Palestinian state

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Israeli-Palestinian peace process

Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip
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The Palestinian state, or State of Palestine (Arabic (دولة فلسطين) is a nation-state yearned for by the Palestinian people in their homeland. Until now, the Palestinian people have achieved only minor autonomy in parts of the West Bank and all the Gaza Strip, which is governed entirely by the Palestinian National Authority, an interim governing body set up in accordance with the Oslo Accords. "Palestine" is recognized as a state by the Arab League and a number of international organizations.

Proposals for a Palestinian state vary depending on one's views of Palestinian statehood, as well as various definitions of Palestine and "Palestinian" (see also State of Palestine).

Many different proposals have been made and continue to be made, including

  1. an Arab state, with or without a significant Jewish population
  2. a Jewish state, with or without a significant Arab population
  3. a single bi-national state, with or without some degree of cantonization
  4. two states, one bi-national and one Arab, with or without some form of federation
  5. two states, one Jewish and one Arab, with or without some form of federation.

Contents

[edit] History of the movement for a Palestinian state

(see also Palestinian nationalism). (Key terms, events, and proposals are bolded)

[edit] Early History

During World War I, Allied forces, especially Great Britain, had encouraged Arabs to revolt against their Turkish rulers, the Ottoman Empire. The victorious Allied Powers, which had toppled the Ottomans, began dividing the Middle East into political entities, called League of Nations mandates, according to their own needs, and, to a much lesser extent, according to deals that had been struck with other interested parties. Lebanon and Syria came under French control, while Iraq, Palestine and Transjordan came under British control. Following the war and the subsequent entrace of Europeans, two new movememts, based on European nationalism, arose: Arab nationalism, which hinges on the cultural commonalities of all Arab peoples, and Pan-Arabism, which calls for the creation of a united state for all Arabs. Most of the mandate territories achieved independence in the following three decades with relative ease, yet Palestine proved especially difficult for the British.

[edit] The Mandate Period

The future of Palestine was contentious from the beginning of the Palestine Mandate since it had been promised as the site of a Jewish homeland (see Balfour Declaration 1917) yet most of the population were Arabs (though in some regions of the territory, most of which are now under Israeli control, Jews formed a majority). It was also, according to one common view, the subject of British promises to the Arabs during World War I.

At the same times, many Arab leaders believed that Palestine should join a larger Arab state covering the imprecise region of the Levant. These hopes were expressed in the Faisal-Weizmann Agreement, which was signed by soon-to-be Iraqi ruler Faisal I and the Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann, which called for a Jewish homeland in Palestine amidst a larger Arab state. Despite this, the promise of a Pan-Arab state including Palestine were dashed as Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan declared independence from their European rulers, while Palestine festered in the developing Arab-Israeli Conflict.

In light of these developments, Palestinian Arabs began calling for both their own state in the British Mandate of Palestine and an end to the British support of the Jewish homeland's creation and to Jewish immigration. The movement gained steam through the 1920s and 1930s as Jewish immigration picked up. Under pressure from the arising nationalist movement, the British enforced the White Papers, a series of laws greatly restricting Jewish immigration and the sale of lands to Jews. The laws, passed in 1922, 1930, and 1939, varied in severity, but all attempted to find a balance between British symathies with the Jews and the Arabs.

Finally, the 1936-1939 Arab revolt in Palestine led the British to create the Peel Commission, which produced the first concrete suggestion for a Palestinian state. The Commission's report published in 1937 called for a small Jewish state, an Arab state covering Judea, Samaria, and the barren Negev desert, and a British enclave stretching from Jerusalem to Yafo. The plan also called for a large population transfer. Jewish leaders accepted the plan, while Arab leaders rejected it and the two subsequent proposals offered by the Peel Commission.

Peel Commission partition plan A

World War II (1939–1945) gave a boost to the Jewish nationalism, as the Holocaust reaffirmed their call for a Jewish homeland. At the same time, some Arab leaders had even supported Nazi Germany, a fact which could not play well with the British.

Map of the UN Partition plan

[edit] 1947 UN Partition Plan

In 1947, the nascent United Nations created the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) to find an immediate solution to the Palestine issue, which the British had handed over to the UN. As recommended by UNSCOP, the UN General Assembly approved what is known as the Partition Plan in Resolution 181 on November 29, 1947. The plan determined a specific date for the end of the British Mandate, May 15, 1948. More importantly, the proposal called for the creation of two states, while Jerusalem and Bethlehem would be placed under United Nations control.

