The Three State Solution

Last updated on: December 27, 2016 at 2:24 pm by Jane the Actuary

The Three State Solution 2016-12-27T14:24:38-06:00 Jane the Actuary

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Yes, three states.

It goes like this:

Israel engages in land swaps to some reasonable fashion to construct defensible borders, and keeps the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem.

Egypt takes back Gaza, which it held from 1948 to 1967 anyway.

Jordan takes back the remainder of the West Bank, and the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem, which it held from 1948 to 1967.

Both these areas may be wholly incorporated or semi-autonomous, but with Egyptian and Jordanian troops, respectively, guaranteeing the security of Israel along those borders, and with the Egyptian and Jordanian governments guaranteeing that the residents of those areas, in their public television broadcasts, in their schools, and so on, teach peace, not war.

The Temple Mount/Western Wall/al-Asqa Mosque? Yeah, that’s somehow international.

Within these three sets of national borders, there are no restrictions as to the ethnicity or religion of their inhabitants. Jews retain property rights in the property they have purchased in the West Bank region, but do so as residents of Jordan. As such, Jordan grants them (and all other residents of the West Bank) citizenship on equal terms with “East Bank Jordanian” citizens, and provides for freedom of religion and guarantees their safety, as well as guarantees for the security of Jewish holy sites in the West Bank region.

In the meantime, “refugees” who have been living in “refugee camps” ever since 1948, are to be granted citizenship for the country in which they are living. Israel, in turn, accepts a fixed number of “returnees” each year, along the lines of an immigration quota, set so as to not disrupt the stability of the country. Eligibility would be based on willingness to live in peace with Jews in Israel as well as the legitimacy of the claim. Whether third, fourth, and fifth generations of descendants of refugees are included in the resettlement opportunity is another question.

Why not just give the Palestinians their own state? Israel has always said that it is willing to trade land for peace, subject to the requirement of defensible borders. So far as I can tell, the current proposal among self-proclaimed peace-brokers is to simply try to use all leverage outside military force to require Israel to withdraw from the entire West Bank region, lock, stock, and barrel, and then declare that Palestine is its own nation-state, without regard for the degree to which that state is willing to live in peace with Israel.

Given the current situation, is it really the case that, granted statehood, an entity called Palestine would truly be a peaceful neighbor to Israel, any more than is currently the case in Gaza? And given the risks to Israel’s security, wouldn’t Egypt and Jordan establishing sovereignty over these regions be a better guarantee of security than vague statements by other countries?

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