A Three State Solution for
the Israel-Palestinian Conflict

It should be noted that this is not a “peace proposal”. Peace is not a goal in and of itself. It is an emergent property from the resolution of conflicts. Defining peace itself as a goal has encouraged well-meaning people over the years to strive for something resembling peace on the surface which does nothing to actually end the conflict, and thus prevents true peace from emerging.

The goal of this proposal is to provide maximum benefits to all involved parties, at minimum cost to each of them. It is not predicated on lofty ideals of “peace”, but rather on the far more reliable motivation of enlightened self-interest.

There have been a number of variations on the concept of a two state solution that have been labled “three state solutions”. This essay will not go over them all, as the reader can Google them. There is, however, a possible three state solution that has not been proposed until now, and that could successfully provide an end to the conflict, which would provide wins for all of the countries involved, as well as the entire region. As well as the world.

Preface: The Parties

A. Elements of the Proposal

B. Why Should Jordan Accept this Proposal?

C. Why Should the Palestinians Accept this Proposal?

D. Why Should Israel Accept this Proposal?

E. Details of the Proposal

Appendix: Why One- and Two-State Solutions Cannot Work

Appendix: Palestinian Leadership

Preface: The Parties

An underlying assumption of this proposal is that not all Palestinians are terrorists, or supporters of terror. However, it is beyond question that every group or body that has claimed to represent the Palestinians has been both.

In order for this proposal to work, it will be necessary to work with a body of Palestinians who are not connected with the terrorist networks that have been forced upon the Palestinians as leadership.

The remainder of this proposal assumes that such a body can be found, and will be referred to throughout the proposal as the Palestinian Temporary Leadership Council (PTLC). Further discussion of this issue can be found in the second appendix to this proposal.

The other two parties to this proposal are, of course, the State of Israel and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

A. Elements of the Proposal

1. The Jordanian Panhandle, the land jutting out of the rest of Jordan towards the northeast, will be partitioned off by Jordan to become a new Palestinian state (hereafter: Palestine). The area of Palestine will be roughly the same as that of Israel, including the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

   

2. The Hamza oil field and the Risha natural gas field, both located in Palestine, will be leased to the Kingdom of Jordan for a period of 99 years.

3. Israel will construct a pipeline, supplying 50% of its desalinated water, up to a cap of 500 cubic meters per capita, to Jordan and Palestine.

4. The United Nations Relief Work Administration (UNRWA) will be disbanded, and the refugee status of Palestinians will be terminated.

5. A Palestinian Resettlement, Immigration, Development, and Enterprise Fund (the PRIDE Fund) will be set up to help Palestinians who choose to resettle in Palestine move their property there and construct homes. The PRIDE Fund will also help Palestinian business owners move their businesses to Palestine. Any money recovered from embezzlement by past Palestinian leaders will be added to this fund.

   Funds intended for the PA will instead be transferred to the PRIDE Fund.

6. The governments of Israel and Jordan will recognize the Palestinian Temporary Leadership Council (PTLC) as the legal representatives of the Palestinians while this proposal is implemented, and until independent elections can be held in Palestine.

   The Oslo Accords will be formally cancelled, and the Palestinian Authority will be nullified. Israel will extend Israeli law and sovereign power over the areas now called the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and everyone in these areas will live under Israeli civil law. These areas will no longer be subject to Israeli military law.

7. Palestinians who own real estate in the West Bank or the Gaza Strip will be granted comparable lands in Palestine.

8. A homesteading plan will be established by which Palestinians who do not own land can be granted land in Palestine, with details to be determined.

9. Palestinian security prisoners will be released to Palestine. Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip who are wanted by Israeli authorities for security offenses will be allowed to leave for Palestine.

10. Israel will develop the Gaza Marine natural gas field off the coast of the Gaza Strip. Fifty percent of Israel’s profits from this exploitation will be placed in a fund, similar to the Alaskan “Permanent Fund”, and payments will be made to Palestinians upon their migration to Palestine, and annually thereafter. These disbursements will be made directly to the Palestinians who have relocated and will not go through any Palestinian leadership body.

11. Palestinians who choose not to emigrate will be considered foreign nationals of Palestine, and will be subject to the same laws as Israeli citizens and other foreign nationals. Israel will pass a law prohibiting the use of “administrative detention” for Israelis as well as foreign nationals, and no Palestinians shall be forced to emigrate unless they have been convicted in a court of law of violent crime or conspiracy to commit violent crime.

