The Underrated Obstacle to Israeli-Palestinian Peace

There are better options than a two-state solution if the real problem is tackled.

The Jaffa Gate in the Old City of Jerusalem

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This is a guest essay written by Nachum Kaplan of Moral Clarity.

You can also listen to the podcast version of this essay on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and Spotify.

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It is amazing that after 75 years, the world still does not understand the role that religion and antisemitism play in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Western liberals insist it is primarily about territory. They fail to grasp that Islamism and Jihadism — the sort that even many Arab states have cracked down on — have infected the Palestinian body politic.

Generations of Palestinian children have been raised to hate Jews, taught that their religious destiny is to destroy Israel, and (for Hamas) build an Islamic Caliphate.

This thinking is uncomfortably mainstream. Forward-thinking leaders of Arab states that recognize Israel, and of those such as Saudi Arabia which would like to do so, are out of lockstep with their populations. Among Palestinians, the indoctrination is so deep that a cultural solution is needed as much as a political one.

A negotiated settlement is required for peace, but what is the starting point for negotiations with someone who wants to exterminate you? Hamas is a Palestinian Islamist group that wants to destroy Israel. It views any political arrangement, including a two-state solution, as a stepping stone towards that goal.

The Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, meanwhile, is no better under its current virulent leadership. Considering these conditions, two states is not a solution, and nor is any other treaty or constitutional arrangement.

History teaches us that political systems are as strong only as the culture that supports them. The Weimar Republic (1918-1933) had what was considered to be a near-perfect democratic constitution, but German political culture was too weak to constrain the rise of Nazism.

An acceptance of Israel, and a willingness to live peacefully with Jews, would make all sorts of constitutional arrangements possible. The world remains oddly fixated on a two-state solution, despite it having failed as an approach for decades, and despite Israelis and Palestinians not supporting it. Superior options exist.

The most interesting proposal is for an Israeli-Palestinian Confederation. It is the most imaginative because it addresses Israelis’ and Palestinians’ needs, rather than focusing on nation-states per se. The principles of this version of a confederacy would be:

Independent States

Israel and Palestine would be separate democratic states based on pre-1967 borders. Citizens of each would have equal rights in accordance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Open Borders Between the Two States

Israelis would be allowed to live in Palestine as Israeli citizens and Palestinian residents. Palestinians would be allowed to live in Israel as Palestinian citizens and Israeli residents. Residents must abide by the laws of which ever state they are in.

A Shared Confederacy

The two states will share institutions of a confederate nature, to decide on joint matters.

Redress for Past Wrongs

Restitution for property lost or confiscated from Palestinians displaced in 1948 and from Jews expelled from Arab states after 1948.

Jerusalem as a Shared Capital

Jerusalem would remain one city open to people of all faiths, run by a share municipal council.

Security for All

Each state would be committed to their own citizen’s security and the other state’s security. Each would have independent security forces, which will cooperate closely and jointly protect external borders.

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The advantages of this option over a two-state solution are:

• It acknowledges the land’s historical significance to both peoples, and allows freedom of movement for all to enjoy and be connected with the land.

• Both peoples receive a sovereign state and access to Jerusalem as a shared capital.

• It creates a “right of return” for Palestinians (paving the way for peace with the wider Arab world).

• It avoids any forced expulsion or evacuation of Israeli settlers in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank).

• It reflects the reality of the ground in terms of demographics and economic interdependency.

• Implementation could begin almost immediately.

Pessimists will point to Yugoslavia as an example of how it could go wrong (which is not that far from the present situation). Optimists could point to Canada as an example of how it might work successfully.

It is hard to imagine now, but Britain and France were at war for centuries, while Quebec’s federation into Canada was not obviously viable and durable in the 19th century.

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If this sounds too good to be true, that is because it is. If evacuating or ceding land to the Palestinians always results in terror — which it has in Gaza, Judea and Samaria, and in southern Lebanon — what chance does sharing land have?

Achieving such an outcome requires a Palestinian cultural revolution. This is what former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir meant when she said: “We will only have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us.”

Jihadism has become worryingly mainstream in the many Western countries.

That is what is needed for Israel to feel safe enough to engage in serious peace talks, and for ordinary Palestinians to have a chance at a decent life. Jihadism must be defeated. The world must acknowledge that it is the primary obstacle to peace, and to Palestinians ever having a democratic state, which would be a first in the Arab world.

Israel has been vocal that teaching Palestinian children to hate Jews and become martyrs (something the terrorist-ridden UNRWA is shamefully part of) is something that needs to change as part of any political solution. It is one reason Israel sees little potential in either the Hamas or Palestinian Authority leaderships.

Western media, academics, and politicians have failed to pick up on this. It gets mentioned only occasionally in quotes from Israeli officials, but never in any wider discourse.

The West needs to wake up. Jihadism cannot be reasoned with or appeased. It has the West firmly in its sights, too, as rallies of jihadist thugs in cities as far apart as Toronto, London, and Sydney demonstrate. The West needs to rediscover its spine and acknowledge that it has imported jihadism with ill-considered immigration policies.

Apologists write about a two-state solution, and about what Israel must do differently, yet they never turn their pens to the issue of Islamist indoctrination of children being mainstream. Or that stopping it is essential for any solution to have a chance of succeeding. There seems to be a willful blindness about how Islamism and the Israel-Palestine conflict intertwine.

Ideally, this cultural and mindset change should come from the Palestinians themselves. Realistically, given the current leadership, they are are going to need help. Deradicalization is an area where other countries can play an important role. Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, and Singapore have developed successful deradicalization programs. These are going to be needed if any solution is to be durable.

One positive is the Abraham Accords and a Saudi desire for normalization. These Arab states’ willingness to accept Israel, and live alongside Israel and Jews, are setting an example of where the Palestinians must head.

For now, this fundamental problem has not been tackled, meaning that any Palestinian state will be a terror state — like Gaza under Hamas — and any unitary state or confederacy will be a state with a huge terrorism problem.

If deradicalization could be achieved, and a cultural change expressed, the political and constitutional solutions would be much less formidable.

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