This looks to many sensible people as eminently fair, in the best Anglo-Saxon tradition.
The state of Israel now has some 1.6 million Arab Palestinian citizens. Why should the State of Palestine, including East Jerusalem, not include some 0.6 million Jewish Israeli citizens?
The Arabs in Israel enjoy, at least in theory, full legal rights. They vote for the Knesset. They are subject to the law. Why should these Israelis not enjoy full legal rights in Palestine, vote for the Majlis and be subject to the law?
People love symmetry. Symmetry makes life easier. It removes complexities.
(When I was a recruit in the army I was taught to mistrust symmetry. Symmetry is rare in nature. When you see evenly spaced trees, I was told, it is not a forest, but camouflaged enemy soldiers.)
THIS SYMMETRY is false, too.
Israel's Arab citizens live on their land. Their forefathers have been living there for at least 1,400 years, and perhaps for 5,000 years. Sa'eb Erekat exclaimed this week that his family has been living in Jericho for 10,000 years, while his Israeli counterpart, Tzipi Livni, is the daughter of an immigrant.
The settlers in the occupied Palestinian territories are mostly new immigrants, too. They do not sit on the land of their forefathers, but on Palestinian land expropriated by force -- either "private" land or "government land." This so-called "government land" was the communal land reserves of the villages that in Ottoman times was registered in the name of the Sultan, and later in the name of the British and Jordanian authorities. When Israel conquered the area, it took over these lands as if it owned them.
BUT THE main point is something different. It concerns the character of the settlers themselves.
The core of the settlers, precisely those who live in the "isolated" small settlements in the areas that will in any case become part of the Palestinian state, are religious and nationalist fanatics.
The very purpose of their leaving comfortable homes in Israel and going to the desolate stony hills of "Judea and Samaria" was idealistic. It was to claim this area for Israel, fulfill their interpretation of God's commandment and make a Palestinian state forever impossible.
The idea that these people would become law-abiding citizens of the very same Palestinian state is preposterous. Most of them hate everything Arab, including the workers who work for them without the benefit of minimum wages or social rights, and say so openly at every opportunity. They support the "Price Tag" thugs who terrorize their Arab neighbors, or at least don't speak out against them. They obey their fanatical rabbis, who discuss among themselves whether it is right to kill non-Jewish children, who, when grown up, may kill Jews. They plan the building of the Third Temple, after blowing up the Muslim shrines.
To think about them as Palestinian citizens is ludicrous.
OF COURSE, not all the settlers are like that. Some of them are quite different.
This week, an Israeli TV station aired a series about the economic situation of the settlers. It was an eye-opener.
Those ideological pioneers, living in tents and wooden huts, are long gone. Many settlements now consist of palatial buildings, each with its swimming pool, horses and orchards -- something the Israeli 99% cannot even dream of. Since almost all of them came to the "territories" without a shekel in their pocket, it is clear that all these palaces were built with our tax money -- the huge sums transferred every year to this enterprise.
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