The peace process didn’t die with Rabin. It was killed by Mahmoud Abbas when he rejected Ehud Olmert’s proposed peace settlement in 2008. This included:
- A sovereign Palestinian state within the pre-1967 borders, with the exception of a few of the larger existing Jewish settlement blocks in the West Bank, amounting to ~5% of the overall territory.
- Suitable land swaps from the Israeli side to compensate for the missing 5%.
- All other Jewish settlements in the West Bank to be dismantled.
- A protected road connection under Palestinian control between the West Bank and Gaza.
- Palestinian sovereignty over Arab Jerusalem as the capital of the Palestinian state.
- All Jerusalem holy sites to be placed under international sovereignty with freedom of access for worshippers.
This is what Abbas walked away from, without so much as a negotiating counteroffer. That was the point at which even the Israeli pacifist Left gave up in despair.
If I were King Solomon called upon to split this baby, I would propose substantially the Olmert plan above, with the following added provisions:
- Citizens of both states free to reside anywhere in either.
- Citizens vote in their own polity of citizenship (Jews for the Israeli government, Arabs for the Palestinian), regardless of residence.
- A joint Citizens’ Bill of Rights guaranteeing full civil rights and equal protection of the laws to all in both countries.
- Existing Arab citizens of Israel may choose to retain Israeli citizenship or change it for Palestinian, regardless of residence.
- Jerusalem to remain undivided, under joint sovereignty as the capital of both states. Details of local governance and municipal services to be decided; probably some sort of borough system.
Call it the “Two States in One Land” solution. This would allow Palestinians their “right of return” to ancestral lands in Israel without upsetting the demographics of the Jewish state; it would allow Jewish religious zealots who insist on living in Abraham’s Hebron to do so while retaining Israeli citizenship on Palestinian soil. Something like this could at least serve as a starting basis for negotiation, if only the Palestinians were more willing to negotiate than they have ever shown themselves to be.
