Paul Rosenzweig on Lawfare reports on some tactics under consideration if the two-state solution for Israel and Palestine falls through:
The Palestinians want a full state — with all the independence that entails. But the Israelis won’t permit that. They are scarred by the Intifada and the violence of that time still resonates strongly. Their idea of a state is a partially independent entity that remains subservient to their control for security matters. The two of these ideas just don’t mix.
That has led some Palestinians (particularly younger ones) to suggest a one-state solution: Agree that Israel has won and owns the land, and then wage a civil/human rights campaign to gain equal rights and treatment. “You want us,” they might say, “you got us. Now give us free health care; free education; and the right to vote.” I’m not sure if that position can be sustained — it is premised on passive civil resistance that is not culturally attractive — but if it can it would pose a deep problem for Israel. It’s commitment to liberal democracy would run straight into its commitment to a Jewish state — and I don’t know which would give way. My guess is that if the Palestinians called the Israeli bluff the Israelis would have to fold — and simply admit that they plan to occupy the West Bank as a protectorate for the foreseeable future. That, too, is not sustainable.
My bold. Would this result in a natal race, an attempt to out-reproduce the other side?
A key assumption is the commitment to a liberal democracy – not at all clear to me in a government so deeply entangled in religious demands. Paul then adds in the recent American refusal to veto a UN resolution condemning the illegal settlements:
The final straw, if you will, is the changing US policy that seems in these last days of the Obama Administration to be almost schizophrenic. The outgoing President, perhaps in a fit of pique or perhaps in order to create his own facts on the ground, has allowed the UN Security Council to condemn Israeli settlements as unlawful — a change in US policy that is almost as earth-shaking as the President-Elect’s abandonment of the one-China policy. Meanwhile, the President-Elect had lobbied against the resolution and has named as his envoy to Israel an appointee who strongly favors expansion of the settlements. The US embassy may move to Jerusalem. This radical shifting of American policy, after years of stability, can only be further unsettling in an already unsettled environment.
