The present military action in the Gaza Strip has forced me to spend some time evaluating my position and as a result I no longer consider one of those ideas to be a viable possibility.

Not A Solution

The “Two State Solution” is not a solution at all. 

If we as a global society would welcome an endless war then we may continue to advocate this idea, but otherwise, I tell you it will solve nothing.  Even if Israel were to hand over enough land for the Palestinians to have a contiguous territory (an essential condition for my version of the “two state solution” and a condition which Israel does not seem likely to meet voluntarily) there would follow the inevitable border disputes and skirmishes, with lulls and escalations and basically a low-level war for the next several hundred years.

This is unacceptable, and not just from a humanitarian standpoint.  It is also a question of global security:  Until there is peace in Israel-Palestine, there will not be peace in the rest of the world.  Consider that Islamic militant groups around the world cite the conditions in Palestine as one of their chief justifications for whatever atrocity they care to commit.  Such groups will always cite something: but the rallying cry of “Liberate Palestine!” has proved extremely effective and, together with the American-led invasion of Iraq, has certainly aided the process of recruiting large numbers of individuals into extremist militant networks around the world.

The present military operation in Gaza has certainly polarized global sentiment.  Initially, my thought was that some action against Hamas by Israel was justifiable, as was an increased troop presence near the border; both could be explained as deterrents against future rocket attacks.  But I felt my stomach churn when Israel then mounted a ground incursion, with the predictable result that civilian casualties, and the proportion of civilian casualties to the total casualties, have increased significantly.  The ground invasion was a mistake, both in terms of effectiveness as a security strategy and in humanitarian terms.  At this writing the number of civilian casualties has nearly tripled since before ground troops went into Gaza, yet  Hamas rocket attacks against Israeli civilians have not been deterred by the incursion of troops and tanks.

Not by Force of Arms

The conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians will not be resolved by force of arms.  The tit for tat string of retaliations back and forth could carry on endlessly for generations and nothing would be settled.  There must be an international diplomatic solution.

Israel cannot permanently win this conflict through strength.  It is clear that Israel’s military superiority will never win over the hearts and minds of the Palestinians.

The Palestinians cannot win this conflict militarily either.  In fact, it appears that Hamas has no intention of winning this conflict.  Their strategy is to win by losing.  Whether with rockets or suicide bombers, Hamas will keep harassing Israel like a child poking a badger with a stick.  Israel in response will continue to sequester the Palestinian people in their economically deprived slums and occasionally barrage them with retaliatory missile strikes of their own. The Palestinian people, who are on the whole entirely powerless in this situation, consequently feel victimized by the Israelis, so they will teach their children to grow up and hate the Israelis, and as a result of their hatred for Israel, they will support those who fight against Israel, namely Hamas.  Hamas is playing for long-term support and is apparently succeeding.  I will be very surprised if they do not now dominate Gaza politics for generations to come.   It is an endless cycle of violence which empowers a few rogue militant leaders at the expense of world peace.

I do not believe that the Israelis wants to fight an endless war; but they will, if they have no choice.  I do not support all of the Israeli government’s goals and I certainly disagree with many of its actions.  However I believe that the people of Israel would support a peaceful solution, if one could be arranged.

The United Territories of Israel-Palestine

Never has Federalism seemed more appropriate than in the case of Israel-Palestine.

Those who have read the book may recall that I argue against the application of the ideas of Federalism to the development of a future united world government.   Instead I propose a system of global direct democracy.

However, in the specific instance of a hypothetical future Constitutional government of the United Territories of Israel-Palestine (UTIF), a bicameral legislature and a lengthy Bill of Rights would go a long way to secure the future of world peace.  A Senate or upper house with a permanent or very slowly changing apportionment would be able to veto legislation passed by the more representative lower house, thereby assuring that even if Muslims end up outnumbering Jews, the Jewish people would not suffer legislative retaliation at the hands of the newly enfranchised Palestinians.