12. Palestinians of all religious persuasions will be able to visit their holy sites in Israel, just as anyone from other countries can.

13. Palestinians who have collaborated with Israel in the past will be given preferential treatment should they opt to apply for Israeli citizenship.

B. Why Should Jordan Accept this Proposal?

The first issue many people have asked is why on earth the Kingdom of Jordan should agree to give up roughly one third of its total land area in order to resolve a conflict it is not directly involved with.

This is a fair question, and the benefits which would accrue to Jordan from this proposal are many and varied, and far outweigh the loss of land:

• The land designated for the new state of Palestine is barely used at the current time. Of a population of 11.15 million people, roughly a quarter million of them live in this area, most of whom are ethnically Palestinian.

• This land is even more water-poor than the rest of Jordan, and constitutes a strain on an already overstrained water system.

• Jordan has had difficulties with certain elements of its Palestinian population, who are unhappy to be living under Hashemite rule. Jordan fought a civil war against Palestinians back in 1970, and does not want to repeat the experience. Palestinian dissidents could be relocated to Palestine, where they can exercise sovereignty for themselves, and Jordan would gain in political stability.

• The continuing Israel-Palestinian conflict creates anger and frustration among Jordanian Arabs. This upset can spill over into civil disturbances. An end to the conflict will also end a steady source of tension in Jordan.

• Jordan, as mentioned, like all countries in the Middle East, is water-poor. A steady and stable source of fresh water in large quantities would be of enormous benefit to the kingdom.

• The defensive perimeter of Jordan would be significantly shortened. This would provide enormous savings in defense costs, and would, in particular, prevent incursions from the highly unstable Syria to its north.

• Jordan, by virtue of having ceded land for the purpose of peace, would be lauded throughout the world, and it is almost certain that the King of Jordan would receive a Nobel Peace Prize.

C. Why Should the Palestinians Accept this Proposal?

The Arabs who lived east of the Jordan River prior to 1948 can be divided into 5 groups:

1. Those who left the area, fearing that the Jews would act with barbarity towards them once they established their state.

2. Those who left the area in compliance with orders from the various Arab nations who were poised to invade the fledgling Jewish state, believing that once the Jews were wiped out, they would be able to return to their own homes and take those of the Jews as well.

3. Those who were living in the areas that would be captured by Jordan and Egypt during the course of the 1948-9 war.

4. Those who were expelled due to their engaging in warfare against the new Jewish State.

5. Those who stayed.

The Arabs in the first four categories became known later as Palestinians, while the Arabs in the fifth category became Israeli citizens.

The Arabs in the first three categories were prevented by Egypt and Jordan from assimilating into their new countries, because the Arab League believed that allowing them to settle down would be tacit acceptance of the existence of the State of Israel.

At the same time, the United Nations, despite the fact that they have a refugee agency charged with helping refugees around the world to resettle, created a special agency for the displaced Arabs which was to ensure that they never resettle.

When the Palestine Liberation Organization was created in 1964 with the mission of liberating the land inside the 1949 Armistice lines (sometimes mistakenly referred to as the 1967 borders), many of these Arabs were vocal in their rejection of the PLO as their representative. But as time passed, having no other representative, and having no sovereign agency of their own, many of them accepted the idea of themselves as “Palestinians”, who had a right of return to all of the land they had left.

In the wake of the First Intifada, Israel’s government brought the PLO back from its exile in Tunis and recognized it as the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. At this point, even those Arabs who had distanced themselves from Palestinianism could no longer stand against it, and began identifying as Palestinian.

Regardless of their origins, however, it is beyond argument that a population exists that views itself as a nation called Palestinian. Any proposal to end the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians must take their national aspirations into account.

That said, the national ambition of the Palestinians has become the dismantling of the State of Israel, the exile or death of its inhabitants, and its replacement by a state occupying all of Cisjordanian Palestine, or in colloquial terms, “From the River to the Sea”. This cannot be contenanced. The reason the United Nations exists is to prevent the destruction of countries by those who desire that destruction. And Israel is a country, while there has not – yet – been a country called Palestine.

So we need to consider what the benefit is to Palestinians who accept this proposal.

• The absolute maximum that Palestinians could get from a two state solution would be half of the land from the river to the sea. This proposal grants them twice as much land.

• Any Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip would require a passage from one to the other, since they are not contiguous. This passage would be long and narrow, and vulnerable to being cut should Israel want to. By contrast, the state of Palestine in this proposal is one contiguous land area, with defensible borders.

