A (somewhat) American perspective from Israel and the Middle East
Posts tagged land swap
One state, two state, three state, four – Part II
Mar 26th
Read part one of this series here
Many supporters of the two-state solution are apprehensive that its failure would eventually lead to one state, bringing to an end its Jewish character. However, there are several well-articulated alternatives that should be examined.
The two-state solution has faced a number of problems that appear to be becoming more and more insurmountable. The question of territory and geographic boundaries lies at the heart of many of those concerns. Israel’s continued settlement enterprise eats away at the territory slated for a future Palestinian state. Furthermore, much of mainstream Israeli thought says that withdrawing to the 1949 Armistice Lines (the Green Line) would leave Israel with “indefensible borders.”
Equally important is the question of whether an independent Palestinian state within the Green Line would actually be viable. The lack of territorial contiguity between the West Bank and (more…)
Notes on Netanyahu in Congress: A misrepresentation of reality
May 26th
A few quick notes on Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s speech to the US Congress on Tuesday:
- Netanyahu, when making the case for annexing large settlement blocs in the ever-unlikely event that he makes peace, inflated the number of settlers living east of the pre-1967 lines by roughly 150,000. It is not clear where the claim of 650,000 Israelis living beyond the Green Line came from but the motivation for his statistical augmentation is likely driven by his desire to make the prospect of withdrawal appear impossible, as Mondoweiss speculated. (more…)
Thinking outside the box about sovereignty
Nov 29th
In an Al-Jazeera Op-ed, Mark LeVine of UC Irvine picks up where Mickey Bergman and Amjad Atallah left off a few months ago in Foreign Policy magazine. LaVine discusses the zero-sum nature of a traditional two-state solution, and what needs to happen in order to move beyond the barriers it presents.
LaVine correctly points out that both nations (Palestinian and Israeli) lay claim to the entirety of a single piece of land. With a modern and traditional understanding of sovereignty, this conflict is nearly impossible to reconcile while simultaneously satisfying the national needs of both peoples. Rejecting the idea of a one-state, bi-national solution, LaVine suggests re-thinking the contemporary concept of sovereignty.
The world’s concept of state sovereignty has remained fairly static since (more…)
A test case in population transfer: Ghajar
Nov 8th
Note: For the purposes of this article, a “population transfer” is understood to include land swaps of populated land.
A test of ideology awaits the Israeli left next week. Similarly, the constraints on Israeli government power will be tested in what may be a trial-run for future scenarios involving the two-state solution. Government officials on Saturday announced that Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will present plans to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon on Monday in New York for a unilateral Israeli withdrawal from the northern half of the border-town of Ghajar. The town’s residents say they are Syrian, the UN says that the town is split between Israel and Lebanon, and nearly all of its residents hold Israeli citizenship. So the question becomes, is Israel planning on transferring its own citizens to an enemy state, which the transferees claim they have no connection to?
In the past year, the Israeli left has reacted strongly and loudly to hints by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman of plans – or even the floating of ideas – of transfering some Israeli-Arabs to Palestinian control. The thought of a forced population transfer is indeed repulsive. Although any two-state solution between Israelis and Palestinians will need to deal with many issues relating to citizenship and (more…)