The international community, including Arab leaders, is unanimous that
the Palestinians should have their own State next to Israel. Even some
Israeli leaders accept this idea. But we must not delude ourselves.
At best, this State would include the West Bank and Gaza Strip with
East-Jerusalem as capital and a corridor linking up the two regions.
Israel will hardly accept a Palestinian State
with an army. One would expect that it will demand to control Palestine's
international borders and its underground aquifers, and will refuse
to allow the repatriation of the Palestinian refugees.
Even if such a Palestinian State will satisfy
some Palestinians, it will generate deep frustration among Palestinian
refugees. Nobody would be able to prevent refugees whose fundamental
rights are denied to engage in suicide attacks. The Palestinian government
will then be asked to play the policeman against its own people to satisfy
Israel. And as it could never fully guarantee Israel's security, Israel
would periodically feel legitimised to invade the Palestinianterritories
to quell the revolt and destroy Palestinian infrastructure. The international
community can be expected to attend as a powerless spectator to Palestinians'
sufferings as it does today.
If these anticipations are correct, the Palestinians
will not have a sovereign State, but a puppet State serving the interests
of Israel, riddled with debt, gnawed by the corruption, incapable to
defend its population, at the mercy of Israel and of the creditors,
and economically non-viable.
Palestinian intellectuals would emigrate and
the pauperisation would push, particularly in the refugee camps, towards
extremism and religious fanaticism. As a reaction, fanaticism will inevitably
grow on the Jewish side too. Peace will become then elusive in the whole
region.
Instead of claiming a puppet Palestinian State, the international community
and the Palestinians should demand the annexation by Israel of the West-Bank
and Gaza Strip (as it did already with East-Jerusalem), the dismantling
of the concentration camps where the refugees live, their integration
in their lands as much as possible, the recognition of the same rights
to Jews and Non-Jews at all the levels (Government, parliament, army,
police and economic life), and the creation of mixed schools where young
Jews and non-Jews can learn together Hebrew and Arabic as well as mutual
respect.
This solution of annexation will be profitable
for all the inhabitants of Israel/Palestine, whatever be their religion,
and will prevent useless sufferings resulting from injustice and frustration.
In this way, Jews and Palestinians will not have the feeling of being
deprived from a part of the country to which they are attached by their
religion and their history.
Both will have Jerusalem as their capital and
will contribute to the economic and technological development of the
Middle East instead of engaging in mutual destruction. Together, they
will form a beautiful example of democracy for all the Arab and Muslim
countries.
Union creates the force; division produces desolation.
It is only by becoming a land of justice and
peace for all its children, whatever be their religion, that Jerusalem
can claim its title of a Holy City.
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here for Norwegian translation