An impossible plan for peace in Palestine

I’ve been learning more and more about the history of the region, and I am by no mean an expert. I am not Palestinian. I am not Israeli.

I am however, capable of analyzing information and theorizing on possible outcomes based on a limited set of knowledge. So please, don’t hate me.

The information below will be flawed. I do not have all of your combined knowledge. Whatever plan I could come up with will not please everyone, it’s impossible in this conflict.

I share my concept here in case it may help guide discussions and partially de-escalate the situation by at least providing one possible solution.

The basis of my understanding:

1. Palestinians have been displaced, ignored, oppressed and unfairly treated by the International community, and by the Israeli government.
2. The Jewish people have suffered for time immemorial and had to relocate throughout the ages.
3. The first and second world wars were especially horrible for Jews.
4. The establishment of Israel caused irreparable harm to Palestine.
5. There is no other way to characterize the attack of October 7th than as an act of terror.
6. There is no other way to characterize the Israeli occupation of Palestine than an Apartheid.
7. Israeli civilians have suffered casualties and acts of terror from extremists since the establishment of Israel.
8. Palestinians and Israeli are all humans, and should all have equal rights to live in peace and establish their own governments.
9. In almost every context in which a group of people is oppressed extremism will flourish.

I will not try to cover the full history of the Jewish people or the history of Palestine nor Israel; suffice to say that all suffered atrocities and trying to established who suffered more is an exercise doomed to fail.

Peace will never be fair

Having established that all sides have suffered atrocities, sometime directly from each other sometime via previous historical contexts, and sometime via external third-parties, it becomes nearly impossible to find a solution that would be found “fair” by all sides, almost impossible even if we considered even just one side.

If we want any hope of peace, all sides will have to accept an unfair solution.

Assuming that we could magically make Israel disappear and return all of the original Palestine to Palestinians, we couldn’t possibly erase all the deaths and suffering that has been caused.

Similarly, assuming that Palestinians would willingly allow Israel to peacefully take over the entirety of Palestine it wouldn’t either erase the deaths and suffering of Israeli.

Given that either extreme solution cannot be fair, is there a way we can find peace with minimum casualties?

Definitions

In the text below I will use “Palestinian authorities” to represent any current or future political authority operating within Palestine, regardless of their past history and current international classifications.

I use “Jews” and “Jewish” to represent the adherence to a religion and not as a territorial designation.

The 50-year plan

It would be foolish to assume that peace in the region can be solved in one year, or even ten years. There is an imbalance of military power in the region, extremists in Israel and Palestine, and too much recent pain and suffering to fully co-exists peacefully, at the moment.

Given enough time, and slowly building mutual respect, I believe we can achieve relatively peaceful resolution over two generations, or roughly 50 years.

1. It starts with all countries acknowledging that wrongs have been done by both sides over time; without actually putting clear definitions of which events were wrong throughout history. Just everyone agreeing that both sides have been hurt to a point where Israel and Palestine can’t agree to peace by themselves.
2. All countries agreeing that peaceful civilians exists in Israel and in Palestine. Recognition that violence and oppression increase extremism.
3. International media actually making an effort to comprehensively understand the conflict and equally represent both sides. This will be terribly difficult and will require specific guidelines to be established and effort by all respective countries to enforce their media outlet to present fair coverage.
4. Full retraction of all Israeli troops and authority presence from all Palestinian territory and full retraction of all Israeli settlers on Palestinian soil as per the 1947 UN treaty.
5. Establishment of UN provided security forces on all frontiers between Israel and Palestine. Israel cannot and shall not be enforcing borders or enforce any authority or control over Palestinians.
6. Complete and immediate release of all Palestinian prisoners from Israeli prisons to be transferred to their respective Palestinian authorities with their case re-trialed by their local authorities. Any and all proof of guilt shall be transferred from Israeli to the local Palestinian authorities under international supervision.
7. Complete and immediate release of all hostages in the custody of Palestinian authorities.
8. Cooperation from Palestinian authorities, under international supervision, to investigate any rocket or attack perpetrated against Israel after the retreat of Israeli forces.
9. Cooperation from Israel to not retaliate to any rocket attack or any other act of terror and instead defer the matter to the Palestinian authorities to investigate via coordination from the international community.
10. Criminals responsible for attacks will be fairly judged in their respective country under international supervision and all parties agree to provide all the evidence and to respect the outcome of the trial.
11. All countries actively prohibiting hate speech.
12. International community support to establish Palestinian controlled electric and water facilities, and establishment of International communication fully under the control of the Palestinian authorities.

This status quo and international supervision would have to be maintained for at least two generations. I believe the current grievances on either side to be too raw and severe, with too much accumulated pain, to be able to forget and respect each other within 50 years.

My reasoning

Assuming that Israeli can live within their current borders without feeling threatened, the resentment would subside, and with the help of the International community, any sporadic act of terror caused by extremism from Palestine would be handled and over time disappear. However this can only happen if Israel respect that the International community and the Palestinian authorities can investigate and judge the guilty parties.

Similarly, Palestinian would be allowed to thrive without the oppression of Israel. While they wouldn’t be able to recover the land they lost, they would be able to stabilize their government over time and gain international recognition.

Given both sides establishing ground rules for handling of legal cases and investigations, mutual respect could eventually be achieved and commercial exchanges could be possible.

The establishment of self-managed facilities for electricity and water in Palestine is absolutely key to the proper recovery of the region.

If possible, a fully Palestinian controlled route connecting the West Bank and Gaza should be established, allowing travel within all regions of Palestine without having to cross into Israel. This may require advanced geo-engineering project, as I am not sufficiently familiar with the geography of the country to confirm if this would be feasible without splitting Israel in two. If not possible, this may require Israel giving part of its 1947 territory to Palestine.

Expectation and Reality

I realize that neither party would find the above plan fair. I also realize that neither Israeli nor Palestinians would find this plan agreeable upfront. However I do not see another way out of this without massive casualties on either or both sides.

It is impossible to predict how the future will turn out, there are too many elements at play and some major international players would have to drastically change their view to even consider a plan like this.

I dream of peace, I dream of prosperity for both Israeli and Palestinians. I dream of a generation being raised without fear of war.