Alternative Palestinian Agenda, 24th January 2002

Proposal for an Alternative Configuration in Palestine-Israel

Nasser Abufarha

"If at first an idea does not seem absurd, then there is no hope for it." - Albert Einstein

Introduction 

As much as the Palestinians have failed to liberate their homeland and achieve their return, the Israelis have failed to arrive at their acceptance and naturalization in the region. Fifty-three years after the establishment of the state of Israel in Palestine, the Middle East continues to be in a state of instability and ongoing cycles of war and violence. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of Arabs and tens of thousands of Israelis and continues to claim yet more.

There have been various attempts and initiatives presented and contemplated to end the Arab-Israeli conflict over the past 50 years. However, in the last 10 years, in the wake of the first intifada (Palestinian uprising), the international community was compelled to address the Palestinian question and Israel was pressured to engage in a dialog and a process toward a resolution of the conflict.

Unfortunately, the 'peace process' has focused on political definitions and cease-fire lines rather than the more substantive issues that address the concerns and aspirations of both Israeli and Palestinian society. Future initiatives need to provide a framework that enables both Israelis and Palestinians to accommodate the other so that the concerns and aspirations of both societies can be addressed.

Without this framework, it is not surprising that the current process failed. Now both societies are at a turning point in their respective histories. The future of the region depends greatly on what course each society takes from here. Without a fundamental shift in focus to real life issues that concern both societies, the conflict will spiral into misery and continue to deprive the children of Palestine-Israel the dream of life. Once we understand the reasons behind the failure of previous initiatives, we can set the parameters for constructive dialog that brings the conflict toward resolution. The effective collapse of the current process places us at a crossroads that demands that we develop an alternative process that comprehensively addresses all aspects of the conflict or be faced with even greater levels of confrontation and destruction.

This proposal presents a new initiative that comprehensively addresses the concerns and current realities of both Israeli and Palestinian society. It addresses the shortcomings of previous initiatives and how Israelis and Palestinians can accommodate each other. Specifically, this proposal offers a new political arrangement, guidelines for healthy ethno-national relations and an alternative territorial configuration based on current demographics and land use. This initiative would provide the framework for the resolution of all outstanding issues of the conflict that would serve as the foundation for the development of viable civic society in Palestine-Israel and allow for acceptance of Israelis by the peoples of the region.

The general pursuit of happiness and prosperity is common across humanity. Since Palestinians and Israelis share the same land as their home, they can only strive toward this shared aspiration when both societies are able to understand and respect the concerns and aspirations of each other. In order to get beyond the misconception that concerns and aspirations of one society is independent of the other, we need to derive measures that bridge the concerns of both societies without negating each other’s aspirations.

Israeli Concerns and Aspirations

The following Israeli concerns and aspirations represent the primary demands of Israeli society:

Security. Security represents the primary concern of Israelis. The nationalist aspirations of the Palestinians for independence and statehood continue to pose a threat to the very existence of the state of Israel. At the regional level, Israelis depend on their military superiority to protect them from their geographical vulnerability of being surrounded by nations that question their very legitimacy. 

Acceptance. The majority of Israelis would like to be accepted as a state among the nations of the Middle East and enjoy economic and cultural relations across the region. However, nations in the region continue to view Israel as a foreign entity and do not recognize its right to exist as a state.

Character of the Jewish State. The majority of Israelis continue to support the idea of a Jewish state as a means of defending and protecting Jewish rights. Moreover, Western Jews feel a sense of security and personal fulfillment in Israel as a place of refuge should they become subject to racial or religious persecution and as an expression of Jewish identity. Atrocities committed against Jews in Europe combined with the religious and ideological commitment to the idea of Israel contribute to the desire to maintain a Jewish state.

Identity. Israelis have a strong sense of identity expressed through their attachment to the Hebrew language and their strong commitment to the state. This commitment is strengthened by the desire of both the immigrant population and the Israeli born to cut across cultural, social, and historical differences in search of a shared identity. Israelis are resistant to initiatives that may threaten to dilute, destroy, or negate this identity.

Peace. There is a growing consensus in Israeli society in support of arriving at an end to the conflict in order to live in peace in the region. The majority of Israelis are frustrated by their inability move beyond the conflict and devote attention to life matters. They long for a peace that would free them of the political instability of the conflict that pervades their lives.

Jerusalem. Some Israelis worry that if they did not maintain exclusive control over the city of Jerusalem, they would lose access to a city for which they hold both historical and religious significance. Other Israelis represented by the Zionist leadership have a political commitment towards Jerusalem. Since the whole Zionist idea is founded on the Jewish state and the city of Jerusalem is the symbol of the connection of the Jewish state to Palestine, they find that control over Jerusalem is essential to that commitment.