Jewish leaders reluctantly accepted the plan, while Arab leaders refused it. Large-scale fighting soon broke out between the Jews and the Arabs. As the Mandate was set to end, the State of Israel delcared its indpendence on May 14, 1948, leading to the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, known to Israelis as the War of Independence and to Palestinians as the Nakba--the disaster. Over the course of the war, scores of Arab settlements in the new state, mostly small villages, were depopulated due to a variety of often-disputed reasons, including expulsion by Jewish or Israeli troops, fear from attack, or encouragemnt by the British or Arab officials (see Palestinian exodus).

[edit] Under Arab rule

At war's end in 1949, Jordan had conquered and annexed the West Bank of the Jordan River, including Jerusalem and Bethlehem. Egypt took control of the narrow Gaza Strip, while Israel controlled the rest of the British Mandate.

King Abdullah I of Jordan decided to grant citizenship to the Palestinian refugees and residents living in the West Bank against the wishes of many Palestinian leaders who still hoped to establish a Palestinian state.

In Gaza, a government calling itself the All-Palestine Government even before the war's end, in September 1948. The government, under the leadership of the Mufti of Jerusalem Mohammad Amin al-Husayni, declared the independence of the Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital. The All-Palestine Government would go on to be recognized by Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen, while Jordan and the other Arab states refused to recognize it.

In practice, the All-Palestine government was only a publicity stunt, as it was given no real authority by the Egyptian government. In 1959, Egypt's new leader Gamal Abdul Nasser ordered the dismantling of the All-Palestine Government, yet notably refused to grant Palestinians in Gaza Egyptian citizenship.

[edit] The Six-Day War

In June 1967, Israel captured the West Bank from Jordan, the Gaza Strip from Egypt, and area known as the Golan Heights from Syria during the Six-Day War. The State of Israel, which was ordered to withdraw from some of the conquered territories and negotiate final borders by United Nations Security Council Resolution 242, annexed neither Gaza nor the West Bank, except for East Jerusalem.

Jordan continued to have economic influence over the West Bank until the 1980s, when King Hussein unilaterally cut the link between his kingdom and its residents and the Palestinians of the West Bank.

[edit] The PLO and the State of Palestine

Before the Six-Day War, the movement for an independent Palestine received a boost in 1964 when the Palestine Liberation Organization was established. Its goal, as stated in the Palestinian National Covenant was to create a Palestinian state in the whole British Mandate, a statement which nullified Israel's right to exist.

The PLO would become the leading force in the Palestinian national movement both politically and in the field of terrorism, and its leader, Yassir Arafat, would become regarded as the leader of the Palestinian people.

In 1974, the PLO adopted the Ten Point Program, which notably called for the establishment of an Israeli-Palestinian democratic, binational state. But despite this peaceful and egaliterian guise, the ultimate goal was "completing the liberation of all Palestinian territory, and as a step along the road to comprehensive Arab unity." The program led many hard-line groups to break away from the Arafat and the mainstream PLO members, a split which is still evident today.

[edit] Declaration of the state in 1988

A declaration of a "State of Palestine" (Arabic: دولة فلسطين) was approved on November 15, 1988, by the Palestinian National Council, the legislative body of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). The proclaimed "State of Palestine" is not and has never actually been an independent state, as it has never had sovereignty over any territory in history.

Currently, the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), along with the United States, the European Union, and the Arab League, envision the establishment of a State of Palestine to include all or part of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem, living in peace with Israel under a democratically elected and transparent government. The PNA, however, does not claim sovereignty over any territory and therefore is not the government of the "State of Palestine" proclaimed in 1988.

The 1988 declaration was approved at a meeting in Algiers, by a vote of 253-46, with 10 abstentions. The declaration invoked the Treaty of Lausanne (1923) and UN General Assembly Resolution 181 in support of its claim to a "State of Palestine on our Palestinian territory with its capital Jerusalem". The proclaimed "State of Palestine" was recognized immediately by the Arab League, and about half the world's governments recognize it today. It maintains embassies in these countries (which are generally PLO delegations). The State of Palestine is not recognized by the United Nations, although the European Union, as well as most member states, maintain diplomatic ties with the Palestinian Authority, established under the Oslo Accords (Leila Shahid, envoy of the PNA to France since 1984, was named in November 2005 representant of the PNA for Europe).

