Salubrius: Three Possible Territorial/Political Solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

by Salubrius (Wallace Edward Brand)


A One (Arab Majority) State Solution

[Editor: This scenario would be impractical and patently undesirable from Israel's point of view, but Salubrius has included it as one of the three theoretical possibilities.] A one (Arab) state solution West of the Jordan could be effected by Israel's prompt annexation of Judea, Samaria and Gaza with these results:

1. The state would no longer have a Jewish population majority and its democracy would no longer have Western values. The Jews would find they were unwelcome guests in their own National Home in which they had fairly achieved a population majority and so had earned sovereignty.

2. The state with an Arab Muslim majority would adopt sharia law.

3. In the short run, there would be killings and persecution of Christians and Jews, payment of a much higher discriminatory tax by them and dhimmitude. under the pact of Umar.

4. In the long term, Christians and Jews would migrate from Palestine to the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia as the Jews did from Arab and Muslim states in the Middle East after the War of Independence in Palestine and the Christians are currently from migrating from Bethlehem, the area currently under PA control in Palestine and likely the Copts and Christians from Egypt after Mubarak..

A Two State Solution

A two state solution could occur if Israel agreed to an armistice line between it and adjacent Arab states and it were to be changed to a boundary line. This return to the so called Green Line, would actually temporarily effect a new boundary because the 1948 Armistice document at the request of Israel's opponents expressly stated that the Armistice line was NOT a boundary line.

1. According to Abbas Zaki, a member of the Fatah Central Committee, and quasi Ambassador to Lebanon, "With the two-state solution, in [his] opinion, [and he said also that of Mahmoud Abbas] Israel will collapse, because if they get out of Jerusalem, what will become of all the talk about the Promised Land and the Chosen People? What will become of all the sacrifices they made - just to be told to leave? They consider Jerusalem to have a spiritual status. The Jews consider Judea and Samaria to be their historic dream. If the Jews leave those places, the Zionist idea will begin to collapse. It will regress of its own accord. Then we will move forward.

He suggested, however, also in Arabic, that this view not be made known to the West. The end result will be one state with the loss of a Jewish majority and the substitution of sharia for Western values.

Since 1920, the motives in the Middle East have been split. Kemal Attaturk started the Turks on the path of the West and its renaissance and enlightenment to cure falling behind the West. (Very recently Erdogan is changing that.) In Egypt, Hasan al Banna, organized the Muslim Brotherhood and pushed the view that only the return to Islam as practiced by Mohammed would restore the caliphate and world leadership. With the arrival of OPEC and petrodollars in the 60s, religious jihad commenced being seen in the West in the 70s. In Palestine, it was imported much earlier by Haj Amin al Hussein, from right next door in Egypt. The Soviet dezinformatsia in 1964, [see The Soviet Roots of Terrorism] in their drafting the Charter of the PLO in Moscow, successfully disguised this motive as secular nationalism. It is well known that the first priority of Islam is to organize attacks on infidels who have gained control of any land formerly controlled by Muslims, i.e. the dar al Islam. When Arafat was criticized for negotiating with the Jews, he winked and referred to the Treaty of Huddibyiah. Instead of "Remember the Alamo, Jews should “Remember the Quraysh”. Under the two state solution some land of the dar al Islam will still be under infidel control.

2.. In the interim, much Christian and Jewish Heritage would be permanently lost. Arabs had dominion over Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem during the 19 year period between 1948 and 1967, as a result of the invasion of the British supplied and led Arab Legion that became the Army of Jordan. During that period 58,000 tombstones were destroyed in the Jewish Cemetery on the Mount of Olives, a cemetery that had been there for 4,000 years. One of the destroyed tombstones was estimated to be 1000 years old. The Israeli soldiers who liberated East Jerusalem in 1967 found that a latrine had been built against the Western Wall, the holiest site in the world for Judaism. Visits by Christians to their holy sites such as those in Bethlehem would cease.

3. In the interim there would also be much killing of Christians as in the Arabs dominated areas as there is currently in Egypt after the fall of Mubarak. In Bethlehem From the time Oslo placed the Palestinian Authority in control, there has been persecution and killings of Arab Christians and a mass emigration.

4. In the long run the result would be the same as in the one state solution. The Jews would be returned to the Diaspora in the Biblical land of the Jews. They would be unwelcome guests in their National Home and reconstituted state. Perhaps instead of Remember the Alamo, Jews should "Remember the Quraysh".

