Israel & Palestine: Why The Two-State Solution Is Doomed

The geopolitics wonks of today's NGOs and foreign services have a fetish for two-state solutions. Whenever there are two (or more) ethnic groups that happen to unhappily share a state, the wonks' solution is always to take the same approach as American family courts: split the home, split the assets, give Mommy the house and Daddy the car, send the kids to whomever appears best able to care for them (or has more public support).

The British Raj was split into India and Pakistan. Cyprus into Turkish and Greek halves. Czecho-slovakia, into Slovakia and the Czech Republic. East Timor and Eritea were amputated from Indonesia and Ethiopia. The USSR and Yugoslavia were, well, Balkanized.

Surely, a happy ending awaited the previously unhappily married ethnic groups.
But it never quite works out that way.

There are some pretty solid general trends that can be observed in human history. One is that bigger countries, which benefit from diverse populations, economy of scale, and sheer size and momentum, tend to do better in the long run. (The obvious exception, Switzerland, owes its continued survival and success to impassable terrain, a highly stable and conservative society, and constant influx of foreign capital from its banking industry).

Another is that any viable nation must ultimately forge a national identity strong enough to withstand not only ethnic feuds, but also political quarrels. It is easy to forget that almost every Western nation was forged from disparate tribes, kingdoms, states, localities, etc, through a combination of force and diplomacy. The Magna Carta, the Articles of Confederation, the machinations of Bismarck, watersheds in this process.

Ultimately, the problem with these unhappy marriages is not an surplus of ethnic sentiment, but a deficit of political loyalty. The wonks' fetish for splitting countries is equivalent to an incompetent cook carving the turkey before he cooks it.

The basic political and economic problems - and the inability of extremists to reconcile their religious or ethnic sentiments with the secular needs of a modern state - are in no way corrected by partition. In fact the problems are now compounded by the guaranteed presence of an incorrigibly hostile neighbor who believes itself to have rightful claim to at least some of the other's land and resources. And so goes the same sad story, every time...military dictatorship, petty wars, economic weakness, foreign dependence, "the road to nowhere".

The Israeli and Palestinians peoples need not be natural enemies, it is said. Very true. Yet this begs the question: if the two peoples need not be natural enemies, then why has the peace process met with such difficulty? After all, surely it is only the extremists on both sides who desire to continue of the long conflict? Yes, it is so; but rather than fight the good fight against those extremists, the partition promises to give them free reign, and guarantee unremitting hostility between the two new nations.
So - is there a better alternative? Yes, there is - from Jewish history, no less.

The ancient Hebrews called themselves, "The Twelve Tribes", after the sons of Joseph. The historical truth is, those tribes represented serious political challenges to the survival of the Jewish people - divisions that, over time, became less relevant than questions of sectarianism and national origin.
The system of collective representation settled by Moses directly parallels the Roman comitia tributa (Tribal Assembly), which, too, provided structure to Roman society in its early years, before being superseded by considerations of class, the British House of Lords, and the American bicameral legislature.

The lesson is clear. Representative political systems, that provide a balance between headcount and ethnos, can, over time, provide a scaffolding on which to build a strong and stable national identity.

Israel's Arab policies in the last 60 years has had two main objectives:

1. Ensure the physical security of the State of Israel through military superiority and control of buffer zones
2. Ensure the political security of the State of Israel through undermining Palestinian political unity from without and effective representation from within

Now, the goal of these policies - the security of the State of Israel - is only right and reasonable. The problem is, like all ethnic squabbles, the approach leads Israel down the Road To Nowhere.

If nothing else, it ensures that Israelis will continue to "earn Greek salaries, and pay Swiss prices".

Israel continues to expend US$15B on its military annually. In a nation of eight million individuals, this represents a per capita expenditure of almost US$2,000 annually, or an eighth of the per capita GDP. The expenditure is so great, that the cost of feeding, clothing, housing and defending each and every Palestinian between Gaza and Amman, would amount to only a fraction of these expenditures.

Israel's arguments against political integration of the Palestinians are twofold:

1. Israeli Jews are outnumbered by Palestinians by about a 2:1 ratio
2. Enfranchising the Palestinians will empower a Palestinian "Fifth Column"

These concerns are valid. Yet they ignore three important facts.

First, Israel is guaranteed a demographic nightmare if the Palestinians are excluded. Ultra-orthodox Jews - the Haredi - average about ten children per couple, managing a 6% annual growth rate, while birth rates for mainstream Israeli Jews are in line with those of Europeans and Americans, with a 1.5% annual growth rate.

Today, the ultra-Orthodox - who do not pay taxes, who do not serve in the IDF, who are supported by state benefits their whole lives and who are typically the most hawkish - today make up about 8% of Israel's population. In twenty years, the Haredi will make up 20%; in fifty years, they will make up over half, and in a century - well, no one dares think that far ahead.

It would be incorrect to say that mainstream Israeli Jews and Palestinians share "a common enemy". It would be correct to say that mainstream Israeli Jews, Israeli Haredi Jews, and Palestinians, share a common interest. The three groups have different visions for Judaea: a modern Israel, a pious Israel, and a just Israel. Interests that ultimately complement each other. A Knesset balanced between liberal Jews, Haredi and Palestinian Arabs is a much more palatable thought for any sensible person, than a Knesset starkly divided between Haredi and secularist, forever glancing over the border towards an all-Arab Palestine.

