The Dual-State solution

[Unnamed]

People,

I am fairly ignorant on this issue, so I'd like your opinion on this:

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=3521

What if Israelis and Palestinians forgot about borders and security fences? What if the long and bloody road to creating a two-state solution was abandoned in favor of a new concept of statehood? It’s called a “dual state,” and it’s more realistic than you may think.
If it has been discussed before, please post a link. Thanks.

[drkitten]

People,

I am fairly ignorant on this issue, so I'd like your opinion on this:

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=3521


If it has been discussed before, please post a link. Thanks.

As far as I can tell, the guy is totally bonkers (and has no sense of history).

The whole idea of a "state" is that it's a uniform and unified authority. His "two state" solution would never work. Just as a quick example -- suppose that a crime is committed. Who has the authority to investigate? Who has the authority to make an arrest? Under what rules will the trial be conducted?

Can I open a store that sells beer? The Palestinian law would probably say "no," the Israeli one would probably say "yes." Who wins?

His historical analogy to Switzerland is misguided; Switzerland has several different culture and languages, but one unified authority; if I commit a robbery in Geneva, I'm subject to the laws of Geneva even if I myself speak German.

[Luke T.]

Interesting concept. But it seems to me that many of the laws each "state" observed which the other "state" would not could cause a lot of problems.

[webfusion]

quoted from the article:
Israel and Palestine would be two states superimposed on top of one another. Citizens could freely choose which system to belong to. Their citizenship would be bound not to territory, but to choice. The Israeli state would remain a homeland for Jews, and at the same time, become a place in which Palestinians were able to live freely.

See: Israel's Declaration of Independence 1948
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/mideast/israel.htm
THE STATE OF ISRAEL will be open for Jewish immigration and for the Ingathering of the Exiles; it will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.

Contrast this with the Covenant of HAMAS, the (current) ruling political group for the palestinians: (August 18, 1988)
...the law governing the land of Palestine (will be) the Islamic Sharia (law) ...Any procedure in contradiction to Islamic Sharia, where Palestine is concerned, is null and void...There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad...liberation of Palestine is then an individual duty for very Moslem wherever he may be...In face of the Jews' usurpation of Palestine, it is compulsory that the banner of Jihad be raised...The Zionist invasion is a vicious invasion...Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it...The Islamic Resistance Movement (HAMAS) is characterised by its deep understanding, accurate comprehension and its complete embrace of all Islamic concepts of all aspects of life, culture, creed, politics, economics, education, society, justice and judgement, the spreading of Islam, education, art, information, science of the occult and conversion to Islam.

In any case, over a million moslems, christians and bedouins and druse and circassians and samaritans and bahai and copts and what-have-you now live in peace and security, in an open and democratic society, in the State of Israel. It hardly seems credible to suggest that the warlords of HAMASTAN be given a foothold to carry out their own nefarious scheme to eliminate all that.

[Mycroft]

People,

I am fairly ignorant on this issue, so I'd like your opinion on this:

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=3521


If it has been discussed before, please post a link. Thanks.

Essentially that's they system they were evolving towards before the 2000 Intifada. There was one group of people subject to one authority, another group of people subject to another authority, and then there were some areas of co-mingling.

[Dcdrac]

You might want to check this out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1947_UN_Partition_Plan

[webfusion]

You might want to check this out:
UN Res. 194 (http://christianactionforisrael.org/un/194.html)

That now-defunct Conciliation Commission never really got off the ground, except insofar as it led to the 1949 Rhodes Armistice Agreements.

Which themselves were routinely violated, leading to the 1956 and 1967 Arab-Israeli Wars.

And that leads us back, full-circle to the demand today of the palestinians to roll the clock back to the 1949 Lines, with HAMASTAN being trusted to run things peacefully and properly as a Neighborly state.

I don't THINK so.

[Unnamed]

Thanks to all for the explanation and links.

It is hard to evaluate information about this issue (too much disinformation and propaganda from both sides). I knew that this was the best place to get a balanced view.

[Ryokan]

The whole idea of a "state" is that it's a uniform and unified authority. His "two state" solution would never work. Just as a quick example -- suppose that a crime is committed. Who has the authority to investigate? Who has the authority to make an arrest? Under what rules will the trial be conducted?

Seems to work pretty well in Bosnia. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosnia_and_Herzegovina#Subdivisions)