Palestinian Concerns and Aspirations

The following Palestinian concerns and aspirations represent the primary demands of Palestinian society:

Statehood. Palestinian identity emerged around the turn of the century. The sense of identity among Palestinians grew stronger and stronger as their expression of identity was and continues to be denied. Their shared experience of exile and living under occupation that refused to recognize their very existence made their commitment to their identity as the only definition of self. Statehood remains the modern expression of identity and is therefore at the forefront of the Palestinian agenda.

Right of Return. The right of return represents the central and most complex concern among Palestinians. The right of return refers to Palestinians and their descendents who were driven out of their homes in the wake of the establishment of the state of Israel in Palestine in 1948. Today the refugee population exceeds 3.7 million, which represents nearly half of the current Palestinian population in the region.

Ending the Occupation. The Palestinian population in the West Bank and Gaza has been under Israeli military rule since 1967 under which Palestinians have experienced continuous brutal harassment, including policies of expulsion, imprisonment without charge, collective punishment, land confiscation, restrictions on movement, trade, development, growth, and use of natural resources such as water. Moreover, they are denied freedom of assembly and association, freedom of speech, and freedom of worship (the majority of the Palestinian population is denied access to Jerusalem and its Christian and Muslim holy sites). This treatment has recently escalated into the direct bombardment of Palestinian towns and cities and a policy of assassination of Palestinian leaders.

Security and Democratic Rights of ‘Israeli Arabs.’ ‘Israeli Arabs’ are those Palestinians who remained in their homes after the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948 and subsequently adopted Israeli citizenship. Due to their legal status as Israeli citizens and their identity as Palestinians, they are claimed by both societies. The government of the state of Israel confiscated the majority of the properties of this population in the 1950s and allocated them to the Israeli agricultural and industrial cooperatives of the Kibbutzim and Moshavim and continue to confiscate more lands to this day. In short, this population does not enjoy the same protection by the state of Israel as Jewish Israelis.

For example, residents of the Palestinian town of Saakhnin were killed when they protested the confiscation of their lands in 1976. More recently, the Israeli police failed to respond to calls for help from the residents of Nazareth and Jaffa in October 2000 when attacked by a Jewish Israeli mob. The state of Israel also denies this population their basic democratic rights of self-expression as is evident in the suppression of their Palestinian identity. For example, the Israeli police killed 13 ‘Israeli Arabs’ and injured hundreds of others in October 2000 when they demonstrated against ‘their’ state’s violent treatment of their fellow Palestinians in the occupied territories.

In addition to concerns over security and the democratic rights of ‘Israeli Arabs,’ Palestinians in Israel are also subject to discriminatory policies such as the state’s refusal to recognize over 150 Palestinian villages and the subsequent denial of basic services in an effort to evacuate their populations. Moreover, the state poses restrictions on movement on the Palestinian Bedouin population in the south of Israel in order to make them dependent on the state and become available for the labor market or the Israeli army.

Demographic Crisis in the Gaza Strip. The demographic crisis in the Gaza Strip is a direct consequence of the displacement of Palestinians in 1948 with the establishment of the state of Israel. Two-thirds of the 1.2 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip remain refugees in an area with a population density of 3000/sq. km. The Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip is confined to this area, which has essentially deprived it of the basic means of survival. This situation has grave social and political consequences as is evident in the radicalization of this population.

Jerusalem. The city of Jerusalem holds a special status in the hearts of the Palestinian population as the historical cultural center of Palestine. Moreover, it houses sacred sites to Muslim and Christian Palestinians alike such as al Aqsa or al Harim Ash-Sharif, known as the Noble Sanctuary and al Qiama, the church of the Holy Sepulchral, respectively. Israel has restricted access to the city for the majority of the Palestinian population since it took over the city in 1967.

Access has also been restricted for Palestinian residents of the city through the confiscation of their ID cards that effectively denies their ability to maintain residency in the city. This restriction is part of an accelerated effort by Israel for the judaeification of the city. All of these practices and policies have strengthened the commitment of the Palestinian people toward their holy city and their historical, cultural, and political center.

The city is also a central issue in the Arab-Israeli conflict as far as the Arab nations are concerned. All the populations of the nations of the region have strong historical, cultural, and religious ties to the city of Jerusalem. Since these nations have been denied access to the city since its occupation by Israel, they will continue to oppose exclusive Israeli control over the city.

The Failure of the Two-State Solution

The most contemplated solution in the past 25 years is the two-state solution, which the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) adopted in 1978 and is allegedly the framework of the current peace process initiated with the Oslo Accords of 1993. This solution is based on Israeli withdrawal from all Palestinian territories that it occupied in 1967 and the formation of an independent Palestinian state on those territories. Its significance lies in the fact that it moves beyond the respective programs among Palestinians and Israelis that call for either the total liberation of Palestine or the Zionist project of the complete takeover of all of historic Palestine. These ‘solutions’ are exclusive programs that are committed to confrontation and leave no room for peace. However, even though the two-state solution is considered the most responsive to Palestinian nationalist aspirations in terms of achieving an “independent stateâ€