• Israel’s security needs require any Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to be demilitarized. For a people who have been prevented from being part of a sovereign country for 75 years, demilitarization is simply one more way in which they are prevented from full sovereignty. With Jordan as a buffer between the two other states, Israel will have no reason to demand that Palestine be demilitarized. It will be fully sovereign in every way, and Palestinians will, for the first time in history, be able to control their own destiny.

• The Palestinians of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip have been living for the past 30 years under a series of corrupt dictators that were imposed on them by the world powers. This new start will allow them to choose their own leadership, and the way they want to live.

• For years, Palestinians have sought work in Israel doing construction, among other blue color jobs. In Palestine, they will be able to build for themselves and their fellow countrymen.

• Like the Jordanians, Palestinians in Palestine will be the beneficiaries of free desalinated water, supplied by Israel through a tri-state pipeline, though the area also has its own fresh water sources.

• Palestinians who relocate to Palestine will receive ongoing payments from the money earned by Israel from the Gaza Marine natural gas field. Not as a gift, but by right.

• Palestinians who do not own land, which is the vast majority of them, will be able to obtain it in Palestine through this proposal. Land ownership will give them personal sovereignty, in addition to their newfound national sovereignty.

• As noted, groups dedicated to an “armed struggle” (terrorism) as a means to make gains for the Palestinians were never chosen by Palestinians. They were imposed on them, first by the Arab League, and later by the Quartet and Israel. As a point of fact, Palestinian Arabs have never had their own sovereign representation. Through the implementation of this proposal, they can have what so many other nations have long had.

• For Muslim Palestinians, the fact that they will be located more closely to Mecca and Medina could be a benefit. They will have to cross only one border to get to these pilgrimage destinations.

It must be pointed out that Islamists believe that any land that was once subject to Islam can never revert to non-Islamic ownership, and that such areas are considered to be “in rebellion”. Islamists of this sort, both Palestinian and otherwise, will object to any end to the conflict that permits the continued existence of the State of Israel. But that is beyond the scope of any reasonable proposal.

D. Why Should Israel Accept this Proposal?

For water-poor Israel, having to forfeit half of all fresh water it produces by desalination is a hefty price. In addition, the creation of a Palestinian state through this proposal is no guarantee that this new state will be friendly towards Israel. Also, while their numbers are small, there are Israelis who still resent the British partition of the Transjordan from the original Mandate for Palestine which had been designated as a future homeland for the Jews. If this proposal is implemented, there will be not one, but two other countries in the eastern part of the land that they have long hoped to become theirs someday.

And beyond those considerations, there will be those in the world who will never acknowledge that Palestinians who relocate to Palestine have done so of their own free will. The world is accustomed to acting as though Palestinians have no agency of their own, and Palestinians leaving would leave Israel open to accusations of ethnic cleansing. In addition, there is a possibility that Israeli Arab citizens who identify as Palestinian will choose to move to Palestine. For a country that prides itself on the equality of all citizens, this would be a sign that some Israeli Arabs, if only a small minority, never felt a part of Israel, and would be a bitter pill to swallow.

Furthermore, Israel has relied for years on inexpensive Palestinian labor. Absent this labor pool, Israel will either have to begin paying higher wages to attract Israeli workers, or find some other source for low cost labor.

Despite all of this, it cannot be denied that Israel would benefit beyond words by the conflict ending. Here are just a few of the benefits that Israel would reap from this proposal:

• In 2014, it was calculated that the costs associated with the Oslo Accords over a period of about 25 years had come to roughly one trillion shekels [3]. In a post conflict Israel, people working in security would be able to find other jobs. People who want to go into a mall or a movie theater wouldn’t have to have their bags searched, and so on. And the vast sums of money saved could be used for more productive purposes.

• Both Jordan and Palestine in a post conflict world would be approached for membership in the Abraham Accords. This would add to the alliance against Iranian hegemony in the Middle East.

• There are many Jews around the world who have dreamt of returning to the land of their ancestors, but who haven’t done so because of the conflict. Ending the conflict could open the doors to massive Jewish immigration to Israel.

• Israel would no longer be seen as an “occupier” or an “oppressor”.

E. Details of the Proposal

1. The Jordanian Panhandle, the land jutting out of the rest of Jordan towards the northeast, will be partitioned off by Jordan to become a new Palestinian state (hereafter: Palestine). The area of Palestine will be roughly the same as that of Israel, including the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

   The area of the new state of Palestine will be bordered by Syria in the north-west, Jordan in the south-west, Saudi Arabia in the south-east, and Iraq in the north-east.