The declaration is generally interpreted to have recognized Israel within its pre-1967 boundaries, or was at least a major step on the path to recognition. Just as in Israel's declaration of independence, it partly bases its claims on UN GA 181. By reference to "resolutions of Arab Summits" and "UN resolutions since 1947" (like SC 242) it implicitly and perhaps ambiguously restricted its immediate claims to the Palestinian territories and Jerusalem. It was accompanied by a political statement that explicitly mentioned SC 242 and other UN resolutions and called only for withdrawal from "Arab Jerusalem" and the other "Arab territories occupied." [1] Yasser Arafat's statements in Geneva a month later were accepted by the United States as sufficient to remove the ambiguities it saw in the declaration and to fulfill the longheld conditions for open dialogue with the United States.

Flag of The Palestinian Authority
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Flag of The Palestinian Authority

[edit] The Palestinian Authority and the Peace Process

In the 1990s, outstanding steps were taken which formally began a process the goal of which was to solve the Arab-Israeli conflict through a two-state solution. Beginning with the Madrid Conference of 1991 and culminating in the 1993 Oslo Peace Accords between Palestinians and Israelis, the peace process has laid the framework for Palestinian autonomy in the West Bank and in Gaza. According to the Oslo Accords, signed by Yassir Arafat and then Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in Washington, Israel would pull out of the Gaza Strip and cities in the West Bank, leaving contested East Jerusalem in question.

Following the landmark accords, the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) was established to govern those areas from which Israel was to pull out. The PNA was granted limited autonomy over an non-contiguous area, though it does govern most Palestinian population centers.

Despite these important advancements, the Al-Aqsa Intifadah brought the peace process to a screeching halt. Israel ceased to act in cooperation with the PNA and later on would occupy some Palestinian cities anew. In the shadow of the rising death toll from the violence, the United States initiated the Road Map for Peace, which is intended to end the Intifadah by dearming the Palestinian terror groups and creating an independent Palestinian state.

In 2005, Israel unilaterally withdrew from the Gaza Strip as part of the Disengagement Plan, which was seen as a move toward creating an independent Palestinian state.

[edit] Current proposals for a Palestinian State

The current position of the Palestinian Authority as well as Israel is that some portion of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip should form the basis of a future Palestinian state. In the following, the historical background is briefly reviewed and the current dispute analyzed. For additional discussion, see Palestinian territories.

[edit] Historical views among pol

[edit] Historical Israeli views

It is accepted that the traditional Israeli view has been that there is no such thing as a separate Palestinian people, distinct from other Arabs. This is summarized by the famous statement of Israeli Prime Minister (1969-74) Golda Meir: "There was no such thing as Palestinians ... It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine considering itself as a Palestinian people and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them. They did not exist." This view was also expressed by some Arab leaders. Auni Bey Abdul-Hadi, a local Arab leader said to the Peel Commission, "There is no such country [as Palestine]! 'Palestine' is a term the Zionists invented! There is no Palestine in the Bible. Our country was for centuries part of Syria."

Over time, the attitudes of the Israeli Since then, according to polls, the majority of Israelis have come to accept the likelihood that a Palestinian state will be created.

[edit] Historical Arab views

Many Arabs have supported and some continue to support the creation of a united Arab state encompassing all Arab peoples including Palestine, so that no independent Palestinian state would exist, but this became a minority view amongst Palestinians during the British Mandate and after 1948 became rare. It is still an opinion expressed regularly in the Arab states outside Palestine (especially Syria due to its attachment to the Greater Syria Movement which was launched in 1944 to establish a "Syrian Arab" state that would include Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Palestine.) However, it is generally recognised that such a development has become implausible under current political realities and even those who might favor it in some circumstances support an independent Palestinian state as the most achievable option.

In 1958, during a period of Pan-Arabism, Syria joined Egypt in founding the United Arab Republic (UAR) as the first step toward the recreation of Pan-Arab state. The UAR was to include, among others, Palestine. The UAR disintegrated into its constituent states in 1961.

From 1948 until 1967, Gaza was held by Egypt, and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, was annexed by Jordan. During those years, there was a growing movement for the creation of a Palestinian state, leading to the creation of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1964.

[edit] Modern view

The main discussion during the last fifteen years has focused on turning most or the whole of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank into an independent Palestinian state. This was the basis for the Oslo accords and it is favoured by the U.S. The status of Israel within the 1949 Armistice lines has not been the subject of international negotiations. Some members of the PLO recognize Israel's right to exist within these boundaries; others hold that Israel must eventually be destroyed. Consequently, some Israelis hold that Palestinian statehood is impossible with the current PLO as a basis, and needs to be delayed.

