There are other internal contradictions. For example, after undergoing naturalization and swearing loyalty, would Palestinians be expected or allowed to serve in the IDF? More likely they would reject the naturalization process out of hand, leading to continued, possibly violent sectarian struggle, with Palestinians arguing in the international arena that Israel was simply perpetuating its occupation under another name.
Israel would almost certainly be blamed for any ongoing conflict, find itself open to further delegitimization, facing growing economic sanctions and pressed by the international community to move toward one-man-one-vote with no strings attached, leading eventually to Palestinian majority rule. The very nightmare scenario the two-state solution is meant to avoid.Other right-wingers are more circumspect. Acknowledging that the one-state solution would threaten Israel’s Jewish majority and humanitarian standing, Economics Minister Naftali Bennett proposes a seven-point plan for managing, not solving, the conflict. Under what the Bayit Yehudi leader calls the “Israel Stability Initiative,” the government would annex area C, which accounts for 61 percent of the West Bank, and contains virtually all the 300,000 plus Jewish settlers and only 50-100,000 Palestinians. The relatively few Palestinians in area C would get full civil rights in Israel without it making any significant demographic difference; the remaining two and half million would get full autonomy under the Palestinian Authority in the remaining 39 percent of the land. There would be a free flow of people and goods throughout the West Bank and massive investment to promote coexistence. Israel would retain full security control of the West Bank and no Palestinian refugees would be allowed to return to any part of the land.But like the one-state solution, Bennett’s plan would be strongly opposed by the Palestinians and the international community. After all that has happened since Oslo, no one would agree to the Palestinians getting only 40 percent of the land; moreover, in irreversibly annexing area C, the “Stability Initiative” undermines any chance of a viable Palestine at peace with Israel in a two-state paradigm.To avoid some of these inherent pitfalls, Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon, the newly elected chairman of the Likud Central Committee, proposes what he calls the “Three State Solution,” involving Israel, Jordan and Egypt. In this variation, Israel annexes area C, with the remaining 40 percent going to Jordan, and Gaza reverting to Egypt. For Danon, the big advantage of his plan is that there would be no Palestinian state. But that is precisely its biggest weakness – because it ensures that there would be no takers among the Palestinians, the Jordanians, the Egyptians or the international community.
A far more sophisticated proposal involving Jordan and Egypt by Maj.-Gen. (res.) Giora Eiland, a former national security adviser, was first outlined in the run-up to the 2005 Gaza withdrawal. Eiland argues that for many reasons the two-state solution is a pipedream that cannot be realized. The parties are too far apart and even if they could agree, the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean is too small to accommodate two viable states. Eiland also maintains that an interim solution like the Bennett proposal is not feasible – because the Palestinians would never accept it; nor is it in the Israeli interest – because international pressure on Israel to make further withdrawals towards the June 4, 1967 lines in a fixed time frame would become intolerable.So he proposes two regional solutions, in both cases increasing the available land.A Jordanian-Palestinian Federation – The central government would be in Amman, and the West Bank, Gaza and Transjordan would be federal states along the lines of the US model. In such an arrangement, the Palestinian entities aligned with Jordan would be more viable than in the two-state model, and Israel would be able to annex more West Bank territory because it would not be at the expense of a single small Palestinian state.Territorial exchange involving Egypt, Israel and Palestine – In this model, Egypt transfers 720 sq. kms. in Sinai to Gaza, tripling its size. Palestine cedes 12 percent (around 720 sq. kms.) of the West Bank to Israel. Israel cedes 720 sq. kms. to Egypt in the Paran region of the southwest Negev. Israel authorizes the building of a tunnel in the Negev joining Egypt to Jordan, giving Egypt an outlet to the Red Sea and a direct land route to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf.The obvious problem with all this is that it is most unlikely that the Jordanians, Egyptians or Palestinians would be ready to countenance anything like either of these options or any combination of the two. What this shows is that for all its so-called “out-of-the-box” thinking, the right has been unable to come up with any practical proposals. On the contrary, on the face of it, its plans seem more like self-delusional recipes for self-inflicted disaster.Despite all its inherent difficulties, the two-state paradigm remains the only feasible game in town. With Kerry on the brink of getting talks restarted, Peres is simply urging Israelis to give it their best shot.It is not a case of a president overshooting his brief and interfering in politics as his critics on the right suggest; rather it is a case of a highly experienced and deeply concerned statesman warning his people of the existential consequences of failure to rise to the occasion. He would have been remiss not to.