A One Lawful State Solution

A one lawful state solution would be grounded on International Law based on the San Remo Resolution of 1920. A later amendment of that resolution in 1922 is invalid because it came about as a result of the British needing to solve their political problems with the French as a result of the secret Sykes-Picot agreement. That agreement divided the former Ottoman Empire lands captured by the WWI Allies into spheres of influence. Syria was allocated to the French. Britain, in de facto control following the end of the war, placed one of King Hussein's son, Feisal on the throne of Syria. The French deposed him after the battle of Maysalun. Abdullah, Feisal's brother marched his army up to East Palestine and readied for battle with the French. Winston Churchill gave the throne of Iraq to Feisal and East Palestine, east of the Jordan River, called "TransJordan" to Abdullah and his Hashemite tribe.

In accepting the responsibilities of trustee of the exclusive political rights granted by the WWI Allies at San Remo in 1920, the British accepted a fiduciary responsibility in its trusteeship. Its grant of what some have estimated to be more than some three quarters of the trust res to Abdullah and his Hashemite Tribe of Arabs to solve its political problems with France was therefore in breach of its fiduciary responsibility to the trust beneficiary, the Jews. However a lawful representative of the Jews, the government of Israel in return for a quitclaim on Jordan's rights West of the River Jordan, gave the country now called Jordan, a quitclaim to all the land East of the Jordan River. So the Jews now only held political rights to CisJordan, or the land of Palestine West of the Jordan River.

Currently, under the Oslo agreement, the Palestinian Authority holds Judea and Samaria and the terrorist organization [PLO]; Hamas holds Gaza.

A one lawful state solution could be achieved in this way and would have this result:

1. Israel would immediately annex only Judea and Samaria. This would not result in the loss of a Jewish population majority. In fact, Israel would still have a comfortable majority. That is because it has been determined that the PA has been overstating the Arab population if Judea and Samaria, likely so as to increase their welfare claims from the UNRWA. Would this change in time because of a greater Arab birth rate as compared with that of the Jews? No. That assumption that the Arab birth rate is greater is not based on fact. The much lower infant mortality rate in the Arab population, as a result of Jewish medicine being available to them, has resulted in a drop in the Arab birth rate. However many orthodox Jewish families have an extremely large number of children so as to make up for all the loss of Jewish life, one third of all Jews, lost in the Holocaust. Families with eight or ten children are not unusual.

2. The next step would be to retake Gaza. The continued firing of rockets, missiles and mortar shells at Israel is a casus belli as well as a war crime. It is a war crime because the rockets cannot be aimed accurately so that their firing indiscriminately targets both Israeli military and civilians. That would justify Israel retaking the Gaza Strip that it had pulled out of in 2005. A second justification arises from the conditions of the tacit agreement between Israel and the Arabs local to Gaza. That was that if the Jews pulled out of their area, also withdrew all of Israel's citizens, the Arabs would quit attacking Israel with rockets, missiles and mortar shells. There was failure of consideration because not only did the rockets not stop, they increased.

3. In the interim, Israel could then provide the Gazans with a form of Home Rule. They would have a local government with complete internal control over Gaza but with Israeli remaining in control of external affairs. The one exception would be Israel's control over elections in Gaza. Gaza would be forbidden to permit elections in which terrorist candidates or parties could be elected. Would this satisfy the requirements of the mandate to preserve the civil rights of the non-Jews. Yes, it would. The mandate preserved rights of the non-Jews. It did not create any for them. In fact the French process-verbal stated that their understanding of the effect of the Mandate was that the non-Jews would not surrender any of their rights. The other Allies agreed to that meaning. The Arabs in Gaza had theretofore been colonized and occupied and ruled for 400 years by the Turks from Istanbul. The Arabs in Gaza had never been permitted to vote on Turkish Caliphate policy. They would not be surrendering anything by the establishing of Home Rule. In the long run, it could be a very long time, when Jewish population resulted in a comfortable Jewish majority in all of CisJordan, Israel could then annex it and award citizenship to those, Arab Muslims and Christians, and Jews willing to swear fealty to the Jewish nation-state of Israel. The rest could remain as permanent residents or compensated to leave. The fine details are left to other minds better than mine.

Please note this is suggested as an available solution for Israeli consideration. I think the Israeli are the ones who take the risks of any solution and therefore are the ones who should decide. But this solution is not only suggested, it is recommended.

Salubrius (Wallace Edward Brand) is a retired lawyer. He worked for several government agencies, among which were the Federal Power Commission and the Antitrust Division of the US Department of Justice. He also had a private practice representing small non profit utilities against large established utilities. As a result of the attacks on 9/11, he has become an activist against terrorism.

Salubrius wishes to credit Mr. Salomon Benzimra for his help in preparing the article. Mr. Benzimra was born in Morocco and currently lives in Toronto. He studied at the Sorbonne and wrote The Jewish People's Rights to the Land of Israel, a book on the San Remo Resolution.

Source: http://israelagainstterror.blogspot.com/

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.