Is The Gaza Strip Being Considered as the Palestinian State?

Making the Gaza Strip the Palestinian State

Well, for 44 years I’ve thought this would happen someday. Today, The Jerusalem Post published an op-ed piece saying the Gaza Strip is now being considered for being made into a Palestinian state, Israel would annex the West Bank, and Palestinians living there could gradually be given citizenship in this expanded Israel. This op-ed author is Nimrod Koren, a PhD candidate in the Department of Middle East Studies at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and a member of the researches’ forum of the Elyashar Center at the Ben-Zvi Institute.

However, Mr. Koren’s article is devoid of identifying any individual, organization, or nation that is saying this. Thus, it appears that Mr. Koren and these researchers with whom he is associated have been discussing this. And it would seem that if they knew of any substantial source advocating this idea, that Mr. Koren would say so in his article. But maybe such a source or sources want to remain anonymous for now.

I’ve Been Saying This for a Long Time

This alternative two-state solution that Mr. Koren writes about would be a move in the right direction, I think. Yet it falls far short of what I proposed 44 years ago and wrote a book about, published 35 years ago, entitled Palestine Is Coming: The Revival of Ancient Philistia. (The main part of this book is free reading at kermitzarley.com.)

Mr. Koren writes, “The new two-state solution relies on the new momentum created with the end of the war,” referring to the Gaza War just ended last Monday, or so it is hoped with the signing of an agreement between Israel and Hamas, the two enemies. Koren says the idea includes offering the 2.5 million Palestinians living in the West Bank to transfer out of there to the new Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip.

But there is a huge problem with that which Mr. Koren downplays as non-existent. It is that the Gaza Strip has been notoriously one of the most densely populated spaces on earth. And Mr. Koren is suggesting that the Strip could survive by more than doubling its population. I do not think that is a viable solution and that it will not fly.

EXPAND GAZA

No, my proposal is way better—EXPAND GAZA. I mean expand the Gaza Strip just as much as the entire region of the West Bank, so that my alternative two-state solution I propose becomes an equal land swap and a complete transfer of peoples.

Now, Mr. Koren does state concerning of the small Gaza Strip, “The reduced state could be expanded southward in cooperation with Egypt. … This move would be accompanied by significant economic compensation to Egypt … Israel could also contribute some territory near the southern border.”

EXPAND GAZA, EXPAND ISRAEL

Indeed, I have all of these suggestions in my proposal, except that Israel would forfeit much more territory than that for the Gaza strip to be expanded. To understand what I’m saying, see my blog post earlier today, “EXPAND GAZA, EXPAND ISRAEL.” It offers a suggestion about how to implement my alternative two-state proposal.

Of course, I’ve been saying this for a long time, as my book indicates. And why have I been saying it? It’s not really my idea. I have been a serious Bible student specializing in biblical eschatology (prophecy) since my teens, thus all of my adult life. (I’m writing a nonfiction series about it called STILL HERE.) I believe there are several Old Testament texts indicating there will be a Palestinian state only in the coastal plain, it will be much larger than the Gaza Strip, and Israel will annex all of the West Bank. See my condensed blog post explaining this, published last week, entitled “The Palestinian State in Bible Prophecy.”