Israel-Palestine: The Conflict With No Solution
In a land full of bloodshed, discrimination, and hatred, it is hard to imagine that there will ever be peace between the Palestinians and Israelis in the land of Israel-Palestine, but there has to be a solution, right? Or is the conflict doomed to continue until one side ceases to exist? While there are many ideas flying around about how to settle the problem, there are two major proposals to resolve the fighting occurring in the land: a one-state solution and a two-state solution. Unfortunately, the two plans are far from perfect.
First, I want to explain how the country is currently set up. The land of Israel-Palestine consists of a Jewish state, Israel, which is recognized by the UN as a sovereign entity, and a Palestinian section, which is split in two by the Jewish state. The Palestinians are not seen as Israeli citizens and do not receive the same rights as the Israelis. The Palestinian territory claims its own state-hood but many countries, including Israel, do not recognize it as a separate state. For a more in-depth look at the conflict, Thomson Reuters Foundation News provides a great summary.
The first solution I will look at is the “one state” solution in which there is one singular government over all of the land where all of the people are equal citizens. This solution seems unlikely because there are so many people against it and even if everyone was for it, there are many disagreements on how it would be run. From my experience talking with Israeli citizens, many that prefer this solution would have no problem with the sections of Palestine to be absorbed into the State of Israel but some Palestinians won’t consider this and will only accept a Palestinian state. Corey Gil-Shuster, an Israeli citizen who interviews Israelis and Palestinians and asks for their thoughts on different topics, has a video where he asks an Palestinian man named Ahmad what he thinks the solution should be. He states that it should be a “one-state” solution and that it must be Palestine. Unfortunately, for many Palestinians, this solution also includes the expulsion of Jews from the land. In Alan Dershowitz’s book “The Case for Israel” he explains how, even from the beginning, the Jews could not accept Muslim rule over them because the Muslim leaders “made it clear that most of the Jews would be transferred out of Palestine if the Muslims gained complete control” (47).
The second solution that has been proposed is the “two-state solution”. This solution suggests that the people should establish two different states, one Israeli/Jewish state and one Palestinian state. Personally, this is the solution that I think has the most promise. With this solution, the different sides would be able to govern themselves and would separate groups of people that seem unable to get along. For many people on both sides though, this is unacceptable. Many Palestinian’s, including the Hamas group, an organization who’s goal is to see Israel destroyed and a completely Palestinian state established, will not accept any compromise. Jeffery Goldberg, a columnist for the Bloomberg View, puts it perfectly in his article “Seven Truth About Israel, Hamas and Violence” when he says “It is impossible for Israel to do serious business with an organization that wishes it dead.” Also, it is not as if the people of both sides are geographically separated already; their are Jews spread throughout the Palestinian territories and there man Palestinians and Muslims spread throughout Israel. It would be very difficult to make boundary lines that both states would agree with.
The answer the solution is not as simple as it seems. In the end, there is no perfect resolution. Regardless, for there to be any solution there has to be compromise for both sides, something that does not currently seem very likely. Nevertheless, something needs to happen soon before it is too late.
