Israel Fuguemann/SOPA Images/Sipa USA via AP Images
View of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Western Wall within the Old City of Jerusalem, November 10, 2023
What’s happening in Israel-Palestine is an immense tragedy. We all know that thousands of defenseless civilians have been killed, the vast majority of them Gazans. Many more have been wounded and emotionally scarred. Hundreds of thousands have been displaced from their homes on both sides, bringing the likelihood of a humanitarian crisis in Gaza and a lesser, but still severe, social crisis in Israel.
As if that weren’t enough, marauding settlers have killed many Palestinians in the West Bank and taken their lands. Israeli Arabs have been summarily arrested and fired from their jobs. Protests, and even banal forms of anti-war sentiment, have been put under pressure by police crackdowns. This threatens the real but precarious beachheads of coexistence that have been built in recent years. Yet the Israeli left is forced to tread lightly, pairing expressions of opposition to the war with demands to prioritize release of the hostages held by Hamas.
Israel-Palestine has been a troubled land for a very long time. Yet this year alone, it has been shaken to its core twice: first by months of mass demonstrations against attempts by its far-right governing coalition to undercut democracy and the rule of law, and second, by Hamas’s unspeakable attack. These two events could very well lead to a truly fascistic Israeli government that would enact horrific ethnic cleansing across the occupied territories. More likely, they will lead to an inconclusive cease-fire, a shuffling in leadership, and a waiting game until the next outburst of violence.
From the bottom to the top, the conflict worries a great many people in many countries. The huge protests for Palestine across the world attest to that reality, no less than the Biden administration’s startlingly decisive military and diplomatic reaction to the conflict. A wider regional war is a distinct possibility, as deadly clashes along the Lebanese and Syrian borders occur daily, rattling the entire Middle East. Were that to happen, energy supplies could become constrained and prices could soar worldwide.
But the double crisis also opens a unique opportunity to move in another direction. Hard as it is to see the way through the pervasive miasma of fear and rage, there may finally be a real impulse for the United States, Europe, and the Arab states to seek a genuine solution, and some potential guides for where that might go.
Over the past decade, a group of Palestinian and Israeli scholars, journalists, and activists have crafted a joint plan for a just and viable future. Called a “A Land for All,” it begins from the premise that the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea is one land with two peoples who will always endure, because each cherishes the profound connections to their shared homeland.
The proposal, in its essence, is to create two distinct states within a confederal system offering complete freedom of movement to all. This will allow refugee Palestinians to return, if not precisely to their old lands then near to them, while Jewish settlers can remain on their land under Palestinian governance. The plan envisions Jerusalem as a capital district for both states and for the confederal institutions to manage common issues, including security and key questions pertaining to water rights, macroeconomic policy, and the like.
The first and indispensable step must be to remove Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from power as soon as possible.
In addition, there will be just restitution for those Palestinians who cannot realistically reclaim their homes and for those Jews who were expelled from Muslim countries and forced to leave their property behind. Finally, each state will be democratic and committed to principles of equality in accordance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
It’s an elegant solution and a beautiful idea. Is it remotely possible? Certainly not now, perhaps never. But it is nevertheless critically important to begin discussing what a just and sane future could look like. This is essential because without a plausible destination, it will be impossible to rebuild the constituencies for peace that will have to fight, tooth and nail, against the forces of Jewish and Muslim supremacy. And for this to happen, people must believe that there is a future in which living side by side will once again be possible. A Land for All is as good a starting point as any for addressing the concrete issues at stake, and for legitimizing the principles of cooperative coexistence. Its confederal framework does precisely this, communicating the idea of coexistence while assuring each side the right to democratic self-governance and an avenue for solving mutual problems.
No one should be under any illusions. The terrain is treacherous in the extreme. Yet with a thoughtful set of confederal principles as points of orientation, it is possible to begin plotting a way through. The first and indispensable step must be to remove Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from power as soon as possible. The roots of the troubles in Israel-Palestine go far deeper than a single individual. Nevertheless, Netanyahu has proven himself a uniquely malignant figure. His political talents, selfish nature, and bigoted assumptions have divided both the Palestinian and Israeli people, allowing the most violent and chauvinistic elements in each society to wield power. This has left everyone in the land more insecure than they have been since 1948.
Netanyahu’s removal and permanent exile from politics is a concrete and achievable goal; indeed, a majority of Israelis oppose his leadership. But removal alone will not succeed in reaching this goal. It must be followed by a rebuilding of the Israeli left and a shifting of the Jewish-Israeli center toward a belief that coexistence is possible and, ultimately, the only way. A good intermediate goal is the formation of an Israeli governing coalition that will include, for the first time, Arab parties within it, including Arab ministers with portfolios. A country like Israel that is already utterly reliant for its medical care on Arabs, who provide 40 percent of the national health staff, must allow Arabs to hold positions of national administrative authority.
To get to such a point, it will be necessary to drive a wedge between the moderate and far right, so that the latter can be isolated politically. One of the crucial points here is to cut off the massive government subsidies that empower the far right well beyond its numbers, and make those funds available for a renewal of the Israeli welfare state along universal lines.
These steps are easy to lay out in a general way. Their actual realization will obviously be incredibly hard. Here in America, we can help with some inside-outside tactics. While protesters in the street are doing the outside part, the inside is, as far as I can tell, bereft of vision and plan.
A Land for All—and the confederal idea more broadly—offers a thoughtful proposal around which scholars, journalists, activists, policymakers, diplomats, and even high-level political figures can generate fruitful discussion. We must bring these ideas to wider awareness, which can be done by simply engaging with the brave Palestinians and Israelis who have watched with broken hearts as conditions deteriorated catastrophically over 15 years of Netanyahu’s and Hamas’s codependent rule, yet committed themselves all the more toward working together and charting a just and viable future, a path toward a homeland for all.
