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When Chechnya tried to secede from the "Russian Federation," it was crushed even more brutally than the confederacy in the American civil war. (This does not hinder Putin from supporting two seceding provinces of neighboring Georgia.)
Germany defines itself as a "federal republic" ("Bundesrepublik"). It is composed of "Länder" that enjoy a large measure of autonomy. Switzerland calls itself a confederation in French and Italian ("Eidgenossenschaft" or "Oath Association" in German) and its cantons enjoy their autonomy. But it is also a very unified country.
It is generally supposed that a "federation" is a tighter association, while a "confederacy" is a looser one. But in reality, these differences are very blurred. It seems that Americans and Russians, Germans and Swiss, identify themselves first of all with their united state, not with their own particular province. (Except for the Bavarians, of course.)
The new Europe is for all practical purposes a confederacy, but its founders did not name it thus. They chose the less definite "European Union." Why? Perhaps they thought that terms like "federation" and "confederacy" were outdated. Perhaps they considered such terms too binding.
The term "union" does not commit its members to anything specific, and they can fill it with whatever content they all agree on and change it from time to time. If the "Lisbon agreement" is finally ratified, the union will change again.
IT MAKES no sense, therefore, to discuss the idea of an Israeli-Palestinian "federation" in general terms, without defining right from the beginning what is meant by this. The same word, used by different people, can express completely different and even contradictory intentions.
For example: I recently saw a plan for a federation here in which every person would have the right to settle anywhere in either state while holding the citizenship of one of them. I can hardly imagine that many Israelis or Palestinians would embrace that. The Israelis would be afraid that the Arabs would soon constitute the majority within Israel, and the Palestinians would worry that Israeli settlers would take possession of every hilltop between the sea and the Jordan.
In any discussion of federation, the matter of immigration looms large as an ominous bone of contention. Would millions of Palestinian refugees be allowed to return to Israeli territory? Would millions of Jewish immigrants be allowed to submerge the State of Palestine?
The same is true for the matter of residence. Could a citizen of Palestine settle in Haifa, and an Israeli citizen in Nablus, as a Pole can now settle in France, a New Yorker in Miami, an inhabitant of canton Zurich in canton Uri?
EACH ONE of us who considers the idea of federation must decide what he or she wants. To draw up a beautiful plan on paper, which has no chance at all of being realized because it ignores the aspirations of both "partners" -- or to think in practical terms about real options?
In practice, a federation can come about only on the basis of a free agreement between the two parties. This means that it can be realized only if both -- Israelis and Palestinians -- consider it as advantageous to themselves and compatible with their national aspirations. In my opinion, a practical way to realize the idea could look like this:
Stage 1: A sovereign Palestinian state must come into being. This must precede everything else. The occupation must end and Israel must withdraw to the Green Line (with possible mutually agreed swaps of territory.) That goes for Jerusalem, too.
Stage 2: The two states establish a pattern of fair relations between them and get used to living side by side. There will be a need for real steps towards reconciliation and the healing of the wounds of the past. (For example: the creation of a "Truth and Reconciliation Commission" on the South African model.) On the practical level, fair arrangements of matters like movement between the two states, the division of water resources etc. are put into place.
Stage 3: The two states start negotiations for the establishment of joint institutions. For example: the opening of the border between them for the free movement of people and goods, an economic union, a joint currency, a customs envelope, the use of ports and airports, coordination of foreign relations, and so on. There will be no automatic right for citizens of one state to settle in the other. Each state will decide for itself on its immigration policy. The two parties can jointly decide whether to invite Jordan as a third partner to the proposed treaty.
Such a negotiation can succeed only if the population in each of the partner states is convinced that the partnership will bring it positive benefits. Since Israel is the stronger economically and technologically, it must be ready to make generous proposals.