The specific points and impediments to the establishment of a Palestinian state are listed below. They are a part of a greater mindset difference. Israel declares that its security demands that a Palestinian entity would not have all attributes of a state, at least initially, so that in case things go wrong, Israel would not have to face a dangerous and nearby enemy. Israel may be therefore said to agree (as of now) not to a complete and independent Palestinian state, but rather to a self-administering entity, with partial but not full sovereignty over its borders and its citizens.

The central Palestinian position is that they have already compromised greatly by accepting a state covering only the areas of the West Bank and Gaza. These areas are significantly less territory than allocated to the Arab state in UN Resolution 181. They feel that it is unacceptable for an agreement to impose additional restrictions (such as level of militarization, see below) which, they declare, makes a viable state impossible. In particular, they are angered by significant increases in the population of Israeli settlements and communities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip during the interim period of the Oslo accords. Palestinians claim that they have already waited long enough, and that Israel's interests do not justify depriving their state of those rights that they consider important. The Palestinians have been unwilling to accept a territorially disjointed state. It is feared that it would face difficulties similar to Bantustans.

[edit] Impediments to the establishment of a Palestinian state

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PLO Fatah Hamas PIJ
The emblems of these major Palestinian organizations include a map of present-day Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. (Significant populations of Palestinians and Israelis alike do claim a right to the entire region).

Note that the materials in this section are mainly based on the Israeli ([2], [3]) and Palestinian ([4],[5]) positions during the ill-fated Camp David negotiations.

