I’m not saying anything is going to happen, but if someone wants to know what I propose, here you go.
At first I want a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza with all West Bank settlements dismantled or evacuated or let the settlements stay and any Jews that wish to live under a Palestinian government are free to stay. Unowned homes may be given or sold to Palestinians who wish to live in them. But if any Jews stick around, I don’t want to see them harmed!
There’s a problem with a one state solution in that a lot of the armed groups act like they don’t support it. Their attitude is “all the Jews are ‘settlers’ and hence legitimate targets, including little kids and 90 year old grandmas!” That is garbage and increasingly I think the Palestinians are just as fanatical and insane as the Israelis.
However, Fatah, the DFLP, and the PFLP all have a good line in that the first two want a Palestinian state, and the PFLP says all the Jews can stay in a single state. Hezbollah says that while two states is not their preferred solution, they will “say nothing” if the Palestinians support this. Iran’s official position is a single state. Iran has nothing against Jews as 9,000 Jews live peacefully in Iran and are not harmed in any way. In fact, two seats in Parliament are reserved for them. Some Iranian Nazis!
There are still some Jews in Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen. In general they are zealously protected by the Arab regimes for political reasons.
Even Palestinians are ok with Jews living among them, as there are Jews living in Palestinian refugee camps who identify as Palestinians and refuse to go to Israel. They are treated very well. Also, there are 450 Samaritans living in the West Bank, and they are treated very well. The latest findings are that Samaritans are indeed a type of Jew. They don’t want to go to Israel.
I’m quite certain that Palestinians would be happy to live with the anti-Zionist Haredi sects in Israel. A lot of Palestinians say:
Jews can stay. They will be our guests.
This is probably an old Fatah line. So you see it’s really about domination more than anything else.
However, a lot of PFLP supporters act like all the Jews have to leave or the Palestinians have a right to kill any Jews who won’t leave in a single state. Others say more reasonably that most Jews will probably take off when there is one state, and maybe 10
Hamas and Islamic Jihad seem to say that all the Jews need to take off, as best I can tell. But they say different things. Islamic Jihad has said that any Jews can stay but they must live under Islamic Law. Hamas recently said that Jews have always lived with us in Palestine and having Jews in Palestine per se is not an issue.
I have a feeling that a lot of these groups would calm down if there was a real Palestinian state.
As far as a single state, I’m really worried that a lot of the Palestinians will start killing Jews in this new single state. Their behavior in the past does not leave me optimistic. Maybe we could let a few carefully selected Palestinian families who have been peaceful go live in Israel. We could set up a few new “peace cities” for them, and any Jew who wanted to move there too could do so. Then we could slowly add to that.
I believe in right to return to West Bank and Gaza at the moment for Palestinians. They don’t even have that right.
A new state might be Palestinian Muslim majority that won’t be good for Israelis, including Jews and probably Christians. Druze could live with Muslims ok.
There would have to be strict religious and ethnic protections against any sort of discrimination against any ethnic or religious group written into a new Constitution. At first maybe we could have a Jewish legislature ruling the Jews and a Muslim one ruling the Palestinians. That way each side could vote in religious laws for themselves. There would have to be courts to cancel new laws that favored one group or the other. It would be “extreme federalism” like Switzerland.
We might be able to go to a single legislature for state matters that do not prejudice or favor one side over the other. Perhaps with a good Constitution we could eventually transition to that.
I’m more of a post-Zionist than an anti-Zionist. Zionism is an ongoing project. It’s had its day. Time to end the dream.
We could continue to allow aliya and right to return for both Jews and Palestinians, two groups that have suffered terribly in the past and continue to suffer at various levels in the present. So it would be a refuge for both groups.
At some point we would have to slowly marry the armed forces. I’m less worried about that than I am about other things.
I despise Mossad, Israel, and frankly Israelis.
The odd thing is that even when I take this pretty radical position, a lot of Palestinians and their supporters call me Zionist, Zionist agent, pro-Israel, anti-Palestinian, etc. As I said above, I’m starting to think the Palestinians are as insane as the Jews.
