What would be your ideal solution to the Israel/Palestine issue?

[Indy Texas]

BORDERS

Israel: Green Line borders with the addition of most contiguous settlements, less any land of equivalent size "traded" to Palestine, and less Jerusalem; capital in Tel Aviv
- cannot deny or revoke citizenship of Arab Israelis; must grant citizenship to any Arab residents residing in lands ceded to Israel
- will grant Palestine an easement through the Negev Desert to allow for the construction of a highway and railway linking the Gaza Strip and the West Bank; this will function in a manner similar to the transit highways that allowed West Germans to travel between West Berlin and the Federal Republic of Germany without going through East German customs

Palestine: West Bank less settlement blocs contiguous to Israel, less East Jerusalem and with the addition of Israeli land exchanged for ceded settlement areas; Gaza Strip with full sovereignty over maritime borders (Israeli Navy may not enter the Gaza coastline area without permission) and right to claim any offshore natural gas fields found in the eastern Mediterranean Sea; capital in Jericho
- cannot deny citizenship to non-Arabs residing in the West Bank

Free City of Jerusalem: all of the city of Jerusalem
- residents are citizens of the Free City of Jerusalem but may also hold Israeli or Palestinian citizenship if they wish
- completely demilitarized, with a small contingent of UN forces on the outskirts of the city; any entry of Israeli, Palestinian or other foreign forces into the City will be treated as an act of war, with the UN obligated to repel them to the best of their ability
- home rule government keeping with the city's current municipal governing structure
- head-of-state in the form of a Governor-General, who will be appointed to a single six-year term; the prerogative of appointing the Governor-General will alternate between Israel and Palestine at the end of each term
- administering of holy sites will be the responsibility of a council representing the Jewish, Muslim and Christian faiths
- after 99 years of existence, the Free City will be allowed to hold a referendum where citizens may choose whether they wish to remain an independent city; if a majority of citizens do not wish to remain independent, a second referendum will be held deciding whether they wish to join with Israel or Palestine; union with either country will require 60% or more of the vote; if the 60% threshold is not reached, the initial referendum becomes null and a subsequent referendum on the issue may not be held for at least four years

RELATIONS

1. Israel and Palestine must recognize one another and exchange ambassadors
2. Israel and Palestine must recognize and respect the independence and sovereignty of the Free City of Jerusalem
3. Israel must offer monetary compensation to any living person displaced from the present-day State of Israel, or to the children of a deceased person displaced from the present-day State of Israel
4. A 15-year Normalization Period will take effect, during which time, UN forces will be present along designated buffer zones between the two countries; the following conditions will be expected to occur during this time period:
(a) Palestine must ban all political parties from having armed or paramilitary wings or auxiliaries and take steps to dismantle any existing armed auxiliaries
(b) Palestine may not raise a state-sanctioned armed force
(c) Israel must make no attack on or incursion into Palestinian territory
(d) Palestine will be permitted to form military forces at the end of the Normalization Period if the above conditions are met

[Indy Texas]

Ideal solution? The current Israel and Palestine are united into a single state (known as "The State of Israel" in Hebrew and "The State of Palestine" in Arabic, the nation's two official languages)

But what would you call it in English or any other language? Anyway, Israel already has a name in Arabic (Israil) and Palestine already has a name in Hebrew (Palestina).

That would be like saying the US's name in English is the United States of America and its name in Spanish is Mexico.

[Indy Texas]

Should Germany insist on a "right of return" for those people expelled from the Recovered Territories east of the Oder-Neisse?  That's the most analogous situation here.

Why would any German in their right mind demand the "right" to "return" to Russia or Eastern Europe?

The difference is that the Germans were relocating to a country that was more prosperous and developed than the one they left and were given a lot of help in integrating into that society. The Palestinians were driven into Jordan and Syria, countries with lower development indicators than Israel, and given no assistance beyond sticking them in tents in the desert.

[Indy Texas]

2 state solution with a permanent UN administered buffer zone. Jerusalem as an open city ie the Danzig Free State under UN peacekeeping and mandate with open and equal access for jews, arabs, christians, businesses and business people, travelers and tourists etc.

