially intermingled South Africa. It can simply hide behind the security wall.
Second, the South African economy was dependent on its black workforce and could not function separately from it. For its part, Israel has decreased its dependence on Palestinian workers by bringing in workers from elsewhere. It could easily replace the 120,000 workers who continue to cross the checkpoints, and most Israelis would be happy to see them go.
Finally, the international community never recognized the Bantustans as legitimate entities, but Palestinian independence is recognized almost universally. This takes a significant amount of responsibility off Israeli shoulders and has allowed it to withdraw from Gaza while suffering minimal culpability.
History is full of examples of powerful nations annexing territory and paying little for the privilege (China in Tibet and Russia in Crimea come to mind). South Africa paid for its weakness, not for its immorality.
Threats of sanctions and diplomatic isolation ring hollow. Despite decades of occupation, Israel now has better relations than ever with Russia, India, China, the US and many African states, flourishing trade with the European Union, and surprisingly close relations with several Arab states.
The international community has grudgingly accepted that Israel is likely to maintain the settlement blocs in a permanent agreement, and even the fait accompli in Jerusalem has garnered dividends.
States seldom do the moral thing, and Israel is an unlikely candidate to buck the trend. If forced to choose between a one-state solution and apartheid, Israel will choose neither, and pay a surprisingly reasonable price for doing so.
Clayton Miller
You are unable or unwilling to make a substantive reply, so you stoop to school yard insults. Sad.
Syed Abbas has said plenty that you could agree or disagree with. Why don’t you make the supreme effort to do one or the other–and on a substantive basis, please!
Why do you say that Saudi Arabia is "the main player?"
What about Turkey and Iran?
All the things you mention are only camouflaged variants of the one-state plan.
Syed Abbas I think all of that spoiled pork you ate has given you psychosis.
This author creates a false dichotomy by claiming that the only other option to the two-state solution is a one state solution.
But there are alternatives to “one state” other than creating a sovereign state of Palestine. One is that Israel annex the parts of Judea and Samaria that contain most of the Jewish residents and are strategic for the purposes of security, grant the Arabs autonomy in the remaining areas, but retain control of borders and airspace. Another is Martin Sherman’s plan to encourage Arab emigration with financial incentives. There is also a plan proposed by Mordechai Kedar to create “emirates” based on Palestinian clans, a logical solution considering Palestinian politics.
Syed Abbas
By "Sunni neocon" do you mean salafi?
So you are at uni Shaun, do you read?
Ever read Tolstoy? or what about Chekov?
Tolstoy lived in Crimea, the Lady with the little dog(Chekov), sometimes referred to as the best short story ever written was set in Crimea.
Livadia palace was home to Tsar Alexander II and Tsar Alexander III.
Stalin held the Yalta conference at the palace, and Roosevelt and Churchill stayed there during the conference as guests of Russia.
Crimea is Russia, and has been Russia longer than the United States has existed. If Russia annexed Crimea, American terrorists annexed part of the British Empire. Russia will return Crimea to Turkey, the day after Americans return the US to Britain Spain and France.
The first time Europeans annexed Palestine was in 1099, they lasted nearly 200 years, but eventually the Arabs slaughtered the invaders, and got their land back.
I don’t think Israel will last as long as the crusaders.
Steve Smith
Mainstream Sunnis and Shia have co-existed forever, even intermarried. Two of us 6 siblings have inter-sect marriages.
It was and is the Sunni neocons that for last 1400 years have caused division. As I noted, requirements of today are gradually turning Sunnis away from their neocons as they deliver no more.
The destruction of Sunni/Jewish alliance by Christian Balfour weakened both, and recent demolishing of areas in Iraq and Syria (that will never be rebuilt), plus infighting between Sunni neocons of GCC, Shia are taking over ME by default, of course with help of their natural allies, the Christians.
