Palestinians Must Find Another Two-State Solution

For several decades, Palestinians have been advocating a two-state solution to their conflict with the State of Israel. It is that a Palestinian state be established in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. But that is two territories separated by about twenty miles. Thus, to accomplish that solution, those two pieces real estate would have to be connected with a corridor enabling Palestinians to easily travel from one region of their state to the other. Many Palestinian authorities and other have called for two states lying side-by-side, and some of these have envisioned this Palestinian arrangement as fulfilling this scenario. But it clearly doesn’t. Therein lies a very serious problem for both sides, but especially Palestinians. In such an arrangement, if Israel ever decided to attack such a State of Palestine, it easily could cut off that Palestinian corridor, which would result in a terrible situation for Palestinians.

Plus, in my book, Palestine Is Coming: The Revival of Ancient Philistia (1990), I cite economists to support my assertion that such a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will not work economically. Thus, I predict in my book that if this two-state solution ever becomes implemented, it will not work and thus will not last.

In my book, I propose an alternative two-state solution. It is that the demand in Israel’s Proclamation of Independence be instituted, which is that Jews be granted their “ancestral land.” But the question always arises: what is it?

Many Israeli Jews, including at least two of Israel’s prime ministers, have thought the Jews’ ancestral land includes all the territory of the Levant between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River-Dead Sea. That is quite wrong, as I show in my book. The Jews of antiquity never possessed, for any reasonable length of time, what is called in the Bible “the land of the Philistines.”

Thus, I maintain that the two-state solution that will work is for the State of Israel to gain all of the West Bank, and the Palestinians to establish their state only in the coastal plain. For this to occur, two things must happen: (1) Israel would swap coastal plain land to the Palestinians in exchange for all of the West Bank, and (2) there must be a transfer of peoples. But I add one more element to this proposal: Egypt forfeit its northwestern Sinai to the Palestinians. This region never belonged to Egypt during antiquity. Rather, the Wadi el Arish was the northern border of ancient Egypt. In my proposal, that would be the southern border of the Palestinian.

According to the UN, of which Israel is a member and strongly desires to stay that way, Israel is an “occupier” of the West Bank which it gained possession of the Six-Day War of 1967. And the UN declares the West Bank as “occupied territory.” All of this is not arbitrary but according to UN principles.

A poll has just been taken in Israel that reveals the changing attitudes of its Jewish citizens regarding Israel’s possession of the West Bank and its Jewish settlements there, which the UN deems as “illegal.” This poll shows that 36% of Israeli Jews favor Israel pulling out of the West Bank in a peace agreement with Palestinians. The same kind of poll was taken in 2005, and at that time it was 60% of Israeli Jews who preferred that Israel depart from the West Bank in such an agreement.

So, Jewish settlers are winning the Israel populace to their side. I think this trend will continue. It is mostly because a consider majority of West Bank Jewish settlers are religious Jews. U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is an Orthodox Jew who has a strong interest in trying to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And Trump’s new ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, is an Orthodox Jews and a lawyer who has for several years aided Beth El Jewish settlement in the West Bank. These and a lot more reasons, including the West Bank Security Barrier, is why many West Bank Palestinians have given up on their two-state solution ever occurring.

I think it’s time for Palestinians to consider another geographical solution for a two-state future. And I think mine is the one they should consider. But it’s not really mine. As a life-long student of Bible prophecy, I discovered it in 1981 while reading my Bible. See my many posts on this blog about it by clicking on Categories/Israel-Palestinian conflict.