The Arab and Israeli states would be with  original 1947/1948 borders in regards to the west bank and Egypt would annex and administer the Gaza Strip as part of their country in full. Tel Aviv and Ramallah would be the capitals of these globally recognized states, and the UN would administer border crossings, a DMZ buffer and so on, while each nation would manage their own affairs.

Internationally recognized "refugees" given official status would be given the one time choice to become Israeli or Palestinian citizens and regardless of their choice they would be given reparations payments (again under international mediation). Refugee camps would close and the people would be required to settle and do something somewhere.

^^^^^^^^^

More or less this, though given Israeli distrust of the United Nations, I would substitute NATO and the Arab League (in partnership) in its place.   

You think Israel would rather have Jerusalem patrolled by soldiers from Arab Muslim countries that don't even acknowledge its existence than have some, say, New Zealanders and South Koreans in sky blue helmets? And why would NATO be involved? Jerusalem isn't even in or associated with any of the countries that are in NATO.

[Indy Texas]

It's strange, considering how very possible an outcome that is (particularly when you consider what proportion of new births the Haredim a few decades from now would account for) and yet only those on the far right ever seem to be bothered enough by the prospect to bring it up.

I will say this frankly: I do not understand why exactly Israel gave some Arabs citizenship in the first place. The whole idea of a "Jewish state" is pretty exclusionary to begin with so I don't see what compelled Israel give citizenship to people who are at best apathetic towards it and at worse openly hostile. Actually, Israeli feeling and self-identification amongst Arab citizens has actually diminished over time, if I recall correctly.

The unfortunate truth is that, barring a sudden and comprehensive change in the attitude of Palestinians towards Israelis (not to mention the rest of the Arab world) towards an attitude of tolerance sometime in the intervening decades, this would more likely than not result in the cessation, through one means or another, of the presence of the Jewish inhabitants of the former Israel in this United Palestine.

This is why I am skeptical of the viability of any proposal; one state, two state, three state, no state, any of them.

Mainstream Zionist policy at the time Israel was established was not wholesale removal of non-Jews. It was just to ensure that they were a small enough segment of the population that there would be a comfortable Jewish majority (a 75% Jewish/25% Arab figure was sometimes tossed around as an example). It would have been impossible to remove every single Arab from inside the Green Line and to the Israelis' credit the idea of doing so was abhorrent to a lot of them. (Especially considering their own recent experiences with population transfers in Europe).

Had they never ventured beyond the Green Line post-1967, I don't think it would be an issue. Israel proper is still ~3/4 Jewish. Their decision to take up residence in the West Bank, and in doing so acquire not just the land but the people on it, destroyed any possibility of maintaining that demographic equilibrium. It's too late to tell the settlers to come home. It's too late to remove the Palestinians - if they wanted to go all genocidal, they should have done so during the Six-Day War when they would have had the best excuse to do so.

They also have demographic problems among the Jewish Israelis themselves. The "original" Israelis tended to be a mostly secular lot from Europe and North America; they were well-educated and politically progressive. They built their state along social democratic and technocratic lines. The decision to admit the Mizrahi and Sephardic Jews from the Arabic-speaking countries and to admit the Russian Jews changed that. They tended to be more conservative and more antagonistic towards Palestinians. And they were generally uneducated and more reliant on social services. And they tend to have higher birthrates.

If the Israeli-Palestinian conflict 40 years ago was between secular Labor-voting Israelis and secular Arabist/Nasserist Palestinians, in 10-20 years it's going to be between theocratic Yisrael Beiteinu Jews and Hamas-voting Islamists, each of whom see a religious duty to remove the other completely from the area.

[Indy Texas]

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There are worse things that could happen. And what would Bennett do- complain about all the Palestinians in Westchester? At least I doubt he would steal diapers by sticking them in his jacket, as an aunt of mine once observed at a Rockland Walmart.

Fair enough I suppose

Though I don't suppose the Teitelbaumians will be too thrilled about it (you know, anti-Zionism and all)

But there are already Haredim living in Israel.

In a weird way, it might make more sense for them to live in the West Bank, because that would allow them to be in the area of the historical Jewish homeland without living in an explicitly Jewish political entity.