Syed Abbas,
Yes, OK on the Alevis. It’s true that the leadership of the Sunni Arab countries has, to a certain extent, made common cause with Israel. But my impression is that that does not reflect popular sentiment in those countries. After all, the Egyptians elected Morsi who was anti-Israel and willing at least to talk to Iran. It required a Saudi-backed military coup to override the expressed will of the Egyptian majority.
Eshkol is long dead.
You write: "Israel could theoretically ravish the coveted bride while paying a sensible dowry." Since earlier on you mentioned that Israel (according to Eshkol) had received that nice dowry already, wouldn’t it be more correct to say that the bride will be ravished in exchange for a partial refund of the dowry?
Steve Smith
Yes, you are right. Iran-Turkey cooperation is the key, so is Christian Russia.
Turkey has always been half Shia. It is 1/3 Alevi. Erdogan’s affair with Egypt/Saudis has not paid off, so he is now coming around to the Shia-Christian axis.
For 14 centuries the Sunni/Jew alliance targetted Christian/Shia one. The Shia and Christians have always been allies, even during the Crusades. As Shia Iran/Christian Russia axis strengthens, the semi-Shia Turkey and Pakistan will come around. As I said, ME is increasingly becoming Shia, and that is good news for world trade.
Attacking the Sunnis in the general way you do is not a good idea. The reason that Sunni Turkey has re-oriented its position is largely because of its hostility to Israel and its treatment of the Palestinians.
Seems to me that good Iran-Turkey relations (and a structural improvement in Sunni-Shia relations) are key to the kind of future you are predicting.
Yes, Israel is using an array of coercive techniques to try to shift the demographics of the West Bank, and we know that they have approached both Mubarak and Sissi about "population transfers" of Palestinians into Sinai.
But I don’t think the larger Muslim and Arab world is going to forget what has happened to the Palestinians. This is why Israel and its lobby are constantly apply the whip to their US horse to take more aggressive action against Iran.
Israel may be narrowly successful, but it needs a US-dominated world in order to achieve the things you are talking about, and that world is gradually eroding.
>"Threats of sanctions and diplomatic isolation ring hollow. Despite decades of occupation, Israel now has better relations than ever with Russia, India, China, the US and many African states, flourishing trade with the European Union, and surprisingly close relations with several Arab states."
Yes, this is true, but the current reality is a product of US global dominance and its increasingly aggressive use of its gradually diminishing hegemonic power to penalize those who refuse to traffic with Israel. Both Russia and China are willing to appease the US on Israel since it’s such a minor issue for them in the long term. China, of course, doesn’t really care about Israel much one way or another, although it is happy to access some Israeli technologies. But as the long-term global balance of power continues slowly to shift, the need to defer to the US-backed, Israeli agenda will decline. Neither China nor Russia are going to subordinate their national interests to Israel’s as the US is endlessly willing to do, and the anger in the Muslim and Arab worlds is not going away.
The author is treating a transitory phenomenon as though it were a permanent state of affairs. Israel is on a plateau of maximum ability to exact deference to its strategic goals. It may well succeed in annexing much of the West Bank and using economic penalities and decreasing Palestinian birth rates to change the demographics of "Judaea and Samaria," but its fundamentally unappealing national dogmas and behavior will send it back towards pariah status in the longer term.
China neither hates nor loves Israel, and Israel needs a lot more than neutrality to sustain the punitive imposition of the Jewish state on the unwilling Muslim/Arab Middle East and the world in general that the US, under the direction of the neocon/pro-Israel blob, has been willing to champion.
This is no analysis, but wishful fanciful thinking.
Despite the plethora of Nobel Prizes and tons of money, the sum integral Tribe of Judah’s intelligence is less than a 1 oz stone. So much knowledge, so little wisdom. The Tribe’s brilliance in tactics is vastly exceeded by blindness in strategy.
The Tribe was duped by Christian Curzons, Cromers, and Balfours whose aim was no different than a later Hitler – to rid Europe of Jews. Dimwit Hitler failed but wily Balfour succeeded beyond measure – look ma, no Jewish blood on my hands.