  • Lack of trust. The violent conflicts and massacres of the period before the founding of the State of Israel and the decades of terrorism or political violence (most of it against civilians) and living as refugees under foreign governments has left both sides with little trust that the other will fulfill any commitments undertaken in an agreement.
  • The city of Jerusalem is a site of dispute between Israel and the Palestinians. Israel demands that Jerusalem be recognised as their official capital (the very name "Zionism" is derived from Zion, one of Jerusalem's names), whereas Palestinians demand that East Jerusalem be recognized as their official capital, calling for Jerusalem as a whole to be an open city. A border passing inside the Old City is likely to displease both Jews and Arabs, since in addition to not settling the two sides' claims for the city, it would lead to difficulties in everyday life. Israel agrees to a compromise in Jerusalem, in which Israel has sovereignty over East and West Jerusalem but civil administration of the city's east is in Palestinian hands. Some groups, such as the Roman Catholic Church, favour giving the city a special international status independent of either Israel or a Palestinian state, as was proposed by the 1947 UN Partition Plan.
  • Palestinians insist on contiguous territory which will in turn rupture the existing territorial contiguity of Israel. In the interim agreements reached as part of the Oslo Accords, the Palestinian Authority has received control over cities (Area A) while the surrounding countryside has been placed under Israeli security and Palestinian civil administration (Area B) or complete Israeli control (Area C). Israel has built additional highways to allow Israelis to traverse the area without entering Palestinian cities. The initial areas under Palestinian Authority control are diverse and non-contiguous [6]. The areas have changed over time because of subsequent negotiations, including Oslo II, Wye River and Sharm el-Sheik. According to Palestinians, the separated areas make it impossible to create a viable nation and fails to address Palestinian security needs; Israel has expressed its agreement to withdrawal from some Areas B, resulting in a reduction in the division of the Palestinian areas, and the institution of a safe pass system, without Israeli checkpoints, between these parts. Because of increased Palestinian violence, this plan is in abeyance. The number of checkpoints has increased; resulting is a steep decline in suicide bombings since the early summer of 2003. Neither side has publicized a proposal for a final map. (Some maps have been leaked. These are reputed to come from the Israelis [7] and the Palestinians. [8]).
  • In the years following the Six-Day War, and especially in the 1990s during the peace process, Israel re-established communities destroyed in 1929 and 1948 as well as established numerous new settlements on the West Bank. These settlements (which Palestinians and most international observers regard as illegal) are now home to about 350,000 people. Most of the settlements are in the western parts of the West Bank (thus making their retention part of the "safe borders" issue above), while others are deep into Palestinian territory, overlooking Palestinian cities. These settlements have been the site of much intercommunal conflict.
  • Israel has grave concerns regarding the welfare of Jewish holy places under possible Palestinian control. When Jerusalem was under Jordanian control, no Jews were allowed to visit the Western Wall. In 2000, Palestinian forces took over Joseph's Tomb, a shrine considered sacred by both Jews and Muslims, destroyed, looted and burned the building, and turned it into a mosque. There are unauthorized Palestinian excavations for construction on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, which could threaten the stability of the Western Wall. Israel, on the other hand, has seldom blocked access to holy places sacred to other religions, and never permanently. Israeli security agencies routinely monitor and arrest Jewish extremists that plan attacks, resulting in almost no serious incidents for the last twenty years. Moreover, Israel has given almost complete autonomy to the Muslim trust (Waqf) over the Temple Mount.
  • Palestinians have grave concerns regarding the welfare of Christian and Muslim holy places under Israeli control. They point to the several attacks on the Al-Aqsa Mosque (Masjid al Aqsa) since 1967, including a serious fire in 1969 by An Australian tourist, which destroyed the south wing, and the discovery, in 1981, of ancient tunnels near the Temple Mount which some claimed have weakened the building structures on the Temple Mount (Haram ash-Sharif). The Israeli government claims it treats the Muslim and Christian holy sites with utmost respect (see previous paragraph).
  • Right of Return: although not directly a land-related issue, the parties have found it difficult to reach a compromise. Palestinian negotiators have so far insisted that refugees, and all their descendants, from the 1948 and 1967 wars have a right to return to the places where they lived before 1948 and 1967, including those within the 1949 Armistice lines, citing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and UN General Assembly Resolution 194 as evidence. Israel accepts the right of the Palestinian Diaspora to return into the new Palestinian state but claims that their return into Israel would be a great danger for the stability of the Jewish state. Moreover, according to Israel, there is no precedent in international law allowing the return of hostile former inhabitants to a new country (as in the Beneš decrees in former Czechoslovakia) or of millions of descendants of those refugees. Most Israelis hold that the inflow of millions of poor refugees (almost none of whom were properly integrated by the surrounding Arab countries) will simply exceed the region's dwindling resources. The Arab summit of 2002 declared that it proposed the compromise of a "just resolution" of the refugee problem, to include the option of compensation in lieu of return. It is not currently understood what is meant by "just resolution"; a similar concept was offered by the Israeli government, but rejected outright by the Palestinians in the Summer 2000 Camp David negotiations.
  • Who will govern? Israel declares that the current Palestinian Authority is corrupt to the bottom, enjoys a warm relationship with Hamas and other Islamic militant movements, and seems at times to call for the destruction of Israel. This makes it, in Israeli perception, unfit for governing any putative Palestinian state or (especially according to the right wing of Israeli politics), even negotiating about the character of such a state. Because of that, a number of organizations, including the ruling Likud party, declared they would not accept a Palestinian state based on the current PA. (Likud's leader, Prime Minister Sharon, has publicly declared that he rejects this position as too radical). A PA Cabinet minister, Saeb Arekat, declared this would mean Israel is waging a "war" against Palestinians to maintain its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza [9]. Some international observers argue that negotiations and internal Palestinian reform can be undertaken simultaneously.
  • The question of water. Israel obtains water from four sources: rainwater collected naturally into the Sea of Galilee and the Jordan River(~36%), the mountain aquifers (~28%), the coastal aquifer (~14%), and water recycling (~23%). A saltwater desalinization plant is under construction in Israel to provide a source of additional water. Almost all the water used in the Palestinian areas other than rainwater is drawn from the underground aquifers (mountain aquifer ~52%, coastal aquifer ~48%). The Palestinian Authority has not developed any significant wastewater treatment facilities. The mountain aquifers lie mostly under the West Bank and the coastal aquifer mostly under the Israeli coastal plain. In recent years, the rate of usage has exceeded the rate of replenishment, leading to depletion of the aquifers and pollution of them by seepage from underlying saline aquifers. Almost 80% of aquifer usage is by Israel and its settlements. Water usage issues have been part of a number of agreements reached between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. For these reasons, the question of water supply for both Israel and Palestine is a very serious obstacle to a comprehensive agreement.
  • The question of airspace - the West Bank and Israel form a strip only up to 80 kilometers wide. Israel has insisted on complete Israeli control of the airspace above the West Bank and Gaza as well as that above Israel itself. A Palestinian compromise of joint control over the combined airspace has been rejected by Israel.
  • The question of borders and international status -In the past Israel has demanded control over border crossings between the Palestinian territories and Jordan and Egypt, and the right to set the import and export controls, asserting that Israel and the Palestinian territories are a single economic space.
  • The question of an army: Israel does not wish Palestine to build up an army capable of offensive operations, considering that the only party against which such an army could be turned in the near future is Israel itself. Israel, however, has already allowed for the creation of a Palestinian police that can not only conduct police operations, but also carry out limited-scale warfare. Palestinians have argued that the IDF, a large and modern armed force, poses a direct and pressing threat to the sovereignty of any future Palestinian state, making a defensive force for a Palestinian state a matter of necessity. To this, Israelis claim that signing a treaty while building an army is a show of bad intentions.
  • Insistence by some Palestinians that all Jewish communities within the territories to be part of a Palestinian state be removed. This includes ancient communities (Hebron), communities destroyed in 1948 and since re-established (Gush Etzion), and settlements established since 1967. The Palestinian position on the Jews of the Old City of Jerusalem is unclear.

