Israel-Palestine Confederation

Designed by SBalkin, Roosevelt University, November 1, 2024 and placed into the Public Domain. Inspired by the original 1777 Articles of Confederation for the United States of America.

A VISION FOR NEGOTIATIONS TO A CEASEFIRE AND LONG TERM COEXISTENCE: An Israel-Palestine  Confederation with three semi-autonomous provinces — Eretz Yisrael, Muslim Falasteen, and Judaea-Palestina  

INTRODUCTION
A framework for peace cannot be just about piecemeal deescalation but needs to have a vision for long term bi-cultural relationships and mutual security to generate the comfort to make the immediate changes to stop the casualties and bring home the hostages.  That is the goal of the Balkin Israel-Palestine Project.

Presently, the majority of Israelis would like the Palestinians in the occupied territories to be gone; and a majority of those Palestinians would like the Jews not to have a their own state in the Levant. This blog post provides an outline for reconfiguring the land and placement of people, by religion and culture. It is not intended to be a strict edict for what must occur for there to be peace.  It is a vision to begin a negotiation for a ceasefire followed by a more permanent peace. Though imperfect, this can provide a quicker way to peace because it overcomes the major drawbacks of present One-State or Two-State solution: the problems of maintaining a democratic environment in a place of two strongly different groups where there is a desire for separate habitation and incentives for terrorism and war.

PLACE NAMES OF THE PROVINCES AND THEIR POLITICAL LANDSCAPE
Eretz-Yisrael (EY) is the Hebrew way to say Land of Israel and Muslim Falasteen (MF) is an Arabic way to say Palestine. Judaea-Palestina (JP) was a Roman way to designate the area after the Bar Kokhba Revolt in 132AD.  Israel-Palestine (I-P) is a name for the Confederation of which the provinces are a part of.  These names are just working titles.

More important than names is the political, legal, and religious landscape for them.   There are three main constituent groups in present day Israel and Gaza-West Bank. Each should have their own semi-autonomous semi-sovereign province but governmentally connected to each other in a weak confederation.  EY is to be for Conservative Religious Jews with strong ties to the Likud Israeli Parliamentary Coalition with its capital in West Jerusalem. MF is to be for Conservative Religious Arabic Muslims with its capital in East Jerusalem.  JP is for people who are Liberal, Pluralistic, and are tolerant of all religions and lifestyles, including atheists, with its capital in a small dot of land in Jerusalem proximate to EY and MF.  The three provinces are the political elements of the weak confederation of I-P with its capital in a small dot of land carved into an area at a border of West and East Jerusalem.

It is important to remember that the early years of the United States, from 1777 to 1789, had a constitution called the Articles of Confederation which established a weak central government.

UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS, AN ESSENTIAL PART OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK
What makes these three provinces semi-autonomous rather than fully autonomous is that all have to adopt the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), in the main, as an essential part of their constitutional framework.  The UDHR was created 75 years ago by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948 in Paris.

Especially important are articles 1 (born fee and equal in brotherhood), 3 (right to life, liberty, and security), 15 (right to a nationality), 18 (freedom of thought, conscience and religion), 21 (periodic and genuine elections), and 26 (education is to promote understanding, tolerance and friendship).

HOW MANY STATES ARE THERE IN THE DAY AFTER?
Is this a Three State Solution, or a One State Solution, or a Four State Solution, or a Two State Solution with some add-ons?  With nuance, it is all of the above.

This is a three province solution with the provinces differentiated by religion and liberality, tied together as part of a weak Confederation.  This new reconfiguration of Israel and Gaza-West Bank is being created in the aftermath of a very brutal and bitter war with a long history of mutual enmity.  Therefore, the combatants should be separated while those who profess non-violence and cross-cultural toleration, should be able to live together in an environment of cooperative coexistence.  The purpose for the overarching Confederation is to: (1)  act as a referee to resolve inter-provincial disputes, (2) oversee the protection of national borders, (3) create and execute a foreign policy that is not accomplished by the provinces, (4) achieve economies of scale in governance and (5) deal with externalities. The Confederation level is to be made weak so the culturally disparate provinces have maximum autonomy. To get a better sense of this new configuration, estimates were generated for the population size and density of the three provinces in another paper. Surprisingly, the province with the largest population size is JP. Next is ER. In population size, the smallest province is MF. But Muslims predominate in MF and JP. It is unlear how this will play out politically in the future.

HOW TO GUARANTEE THE EXISTENCE OF A FOREVER JEWISH STATE WITHIN A MULTI-RELIGION DEMOCRATIC CONFEDERATION
The goal is to make the central government weak in controlling lifestyles in the provinces so as to minimally impose on the cultural and religious basis for each province while, at the same time, placing strong preventative intervention in the militaristic and bellicose aspects of individual and group behavior.

