The Israel/Palestine conflict has been around since the state of Israel was created, about as long as I have been alive. In fact, some would say that the conflict has been around for 3,000 years. I am going to ignore that 3,000 year history. In fact, I am going to ignore most of the history that has taken place while I have been alive and concentrate on more recent events.
For a long time Israel put its hopes behind a "one state" solution, namely it's all Israel. The Palestinians also put their hopes behind a "one state" solution. Only in their case the "one state" was all Palestine as the Jews had been driven into the sea. So it was considered some kind of breakthrough when Israel instead got behind a "two state" solution. Some but not all Palestinians have also gotten behind this "two state" solution.
The idea behind the "two state" solution is that the area would be partitioned into an Israeli state and a Palestinian state. Certainly this left the issue of where the boundaries would be drawn. And there were many other issues to be settled but the "two state" solution was generally seen as a step forward and progress toward a complete resolution of all the issues. But the "two state" solution has been under serious consideration since the 1990's and not much progress has been made in that time. I would like to replace the "two state" solution with a "three state" solution. Here's what I mean.
The actual current situation is that the region is now partitioned into three areas. They are Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank. Historically all three areas have been under the control of Israel. But in 2005 Israel pulled out of Gaza. The third area is generally referred to as the West Bank and is mostly populated by Palestinians. The boundary of Gaza is clear and not in dispute. But the boundary of the Palestinian West Bank, the area that the Palestinians do or should control, is under dispute. Israel is what's left after Gaza and the Palestinean West Bank have been carved out. Setting the boundaries of the Palestinian West Bank is the most serious issue among the many serious issues that divide the Israelis and the Palestinians. All non-"one state" solutions require a solution to this issue. There has been no significant progress on this boundary issue in decades. But there has been a recent (2007) development that has affected the chances of making progress.
Historically the Palestinians have spoken with one voice. For a long time it was called the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization). The PLO is now often referred to as Fatah. In 2007 elections were held in Gaza and Hamas, a different Palestinian faction, won. Since then Hamas has consolidated its political hold on Gaza. Meanwhile Fatah has consolidated its hold on the West Bank. Now Fatah is generally seen as the "moderate" wing that wants to move ahead with a "two state" solution and come to an accommodation with Israel. Hamas, on the other hand, officially holds a "one state" position and wants to drive Israel into the sea. There are many factions on the Israeli side and they have held up peace talks many times. But one of the biggest impediments to making progress at this time is the Hamas/Fatah feud within the ranks of the Palestinians. And the chances of healing this feud in the short term look poor to everyone. What to do?
My proposal is to start with a realistic view of the current facts on the ground and build from there. So my "three state" solution envisages not one but two Palestinian states. Gaza would be treated as one state controlled by Hamas and the West Bank would be treated as a separate state and control would rest with Fatah. So we would end up with Israel, the Jewish state, Gaza, the Hamas controlled Palestinian state, and Palestine, the name that would be given to the West Bank area, whatever its eventual boundaries, controlled by Fatah. Let's examine this proposal in more detail.
First, there is no dispute about the boundaries of Gaza so that issue in not even on the table. Second, there is no "resettlement" issue with respect to Gaza. All the Israelis pulled out in 2005 so everyone currently resident in Gaza is Palestinian. So again with respect just to Gaza there is no issue here. There is a big issue with respect to Gaza and that's it's relationship to Israel. I would suggest that the initial relationship would be a state of war in which there is currently a cease fire. All the issues between Israel and Gaza are of the "war and peace" variety. The Hamas position of "driving the Israelis into the sea" sounds like a "war and peace" issue to me. Shelling of Israel from Gaza sounds "war and peace" to me. Control of Gaza's borders, now split between Israel and Egypt, also sounds like the kind of issue that is typically ironed out in a postwar peace conference. For the moment we assume negations between the two parties are currently in abeyance and leave the current status quo in place. Instead we focus on the dispute between Israel and Palestine (now just the West Bank area).
The Israel/ (redefined) Palestine dispute now involves two parties that actually seem interested in coming to an amicable resolution. The fire breathers on the Palestinian side (Hamas) have for the most part been shunted aside. They are no longer a central part of the process. There are many issues to be resolved on this front but both sides have at times shown a sincere interest in resolving them. With just these two parties involved there is a real chance that progress can be made. And there is another issue the "three state solution" approach automatically solves. That is the little discussed issue of connectivity. Palestinians would like the two parts of their state connected by some kind of corridor. But a corridor connecting the two Palestinian parts would break Israel in two, something that is unacceptable to the Israelis. But if there are two Palestinian states then there is no Palestinian corridor requirement. Once Israel and Fatah come to an agreement most of the most intractable issues between Israel and the Palestinians will have been solved. Then Israel can focus on Israel/Hamas issues. If Hamas doesn't want to come to an agreement then the status quo can be maintained. The North/South Korea dispute has been stuck at stalemate for over 50 years.
Is the partition of the Palestinian that the "three state solution" envisions necessarily a permanent one? No! The partition of the Palestinian territories into two states would become an internal Palestinian issue. Whether the two territories would eventually unite would be strictly up to the Palestinians. It does not need to involve the Israelis at all. The example of the East/West Germany reunification demonstrates that a happy (and peaceful) ending is possible even if the partition has lasted for decades. Personally, I think the actual result would turn out to be like Pakistan/Bangladesh. When India was partitioned two predominantly Muslim areas were carved off. One became Pakistan. The other was initially affiliated with Pakistan but eventually became the independent country of Bangladesh. But fortunately my opinion does not matter. Only the opinions of Palestinians matter.
A similar approach should be taken with the "right of return" issue. Israel would not accept Palestinians. But immigration policy for the two independent Palestinian states would be completely up to the Palestinian governments. They are certainly free to decide to accept Palestinians if they wish without having to consult with anyone else.
A "three state solution" approach resolves several issues and creates an environment where the conflict has a real chance of moving to resolution. I would like to make one final suggestion. Imagine a table with an Israeli on one side and a Palestinian on the other. Each would build up a pile to represent the injuries done by the other side to their side. Small injuries would be represented by grains of sand. There would be a lot of them on each side. Larger injuries would be represented by stones, larger stones for larger injuries. Each side would build a pile consisting of the sand and stones representing all the injuries done to their side. Each side would be able to determine how many stones or grains of sand should be put in their pile. Each side would be able to select the size of stone they thought most appropriate to represent the severity of each injury. In the end we would have a pile in front of each person.
Now each side would observe that the other pile was indeed large. And each side would observe that the other pile contained some large stones. What either side would not be permitted to do was to try to determine which pile was larger. Nor would they by permitted to challenge the size of stone the other side selected for a particular injury nor whether there was an underlying injury. There has been a lot of bad behavior on both sides. This business of arguing about who has suffered the greatest injury or who has been injured the most is not productive. What is productive is for each side to acknowledge that their side has done a lot of injury to the other side and that some of these injuries were very serious. But once this has been done, that's the appropriate point to stop the blame game.
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