The Imperialists knew that if dumped among the Muslims, they will take care of Judah sooner or later. And they were right – Europe is today practically Jew-free, and Muslim albatross around Jewish neck for ever.
Jews know their history the outsiders do not. In 14 centuries of Muslims while the Sunnis have never won against the Jews, the Shia have never lost. So Nuke armed Netanyahoo loses sleep over non-nuke Iran because Shia Iran’s patron saint is Ali, the 628AD conqueror of Khyber, armed and rich Israel of then.
And ME is increasingly falling in Shia hands. Israel was the worst calamity to befell Judah in its 4,000 years of history. Now they have no where else to escape.
Israel was created not to have peace. Sunnis and Judahists, allies till 100 years ago against Christians, will keep on fighting forever.
Israel was conceived to break the cartel of Kaliphate, and punish them both for terrorizing Christians for 13 centuries.
The Kaliphate – a neocon enterprise of Sunni muscle and Jewish money, for gore, glory, conquest, and colonialism, was worst calamity to befell the globe – for Muslims, Asia, Europe alike. Sitting smack in middle of East-West Silk Road, the Kaliphate restricted trade with oppressive Tariffs (Arabic word).
Crusades to free trade failed. 100 Famines in Europe around 1300AD starving Christians to half its population. After 1453 takeover of Constantinople Sunnis blocked trade altogether. Finally, Europeans managed to expel Sunnis and Jews from spain, and were now free to find new routes to Asia, and new lands too.
Sunni muscle/Jewish finance kept Europe fighting till Balfour found the silver bullet – Israel – to break this cartel by pitting earlier allies against each other for ever.
There has been no war in Europe since creation of Israel.
This cartel withheld world progress for 1,300 years. Now, Netanyahu and MBS are trying to recreate the same by joining hands with US neocons – bad news for the globe. Once is too much.
Mercifully, China, Russia, Iran will never allow an encore. In preparation for their aim to unite Asia, Europe, Africa in one trading block under BRI/New Silk Road, the 3 are cleaning the route of Sunnis. Naturally Jews will be next as world peace and progress requires it. As they say in Arabic "Hadha maktoob" – it is written.
Thank you China, Russia, Iran.
Having isolated a substantial percentage of Palestinians in Gaza, Israel can afford the one-state solution, offering Israeli citizenship to those residents of the West Bank wishing it. Jews would still have a 60% majority in such an unified state and thus preserve the Jewish character of Israel. With peace, more Jews would immigrate to Israel, and some Palestinians may refuse Israeli citizenship, which would reinforce and preserve the Jewish majority. Eventually Arab Israelis would become developed and secular enough for any tensions to disappear within such a mixed population.
This is an interesting analysis, but it still requires that Israel essentially enslave the Palestianians and hope that the rest of the world does not notice. As things now stand, Israel controls vast swaths of the WB; presumably, it would continue to do so, even after it annexed its settlement blocks. Thus, the idea of a rump Palestinian autonomy would be easily seen as a sham. In addition, the only two examples of states annexing conquered land are China in Tibet and, now, Russia in Crimea. In the latter case, China acted at a time when the norm against conquered land had not fully set and it could make an argument – however debatable – that it had a legal claim to Tibet. In the case of Russia, its annexation of Crimea has still not been internationally accepted. Moreover, it can also count on the support of most Crimeans, something that neither China nor Israel can do with their occupied populations. Most important, both China and Russia are great powers whose geopolitical importance makes them difficult to sanction. Israel is not. A final consideration is that this model requires the Palestinians to passively accept their permanent enslavement. That seems very unlikely. It may take generations, much as African Americans spent more than a century after the American civil war struggling to gain civil rights, but it did come eventually (however weakly and contestably). The longer Israel enslaves the Palestinians the more it entrenches itself as a morally indefensible state. This matters a lot, especially for a state that purports to represent a religion.