In addition to the UDHR, there must also be adherence to Singapore’s Maintenance of Religious Harmony Act (MRHA) which defines the following as punishable offenses:
“…Urging force or violence on the basis of religion, or against a religious group or its members; inciting feelings of enmity, hatred, ill-will or hostility against a religious group; and insulting the religion or wounding the religious feelings of another person.”

To guarantee the preservation of the Jewish province of Eretz Yisroel and the Muslim province of Filasteen, the Torah for laws in Eretz Yisrael will be allowed where Halacha laws can be adjudicated in Batei Din courts, and the Quran laws will be allowed in Muslim Filasteen, where Sharia law can be adjudicated in their courts. These two provinces must be able to keep their religious and cultural character.  But the supreme law of the land is, however, based on UDHR and MRHA; and Halacha and Sharia laws are secondary to it.

As an extra layer of defensive protection in the early years of this new Confederation, each state should be linked to an ally protector nation or nations.  MF could be linked to Jordan or Qatar or Ireland or all three.  For EY its protector nation can be the Canada or Great Britain or Australia or all three; and for JP it can be Norway or Germany or France or all three.  For I-P, it can be the USA and Saudi Arabia.

GUARANTEEING RELIGIOUS PRACTICES AND CULTURE IN THE PROVINCES
Provincial preferences for religion and culture must be maintained now and into the future. Built into the provincial and confederation constitutions are the principles that no amount of Muslim population growth and military acquisition would be allowed to dilute Jewish political power and cultural dominance in EY; and no amount of Jewish population growth and military acquisition would be allowed to dilute Muslim power and cultural dominance in the MF; and no amount of demographic or religious imbalance in JP could push it to adopt a state religion.

DEALING WITH THE JEWISH SETTLERS IN THE WEST BANK
One solution is to allow the Settlers residential access to places that have Jewish Holy sites that are not Muslim Holy places but the Settlers’ power would be diluted because their voting rights are to be connected to EY not MF.  For places with Jewish Holy sites that also have Muslim Holy sites on them (e.g. Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron), a sharing arrangement for space and access will have to be created through the consideration of tradition and negotiation using the design and administrative help of the Hashimite Kingdom of Jordan.

The Settlers should transfer all the land back to MF that was obtained through the use of force. The land where Settlers live in the West Bank that was obtained legally or by purchase, have to be exchanged to the MF, in the same amount and quality, elsewhere in Israel. MF will need to have a land connection from Gaza to the West Bank.  That highway and land can be part of the transfer land to MF for Settler land.

DETERMINING GOVERNANCE AT THE CONFEDERATION NATIONAL LEVEL
Ruling at the Confederation level will be more intricate to keep it inclusive but also weak. Here is one suggestion. Each province elects or proposes two representatives that then becomes an executive committee that rules as a group but only by unanimous consent (sometimes called consensus decision making) which means each of the six members of the ruling executive committee has veto power.   Over time, the Confederation Executive Committee can change the way it is composed and how the Confederation is to be governed, perhaps replacing the executive committee with a national parliament.

LAW OF RETURN AND POPULATION DENSITY
There are two Laws of Return, a Jewish one; and a Palestinian one. Population estimates have been generated elsewhere by this Project for how many Jewish and Arab Muslim people could return to I-P

In 1948 or 1967, the ability to easily and safely build high density environments with very tall buildings was limited.  But now it is relatively easy and safe to do.  In 2024, the tallest building in the world is in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates called Tower of Khalifa and is 2717 feet high.

However, in addition, there should be prior conditions of no-radicalization that could preclude one from moving to MF or JP or EY from outside I-P.  Those conditions are: no prior association or membership in ISIS or Hamas or Islamic Jihad.  All returnees must sign a formal agreement to the principles of UDHR and MRHA and failure to abide by those rules will result in deportation from anywhere in I-P.

INTERNAL BOUNDRIES
Security requirements, new transportation linkages, land swaps, and the promotion of harmonious habitation, need to be taken into account when drawing the internal boundaries to create the three provinces for the Confederation of Israel-Palestine.  This will require a committee of experienced political geographers who know the history of Israel and Gaza-West Bank well to draw the boundaries that are based on the outcome of the political negotiations.

CONCLUSION
The vision in this post is an attempt to give each side to this dispute what they want: a secure thoroughly conservative religious Jewish and Arab Muslim province; and a secure liberal pluralistic province including Jews, Muslims, people of other religions, atheists, and a variety of lifestyles.

The biggest problems are accommodating the Laws of Return, eliminating the risk of terrorism to Israel from radical militant Palestinians, and the risk of settler terrorism to Palestinians. New construction technology suggests that there not need be density and immigration size restrictions with a full Law of Return.

Having confederation and provincial constitutions based on human rights, religious tolerance, and non-violence, as essentially stated in the UDHR and the MDRA, are important ingredients to make this three province arrangement be democratic that can last over time while accommodating religious and cultural differences.