"SOLUTIONS???"

 “SOLUTIONS???”

If there is to be a non-violent and lasting peace with justice in Israel and Palestine, at least three steps must be met.  First, the right of Israel to exist as a state must be acknowledged, not as a Zionist state, but as a nation among nations.   The Oslo agreements of 1993 acknowledged the rights of both Israel and Palestine to exist as nations, so on one level, this step has been established.  Since then, both sides have waffled and added conditions, with Israel putting up its infamous wall, annexing more territory, and seeking to make Palestinian Israelis lose political rights.  Palestinian and other Arab leaders have insisted that Israel return to its pre-1967 borders in order to be recognized as a state.  Given the ashes of the horrific Holocaust and the terrible “Nakba” still swirling, it seems fundamental that all leaders, including Palestinian and other Arabs, must recognize the right of Israel to exist.  

Second, the state of Palestine must be established, and political and geographic boundaries must be formed.  This “two-state” solution has been on the table for a long while, but the complications listed above have prevented any movement towards that state.  Indeed, with the rightward shift of Israel under Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel has increasingly taken Palestinian territory.  While his leadership in Israel may be coming to an end this weekend (he is a survivor, however, so he should not be counted out just yet), his successor is further to the right than he is.  Yet the coalition seeking to oust Netanyahu knows the weariness of Israelis with the continuing state of war and terrorism in which the state lives.  

Many believe that the “two-state” solution is “old news,” that its time has passed.  While this may be true, there are no other viable solutions on the page.  Almost 25% of Israel’s population of 9+ million are Arabs and Palestinians, and unless Israel wants to move towards a genocidic step similar to our dealings with Native Americans and to suppress both the citizenship and the voting rights of people of Arab descent,  there must be a move towards a nation and a state of Palestine.  The current split in leadership for Palestinians makes such a step difficult, but in reality, the Israeli leadership is just as split.  It is imperative that the Biden administration join with Arab leaders from nations like Egypt and Jordan to move towards a joint accord  which hammers out boundaries and sovereignty for both nations.

The third step - and most difficult of the three steps, if that can be imagined – is that Jerusalem must become an international holy city, or at least the territory where the Wailing Wall and the Temple of the Dome are located.  The power of the United Nations has been greatly diminished, but these sacred territories of the three great monotheistic religions must be honored and preserved in a non-sectarian way.  The whole city of Jerusalem should be made into an international city, but I do not think that the political will is there yet.  Perhaps a start would be to make the territory of the Wall and the Dome to be an international territory, under the guardianship and governance of the United Nations.  Again, this would take the leadership of the Biden Administration to put this sort of unimaginable agreement into place.  

These are the minimal three steps to be taken if there is to be a just peace in Israel and Palestine.  While I am a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War, I am pessimistic that there is the political will to develop these three steps.  We saw our political will and influence for peacemaking diminish on this issue in the Trump presidency, and it will take a persistent and insistent effort by the Biden administration to move towards these three steps.  The only alternative, however, is what we have just seen:  endless violence and terrorism, severe oppression of Arab people, and the whole world held in captivity to this issue.  Let us hope that the peacemakers are arising in Israel and Palestine – there are no viable alternatives except stunning violence and oppression.