Second, Demonsthenes' admonishment to "keep your friends close, but keep your enemies closer", although a bit harsh, applies. Removing the Palestinians from the Israeli political system will ultimately empower extreme nationalists on both sides. Losing a vote in a half-Palestinian Knesset is ultimately less fearful than Hamas getting a supermajority in a Palestinian legislature.

A partition of Judaea will allow powerful outsiders - both economic competitors, Europe, Russia and the US, as well as regional rivals - to mercilessly pit the two Balkanized states against each other. Why give an Israeli a job when an impoverished Palestinian across the border will work for food? How big a TV do Palestinians think their dinars will buy against Israeli shekels?

Third, the integration of the Palestinians is essential to Israel maintaining its identity as a Jewish state. Without ethnic contrast, Israeli Jews will inevitably fall into ennui and apostacy, just like every other religiously homogenous nation. Religious extremists will become the face of religion in an increasingly secularized society, and will ultimately destroy public confidence in Judaism, just as has happened in most modern secular nations.

The Haredi are completely correct in their belief that an unchallenged secular society is a mortal threat to Jewish piety. The Jewish faith owes its survival and success to constant challenge from outsiders - as Bernard Malamud observed, "If you ever forget that you're a Jew, a goy will remind you." The successful integration of the Palestinians into Israel will ultimately not only head off Jewish religious extremism, but ensure the long-term survival and success of mainstream secular Judaism.

So, how could this be accomplished?

Ethnic squabbles are very rarely about ethnic issues. Most often, ethnic issues are strawmen for the machinations of the rich, the powerful, and the unscrupulous - land developers, terrorist leaders, military contractors, religious bigots, demagogues of all sorts.

The Palestinians and the Jews must commit to an equitable sharing of the limited resources of the area - as well as long-term plans to cultivate and increase those resources. The sharing must take into account both the numerical superiority of the Palestinians, as well as the need to preserve overall balance between the two sides.

Moses, not Marx, is instructive here.

I would propose extending IDF conscription to Palestinians, and distributing the Palestinians alongside secular Jews in conscript companies. Company captains, however, should be equally divided between Arabs and Jews, and a central military committee comprised of equal numbers of Arab and Jewish captains should have a preponderance of authority over military concerns.

These captains should be well-paid, serve 20-year terms, appoint their successors (subject to ratification by a majority of the council), be responsible for the security of a district on land, and the cultivation of a portion of Israel's territorial waters - the laying of kelp fields, oyster and shrimp farms (which, forbidden by kosher and halal laws alike, would have to be traded for foreign currency, giving the captains money, power, and a stake in the survival and success of the government).

In this way, a military aristocracy would be formed, similar to that previously existing in Prussia or Japan, that would have a strong personal and financial incentive to ensure the security and stability of the Israeli state, and the quashing of any ethnic feuds. Like most such aristocracies, the Council of Captains would likely evolve into a reactionary body that would provide an better balance to Israel's notoriously unstable democracy than its shady relationship with IDF/Mossad insiders.

Like the Iron Curtain, the walls dividing Judaea must come down. Jew and Arab must learn to live alongside each other. To that end, in addition to conscription, every year, the IDF should move one out of every hundred Jewish families from their neighborhood, and transplant them into a majority Arab district, and do the same to an Arab family. The matches should be defined by percentile rating of household wealth compared to members of the same ethnic group - a Jewish family at the 55th percentile for Israeli Jews would be uprooted and replaced by an Arab family at the 55th percentile for Arabs.

Haredi would be exempt from this arrangement. In this way, wealth would gradually be equalized, and a Israeli Palestinian majority would coexist with a Israeli Jewish "center of gravity".
Finally, and perhaps most controversially, minarets should be built all over Israel, and all non-Haredi Jews should be required to answer the salah, the call to prayer, five times a day, just as Muslims do, but in their own synagogues, with Jewish prayer, and in Hebrew. (Or, if they prefer, they can just watch Jewish movies or plays). Again, in this way, the Haredi would keep the Jewish faith stable, while contrast with the Palestinians reminds every Israeli Jew that he is a Jew.

Some might see this as a bastardization of the Jewish faith with Muslim traditions. But we must remember that the Jewish faith as it exists today is itself the product of many influences from other cultures. Extreme monotheism (the belief in one God, rather than the belief in the one true God) only came about via cultural cross-pollination with Zoroastrianism during the Babylonian Exile. The tale of Samson was conceived by way of contact with the Selucid Greeks and their tale of Heracles. Most Ashkenazi Jews identify the jelly donut as an ethnic food to their liking, but (as President Kennedy learned, to his bemusement), it was originally known as the berliner, a German delicacy. All these influences peacefully coalesced with Jewish traditions, because although they were novel, none were forbidden.


Finally, Jerusalem should become a free city, directly administrated by the Council of Captains, while being (on paper) the capital of the State of Israel. The State should have a monopoly on the sale of food and lodging within its walls, with all citizens of the City receiving free food and lodging, and tourists being made to pay extortionate rates in dollars or euro only. The Council of Captains should receive a large share of these receipts as their privy purse, while the rest ought to subsidize aggressive building programs to increase Israel's supply of land and water, by building Chinese junks, tree farms, and artificial lakes.

All this could be possible with the sponsorship of American Jews. If you like these ideas - please - talk about them with your friends.

"Opinions are like glaciers. You stand on them, they seem solid enough. But if they didn't move, the whole Western would would still be covered in ice."