Saudi Arabia, certainly not the most Jew-friendly nation on earth, has floated a peace proposal: Israel returns to its pre-1967 border, and the Arab nations of the world normalize relations. This puts the Israeli-Palestinean peace process in a regional context, where it belongs. Israel will never be at peace as long as its neighbors want to throw it into the sea.

Even if Sharon agrees to such a plan, there remain 3 major sticking points: security, immigration, and Jerusalem. Here's my proposal:

1) Immigration & the 'right of return'. Control over immigration is essential to a nation's sovereignty. If the JDL wants to make its hq in Ramallah, or the leaders of Hamas want to settle in Tel Aviv, the PA and Israel (respectively) should have the right to say no. If either nation wants to restrict immigration based on religion or ethnicity, it might not be considered fair, but it's certainly within their rights.

I propose that the right of return be explicitly linked to the question of the Israel settlers now living in the West Bank and Gaza. I would offer a one-for-one deal: for every settler that wants to remain in Palestine, Israel will admit one "refugee" from Jordan. Both settlers and refugees will have the right to apply for citizenship in Palestine and Israel, respectively, if they so choose.

[Note of clarification: The general idea is to divide immigration into two categories. The first category is whatever people the soverign state wants to accept into its country. Thus Israel could, if it wanted to, import every Jew from around the world -- as long as they were living in Israel, not Palestine. Vice versa with the Palestinians -- they could let in as many returnees as they wanted to, to settle in the state of Palestine. (Alternatively, each state could decide to set an immigration policy that had nothing to do with ethnicity or religion, but they probably would not.)

The second category is those immigrants that each nation is "forced" to take. Here's where the reciprocity comes in. There are Jewish settlers who want to remain in the West Bank. There are Palestinian refugees who would like to live in Israel, in the places they came from originally. This is the symmetry I would enforce.]

2) Security. Neither country will be secure without a demilitarized zone between them. As a matter of treaty, make it clear that neither country's military forces can enter the DMZ. Crossing that Rubicon would be considered an act of war. For the security of the people living within the DMZ -- and for this plan to work the DMZ must be settled -- Israel and Palestine would field a joint police force with limited weapons.

The DMZ would serve another purpose: making explicit the idea of land-for-peace. Both Israel and Palestine would be held responsible for ensuring that their citizens do not commit terrorist acts against each other. For every Israeli killed by a terrorist, Palestine would lose political and taxation control over 1 square mile (or some such unit) within the DMZ. Likewise if a Palestinian is killed by an Israeli. Thus we take away the political incentive of a suicide bomber: he only gives more land to the enemy.

There's a mess of answered questions with this idea -- what does each country get if someone is wounded? is the land given back if the killer is brought to justice? or part of it? who administrates such a plan, and how do they decide what territory is given?. I don't begin to know the answers.

3) Jerusalem. Never, never, never divide the city. We saw what happened in Berlin. The policy on Jerusalem should be: One City, Two Capitals, Three Religions. This would require, in essence, four governments within the city: a city government which would jointly decide secular issues within the city; two capital governments, which would be limited in authority to the government of their respective nations; and a religious council, which would deal with questions of religious importance (such as the policy concerning the Wailing Wall and the Dome of the Rock.) Again, there are many unanswered questions. But Jerusalem carries such spiritual and emotional weight in the hearts of Israelis, Palestinians, Jews, Muslims, and Christians, I cannot see peace without some way to share the city.

Few things make me more sad and angry than the continual state of war in and against Israel. Yet it always seems that a new prospect for peace arrives just when things seem close to collapse. Can we ever permit ourselves to think "maybe this time..."?

M E-L posted this on February 27, 2002
It is filed under Featured Posts, International Affairs

It is also indexed with the following tags: Middle East | Israel | Palestine |