A Unified, Secular, Constitutional State

I support Israel’s right to exist as a homeland for the Jewish people.  However, I do not support Israel’s right to a specifically Jewish government any more than I support the concept of a religious Caliphate elsewhere in the Middle East, as many proponents of pan-Arab nationalism presently advocate.

Those who have read the book will no doubt vividly recall my strenuous objections to the undue influence which religious groups presently have on the American government.

In order to be provide their citizens with true equality, governments must be secular, neither supporting nor prohibiting any one specific group.

A successful unified state in Israel-Palestine would have to adopt a new Constitution that guaranteed absolute equality for all its citizens through both the government’s structure and also a lengthy Bill of Rights. This is the one and only path to a lasting peace.

The Role of the World

The United Nations has proved singularly ineffective in its attempts to resolve the conflict in Israel-Palestine.  My positions regarding the reform of that world body have been made known, but those are very long-term goals.

It is possible, though hardly desirable, that some form of “world government” may eventually end up being required to step in and impose a truce.  I don’t need to go into detail here about the concept of a global police whose mission is to prevent conflict without supporting one side or another; that has been mentioned in the book and elsewhere on this blog.  Far preferable would be a solution worked out between the people of Palestine and the people of Israel.  In the absence of such a solution, the world must impose one, because surely all reasonable people agree that an endless conflict is simply unacceptable.

In the near term, our priority must be to get the Israelis and the Palestinians to talk to each other, to negotiate, to fight with ideas instead of bullets and explosives.   As Americans, we could have a lot of leverage with the government of Israel, should we choose to use it.  We support them with money and armaments.  We should make our continued support conditional upon their accepting of certain positions and taking certain actions.

Peace in the Middle East will not be easy, but it is possible, and it is essential for the peace of the rest of the world.

Ryan stated that he thought the principle I upheld in my discussion of the situation in Palestine conflicted with the principle which I promoted in my discussion of the situation in Tibet.

In section 3.7.1 Resolving the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, I state:

Israel is not going away and it is not going to give back the land it took in the 1957 war, a war which frankly was a defensive action on the part of Israel, a war which the Palestinians helped to instigate, a war which the Palestinians and their allies lost, fair and square.  They need to accept this 60 year old defeat and get over it.

These are strong words.  I do feel sympathetic for the terrible plight of the Palestinian people who have been living in refugee camps for generations.  The situation must be resolved, and at the time when I wrote this I believed that by holding onto false hopes instead of working for real peace the Palestinian leadership was unnecessarily prolong the interminable conflict that has paralyzed the region.

It turns out this argument is somewhat off base and I thank Ryan for calling this to my attention. I misunderstood the issue, and I wholeheartedly apologize to my readers for the error.

In fact the Palestinian position is that they want Israel to withdraw to its pre-1967 borders, and it turns out they have a very good point, because since 1967, Israel has continuously built settlements for its own people on occupied territory in violation of several United Nations resolutions.  (This might be seen as further evidence that the United Nations requires some sharper legal teeth in order for its resolutions to be meaningful.)  I will certainly correct this passage in future editions of the book, and call upon Israel to comply with the UN resolutions, and/or work out a system of compensation and social re-integration for the dislocated populations.

Does this correction resolve Ryan’s concern? Not entirely, I think, for if we are to be honest, what many Palestinians really object to are not so much the 1967 borders or even the recent wall; what they really object to is the 1948 formation of the state of Israel itself; and it is this event which I still think they need to get over. The alternative is endless war. It’s clear the Palestinians have no hope of winning a civil war militarily. Their choice must be either: a. continue to attack soft targets within Israel (restaurants, bus stations, schools) with suicide bombers and rockets for an indefinite, perhaps endless period of time; or b. to renounce violence and try to think of a better way to build their society. Obviously, I call upon the Palestinian leadership to renounce violence.

So by way of contrast, in section 3.2.2.4 China, as part of a broader overview of potential military rivals of the United States, I state that “China has invaded, colonized, and presently holds by force the neighboring country of Tibet.”  I go on in a footnote:

…Tibet was indisputably self-governed from 1912 until the Chinese invasion of 1950.  Since that invasion, the Chinese occupation of Tibet has taken the form of a segregated apartheid society, with the majority ethnic Tibetans subjugated by Chinese settlers…  China’s claim that Tibet is a historical Chinese province ignores the legitimate Tibetan claim to autonomy, and is essentially based on an ancient Mongolian invasion.  …  Empire-building by right of conquest is no longer acceptable…  We reject the rule of empires.  Tibet has a right to independence.

