I’ve been saying this for perhaps forty years now. The modern State of Israel exists on the sole foundation of its two-page Proclamation of Independence since it does not have a constitution like the U.S. does. This document declares that Jews have a “right” to “the Land of Israel,” “Eretz Yisrael,” which it defines as “their ancestral land.” But it was obvious that this document, which immediately ignited Israel’s War of Independence (1948-1949), could not achieve that result due to demographics. That is, most Arabs who lived in Palestine at that time, who later called themselves “Palestinians,” were located in what became the West Bank, which is the very heartland of ancient Israel and amazingly approximates the location of ancient Judea and Samaria. And Jews who had immigrated to Palestine since the 1880s lived mostly in the coastal plain most of which was never “the land of Israel” but instead “the land of the Philistines,” from whom today’s Palestinians derive their name. In fact, Jewish leaders drafted and issued this Proclamation of Independence on May 14, 1948, in Tel Aviv, which is located on the Mediterranean coastland.
In my book, Palestine Is Coming: The Revival of Ancient Philistia (1990), I show from history that ancient Israel never really possessed the Mediterranean coastal plain south of Joppa, current Tel Aviv, which was “the land of the Philistines.” For several centuries, the ancient Israelites lived mostly in the so-called “hill country” of Judea and Samaria. The demarcation line between these Israelites and their arch rival, the Philistines, was The Shephelah. It is slopes extending in a north-south direction parallel to the Mediterranean coastland which divides the higher land to the east from the lower coastland to the west.
Israel is now involved in a war against Hamas. It is an extremist, Islamic organization that governs the Gaza Strip. The U.S. and Europe designate it a “terrorist organization.” Israel’s President Benjamin Netanyahu has said that Israel will destroy Hamas so that it will never be able to govern the Gaza Strip anymore. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have been bombing Gaza unmercifully in preparation for its 350,000 mostly reservist land forces to invade the Strip and do a search-and-destroy mission in mostly the northern portion of the Strip. It will But in doing so, they reportedly have killed 10,000 civilians. And it will be a very difficult mission since about 40,000 Hamas fighters and about 20,000 allies are waiting underground in a maze of tunnels thirty to fifty yards deep that extend about 300 miles.
Many have been asking what is next after Israel’s destroys Hamas. That is, how will Palestinians in the Gaza Strip then exist? For decades, neither Israel nor Egypt has desired to govern the Gaza Strip. President Netanyahu answered this question yesterday by saying Israel will control the security of the Gaza Strip “for an indefinite period of time.”
At the same time, the situation in the West Bank could ignite as well. This year, and especially since this war started, West Bank Jewish settlers, which number about half a million, have become emboldened to try to force Palestinians living there, who number about 2.7 million, to leave. Since Israel controls this “occupied territory,” the government has allowed these Jewish settlers to be armed with guns and assault rifles whereas Palestinians living there are prohibited from having them.
As I have been blogging since this Israel-Hamas War began on October 7th, this situation has developed so that my alternative proposal for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is looking more and more doable. That is, do a land swap and people transfer in which Israel annexes all of the West Bank, and the State of Palestine is established solely in the coastal plain south of Tel Aviv resulting in a very expanded Gaza Strip. That would be in accordance with Israel’s Proclamation of Independence, which is based on historical precedence. It would be two states truly lying side-by-side, which would provide better security for both parties. That is how this conflict should be solved and now can be solved as never before.
This solution, based on historical precedence, will be better than trying to implement the traditional two-state solution that is based solely on demographics. You can’t change history and religion–which is why the traditional two-state solution has not occurred in 56 years since the Six Day War of 1967–but you can change demographics.
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