The Three State Solution

There is a desperate need for a third way in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The two-state solution as currently formulated is dead because the extremes on both sides of the conflict reject it and have enough strength to foil any attempt to bring it about. Plus, Israel has legitimate reason to believe that any independent Palestinian state would ultimately be a violently hostile neighbor to Israel.

At the same time, a one state solution is also unworkable because it would either lead to a majority Palestinian democracy that would undermine the Jewish character of the Israeli state, which would be unacceptable to the Jewish people. Or, to prevent that scenario, Israel would establish Palestinians as second-class citizens without full rights to participate in Israel’s democracy, which would be unacceptable to Palestinians.

The two-state solution is still the more workable of the two ideas, but it’s clear that creating two states is not enough by itself. Establishing borders and a Palestinian sovereignty by itself likely wouldn’t end rocket and terrorist attacks against Israel or the inevitable incursions and over-the-top reprisals by Israel in response. It wouldn’t end these things because it wouldn’t do anything to even begin to end the animosity between the two peoples or bring them closer to a willingness to accept each other’s existence. Nor would it root out Hamas. Everything would just start all over again under somewhat different legal structures. The truth is that establishing two states wouldn’t be the end…