[edit] Plans for a solution

The West Bank
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The West Bank
The Gaza Strip
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The Gaza Strip

There are several plans for a possible Palestinian state. Each one has many variations. Some of the more prominent plans include:

  • Creation of a Palestinian state out of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, with its capital in East Jerusalem. This would make the 1949 Armistice lines, perhaps with minor changes, into permanent de jure borders. This long-extant idea forms the basis of a peace plan put forward by Saudi Arabia in March 2002, which was accepted by the "State of Palestine" and all other members of the Arab League. This plan promised in exchange for withdrawal complete recognition of and full diplomatic relations with Israel by the Arab world. Israel claims its security would be threatened by (essentially) complete withdrawal as it would return Israel to its pre-1967 10-mile strategic depth. Moreover some claim that the Palestinians had rejected very similar offers made during and after the Camp David 2000 Summit. The plan spoke only of a "just settlement of the refugee problem", but insistence on a Palestinian "Right of return" to the pre-1967 territory of Israel could result in two Arab states, one of them (pre-1967 Israel) with a significant Jewish minority, and another (the West Bank and Gaza) without Jews.
  • Other, more limited, plans for a Palestinian state have also been put forward, putting parts of Gaza and the West Bank which have been settled by Israelis or are of particular strategic importance remaining in Israeli hands. Areas that are currently part of Israel could be allocated to the Palestinian state in compensation. The status of Jerusalem is particularly contentious.
  • A plan proposed by the Israeli tourism minister Binyamin Elon and popular with the Israeli right wing advocates the expansion of Israel up to the Jordan River and the "recognition and development of Jordan as the Palestinian State". Palestinian residents of Gaza and the West Bank would become citizens of Jordan and many would be settled in other countries. Elon claims this would be part of the population exchange initiated by the mass expulsion [10] of Jews from Arab states to Israel in the 1950s. See Elon Peace Plan. A September 2004 poll conducted by the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies reported that 46% of Israelis support transferring the Arab population out of the territories and that 60% of respondents said that they were in favor of encouraging Israeli Arabs to leave the country. However, the plan caused significant outcry and has been almost universally condemned by other countries[11].

Several plans have been proposed for a Palestinian state to incorporate all of the former British mandate of Palestine (pre-1967 territory of Israel, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank). Some possible configurations include:

  • A secular Arab state (as described in the Palestinian National Covenant before the cancellation of the relevant clauses in 1998). According to the Covenant, only those "Jews who had normally resided in Palestine until the beginning of the Zionist invasion will be considered Palestinians", which excludes up to 50% of the Jewish population of Israel.
  • A strictly Islamic state (advocated by Hamas and the Islamic Movement). This arrangement would face objection from the Jewish population as well as secular Muslim and non-Muslim Palestinians.
  • A federation of separate Jewish and Arab areas (some Israelis and Palestinians). It is not clear how this arrangement would distribute natural resources and maintain security.
  • A single, bi-national state (advocated by various Israeli and Palestinian groups). Palestinian and Israeli critics of this arrangement fear that the new state is likely to give the two sides an asymmetric status (though not necessarily an unequal one). Others say that such a state is likely to fail, as was seen in places where similar things were tried, like Yugoslavia and Lebanon. Strong nationalist sentiment among many Israelis and Palestinians would be an obstacle to this arrangement. After what he perceived as the failure of the Oslo Process and the two-state solution, Palestinian-American professor Edward Said became a vocal advocate of this plan.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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