The results of President Trump’s decision to recognize
Jerusalem as the capital of Israel have included a clash between Palestinian
protestors and Israeli troops, with two Palestinian deaths [1];
a statement by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas saying that the United
States is no longer qualified to sponsor the Israeli-Palestinian peace process [2];
and a rebuke from 14 members of the United Nations Security Council. [3]
Now the Israelis have been treating Jerusalem as their
capital for some time now. It is where their Knesset and Supreme Court sit. [4]
Up until now, everyone else has been pretending that it’s not really their
capital due to historical considerations.
“When the United Nations voted to divide British Mandatory
Palestine in 1948, it intended two states to emerge: Israel and an
Arab-Palestinian state. Jerusalem – with its mixed, Jewish-Arab population and
an essential place in the history and belief systems of Christians, Muslims and
Jews the world over – was not to belong to either state. Rather, the UN
proposed that the city be administered by an international regime, until the
time when Israelis and Palestinians could agree on an equitable and permanent
arrangement for sharing it.” [5] That was
the idea, anyway. Alas, the Israelis and the Palestinians haven’t been able to
agree on much of anything.
Complicating matters is the fact that the Palestinians want
Jerusalem to be the capital of their own country, once one emerges. Former “Palestinian
Authority minister Ziad AbuZayyad” has “explained…that ‘without Jerusalem as
its capital, there won’t be a Palestinian state and there won’t be a two-state
solution.’” And Palestinian negotiator and spokesperson Saeb Erekat has made it
clear that “’there will be no Palestinian state without Jerusalem and its
capital.’”
And there we have presented before us the essence of the
Israeli-Palestinian dispute: the Palestinian irresistible force keeps running
into the Israeli immovable object, and nothing ever gets resolved. The more you
talk to both sides, the more you come away with the feeling that they both want
everything. So, the only solution is to give it to them.
A nation that allows freedom of religion for all, with equal
protection and due process for all, shouldn’t sound like such a radical idea.
But somehow all sorts of apple carts tip over when you bring it up in connection
with the Israel-Palestine controversy. Instead, the operating paradigm is what
is called a “two-state solution,” the borders of which cannot be agreed on,
with the representatives of both states demanding the same city for their
capital; and no serious progress is ever made. So unless we’re going to keep
doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result, in
accordance with the proverb, we are going to have to try something different: a
one-state solution.
Under this plan the idea of dividing up historic Palestine
would be abandoned. All of Israel and the occupied territories would be
recognized as belonging to the single nation, and everyone living within its
borders, Israelis or Palestinians, or members of any other group, would be
citizens with equal rights and the right to vote. Naturally, there would be
complete freedom of religion. Then Jerusalem could be the capital, and no one
would complain.
It really seems like such an obvious idea that one wonders
what would be the arguments against it.