Ryan’s point was essentially this, if he will forgive my paraphrasing:  “In one war, some people lost land, and you’re telling them to get over it; but in a different war, some people lost land and you think they have a right to fight for their independence.  These seem to be conflicting principles.”

The difference in my advice is based on the different circumstances of the two different regions. 

Tibet has been a unified territory for the last 1,400 years.  China is a neighboring empire with its own distinct borders and cultural heritage.  The Chinese invasion of Tibet was a deliberate, organized, military action that took the form of a brutal invasion.  The Chinese settlers who were encouraged by the Chinese government to move to Tibet after the invasion have held the function of maintaining and strengthening China’s rule over Tibet.  These settlers were not a displaced people returning to their homeland:  they were Chinese people settling on land that had been forcibly taken from Tibetan people.

I maintain that this invasion represents an act of aggression by China; and while I would not insist that those Chinese who now live in Tibet must leave, I do believe that China should relinquish political, economic, and military control of Tibet.

In stark contrast to the historical status of the Himalayan Forbidden Kingdom, Palestine has not been an independent unified territory for the two thousand years since the Roman invasion.  Since then, it has traded hands repeatedly, a minor territory of various other empires.  Its present borders were drawn by the French and British at the end of World War I.  At the end of World War II, the British military was in control of Palestine, and they did everything they could to keep the Jews out.  However, large numbers of Jewish people, many of them holocaust survivors, were fleeing Europe and migrating to their ancestral homeland.  This was a large-scale social phenomenon that had been underway, on and off by degrees, for centuries; it was no invasion.   This was not an organized, military conquest; it was the long-term resettlement of a people who had been evicted and dispersed by the Roman army in the second century. 

Eventually the United Nations granted half the territory to the Israelis in the original two-state solution; and Britain grudgingly complied with the mandate, only a few months late.  Israel declared independence, and was promptly attacked by five neighbors in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.  In 1956, Israel participated in a military action against Egypt, and assumed control of the Sinai Peninsula.  1957, Israel returned the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt under the auspices of the UN.  In 1967, Israel’s neighbors began massing troops near its border in preparation for an invasion; the resulting Six Day War saw Israel capturing more territory.  It is to these “pre-1967 boundaries” which the Palestinians and their supporters demand that Israel should withdraw. They had better be willing and able to offer something pretty good in exchange. How about eternal peace?

In the book, I conclude the Palestine discussion with the proposal of two alternative solutions:  1. a contiguous, fully independent, self-governed state of Palestine; or 2. full Israeli citizenship and democratic equality for all of the Palestinian people, including the Palestinian diaspora currently living as refugees in other countries.

When examined in this light, the principles supporting this argument remain the same:  the principle that all people have the right to freedom and self-governance.  The Tibetans have a right to freedom from Chinese authoritarianism; and they, as well as both the Israelis and the Palestinians, have a right to self-governance. In Tibet, the only popular uprisings since the Chinese invasions have been nonviolent and they have been crushed. I would support a military insurgency in Tibet because this tactic has not yet been tried.  Perhaps after ten or twenty years of terrorist attacks the Tibetan insurgency could break China’s motivation to continue the occupation, or at least force some political reform in the Chinese government.

In Palestine, the people are not so much occupied as they are besieged; clearly an untenable position. Nevertheless, after decades of fighting it should be clear that their military insurgency has already failed, and that this failure is due to the ideological extremism of the movement’s leaders, and therefore it is now time to consider new alternatives.

If the two peoples, the Israelis and the Palestinians, could achieve peace through a unified state that incorporates both peoples, then they will be stronger; but even if they can achieve self-governance only through a functioning two-state solution, then at least that would be a workable solution and much preferable to endless war.