Reuven Rivlin is the president of Israel. He has at times advocated one bi-national Israel with equal citizenship for all Jews and Arabs in that state, and at times he has advocated a confederation between Israel and Palestine. The Israeli
government has the parliamentary system. In that system, the president is
mainly a ceremonial position (similar to the monarch in a modern constitutional
monarchy like Britain but without the pomp and circumstance). The real
administrative power belongs to the prime minister (at the present time
Benjamin Netanyahu). At times Rivlin and Netanyahu disagree, often severely. Israel
is a multi-party country where the prime minister has to cobble together a
coalition to form a government and stay in office. Netanyahu’s coalitions have
tended to the Right and have become especially Rightist recently. His coalition
mainly includes nativist parties and religious parties. The nativists in the minority
extreme Right (including the Settler Movement) believe Israel is a Jewish state
including the West Bank as well as Israel proper with little regard for the
Palestinian Arabs living there. Hamas in Gaza takes the position that Israel is
illegitimate, Israel should be destroyed, and all (or most) Jews should go
away. Many (how many?) Palestinian Arabs in the West Bank and a maybe a
minority of Israeli Arabs share that view. But the Arabs and the Jews do exist,
they are both there, and neither are going away.
There was a period in the 1990s when there appeared to be a
warming of relations between Arabs and Jews in Israel and the Palestinian
territories, both at the governmental level and at the level of ordinary
people. At the end of that period, Ehud Barak, the prime minister of Israel,
offered the Clinton/ Barak Plan to Yasser Arafat, the leader of the
Palestinians for separating the land into 2 states, Israel and Palestine. The
terms of that plan were unacceptable to Arafat who flatly rejected it without a
counter proposal. At that time an unannounced visit to the El Aqsa Mosque
located on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem by Ariel Sharon (who at the time was a
right wing fringe member of the Israeli government) triggered an Intifada by
the Palestinians and encouraged by Arafat. This resulted in harsh retaliation by
Barak and ended the peace process. Why did Arafat react with an intifada
instead of continuing negotiations? Perhaps he thought that would be the best
way to negotiate better terms? Perhaps he was pushed by his hardliners? In any
event it was a miscalculation. Perhaps Barak over-reacted and might have gotten
a better result by reacting firmly but less (or perhaps there was no
alternative to harshness?). Anyway the good will between the ordinary people on
both sides disappeared overnight. Later Barak attempted to push forward the 2
State solution again by pulling Israel out of Gaza unilaterally. The thinking
was that because Gaza is farther from the population center of Israel than the
West Bank, it would be a good place to test the idea of an independent Palestine.
Unfortunately the Gazans elected Hamas to be their government. Hamas does not
recognize the State of Israel, promotes the destruction of Israel, and furthers
that position by shooting rockets over the border into Israel and at times
sends terrorists into Israel. Israel responds by walling off Gaza and limiting
movement into and out of Gaza. Hamas also opposes the Fatah leadership on the
West Bank.
So we now have a situation where many (probably most)
Israelis do not trust the Palestinian Arabs to maintain a terrorist free peace.
They look around them and see chaos in many of the surrounding Arab states like
Syria, Iraq, and even Egypt. The Israeli government has maintained an under the
table alliance with the surrounding Arab governments because of their common
danger from the government of Iran. A kind of peace from terrorism exists for
the time being although its stability is questionable. On the other hand the
Palestinian Arabs in the West Bank experience a lack of independence and respect
along with a progressive encroachment by the Israeli settlements.
The challenge now is to create a relationship which will
protect the security of the Israeli people (real peace) and still give honor,
independence, and self government to the Palestinian Arabs.
One possible solution that has been proposed might be a
Confederation between State of Israel and the West Bank which could be called The
State of East Palestine. Gaza would have to accept the legitimacy of Israel and
it would also have to accept the West Bank government as their state government
if there were to be one unified State of Palestine (which does not appear to be
in the near future). Gaza could join the Confederation at a future date by rejecting Hamas and
accepting the West Bank as their state government or perhaps joining as a third State
of West Palestine. Gaza would have to stop attacking Israel and accept their
border with Israel to be included. The confederation could be called the
Confederation of Israel-Palestine or perhaps a new name altogether. A name like
the Confederation of Abraham would recognize what both people recognize as a
common ancestor.
One issue that would have to be resolved would be the
status of the Israeli West Bank settlers. The non-contiguous smaller
settlements should be disbanded. Israel is not going to give up all the Jewish
neighborhoods in East Jerusalem that have sprung up since 1967. The parties will have to negotiate which East
Jerusalem neighborhoods are neighborhoods and which are settlements. As for the
status of Jews who remain in the West Bank, they could become citizens of the
State of East Palestine and not the State of Israel (therefore could vote in East
Palestine elections and not Israel elections). Any Jew who moves his or her
residence (not just visiting temporarily) from East Palestine to Israel under
the Right of Return would become an Israeli citizen and not a citizen of East
Palestine. Whether that Jew might someday return to East Palestine citizenship
would be up to the East Palestine government.
The process of moving from the present situation to
confederation would be gradual, but gradual movement in the right direction
would be an improvement over the present situation. The process would depend on
changing of attitudes of the ordinary people on both sides. The populations on
both sides would have to be educated and nudged into more favorable attitudes towards
each other and will have to build trust in each other. One organization that is
working toward that goal is Hand in Hand which builds schools in Israel in
which Jewish and Arab children study together in the Hebrew and Arabic
languages. Hand in hand has the support of President Rivlin. I don’t know what
Prime Minister Netanyahu thinks of it, but googling Netanyahu and Hand in Hand together
comes up with nothing. Perhaps Hand in Hand or a similar organization could
exist in East Palestine. There is a long history of conflict that will have to
be overcome. But Confederation would greatly benefit both sides in the long run, greater
security for the Israelis, greater self determination for the Palestinians, greater
stability and prosperity for all.
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