   

   This area is currently very sparsely populated, even for Jordan. Jordan’s population density in 2022 was 126.35 people per square kilometer. For comparison, Israel’s population density today is 424 people per square kilometer, and if we were to include the West Bank and the Gaza Strip (just the land, not the current inhabitants), it would be 325.6 people per square kilometer. The population density of the area being proposed as a Palestinian state is currently on the order of 10 people per square kilometer.

   The area being proposed is comprised of parts of two Jordanian governates: Mafraq and Zarqa.

   Most of the population of these two governates reside in the areas that would remain in Jordan. Jordan could either maintain them as two separate governates, or combine them into a single governate.

   

   The proposed area already includes the H-4 military airbase in Ruwaished [4] and the Prince Hassan military airbase in Safawi [5], both or either of which could be expanded into international airports.

   The Baghdad International Highway stretches from the border town of Trebil, Iraq, passing through Ruwaished and Safawi, currently in Jordan, but in what will be Palestine. At Safawi, the al-Badiya Highway branches off to the southwest, while a bit past Safawi, the Baghdad International Highway turns towards the northwest.

   It is common for towns and cities to develop alongside highways. With an already existing highway stretching from one end of Palestine to the other, infrastructure already exists for such development.

   

   As can be seen from the above map, the Jordan-Palestine border runs through the city of Azraq. This might not be the case if the border is adjusted to keep the Hamza oil field within Jordan, but either way, border adjustments can be made so that the border runs to the east of Azraq.

   The spots in light blue on the above map signify bodies of water. And in the map below, nature reserves are indicated.

   

   The map below shows elevations and water resources, including the many rivers and wadis in the new Palestine.

   

2. The Hamza oil field and the Risha natural gas field, both located in Palestine, will be leased to the Kingdom of Jordan for a period of 99 years.

   The area also includes Jordan’s Hamza oil field, and the Risha gas field. The Risha gas field is already about 80% tapped, and is expected to last only until 2047 [10]. As an alternative to leasing the Hamza field, the border could be adjusted to exclude it from the new state. This is a matter for negotiation.

   

3. Israel will construct a pipeline, supplying 50% of its desalinated water, up to a cap of 500 cubic meters per capita, to Jordan and Palestine.

   This pipeline would be constructed with international help, since most of it would exist not only in Israel, but in both Jordan and Palestine. The reason for the cap of 500 cubic meters of water per capita per year, is that this is considered the “absolute water scarcity threshold” [12], and it would be in addition to the water currently available to residents of Jordan. Meaning that even without the water currently available to Jordan and Palestine, the water supplied by Israel would still keep them above that threshhold.

   The water would be allocated to Jordan and Palestine according to their relative populations.

   Israel currently desalinates 585 million cubic meters of water per year, and is currently planning to increase the volume of desalinated water it supplies to 1,100 million cubic meters per year by 2030 [13]. That volume would have to be increased for the purposes of this proposal.

4. The United Nations Relief Work Administration (UNRWA) will be disbanded, and the refugee status of Palestinians will be terminated.

   The United Nations Relief Works Administration (UNRWA) has played a large part in perpetuating the violence in the Middle East by preventing Palestinians from resettling like any other refugees. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is the UN body which sees to the needs of refugees and their resettlement, but UNRWA seems to have the opposite mandate.

   UNRWA does not have a charter, unlike other UN bodies [14], and is instead powered by a series of resolutions and requests made to it on a regular basis. Under this proposal, UNRWA would no longer be needed, as the refugee status that they have perpetuated would no longer exist.

5. A Palestinian Resettlement, Immigration, Development, and Enterprise Fund (the PRIDE Fund) will be set up to help Palestinians who choose to resettle in Palestine move their property there and construct homes. The PRIDE Fund will also help Palestinian business owners move their businesses to Palestine. Any money recovered from embezzlement by past Palestinian leaders will be added to this fund.

   Funds intended for the PA will instead be transferred to the PRIDE Fund.

   In the first stage of immigration, the PRIDE Fund may have to construct fairly basic apartment buildings, in order to prepare sufficient housing for Palestininans who are immigrating. In addition, they will have to build facilities to store the belongings of the immigrants, should those belongings not fit in the temporary accomodations.

   The Fund will ensure that satisfactory accomodations are constructed for all of the new population within a reasonable period of time

   Former employees or contractors of UNRWA will not be eligible to work for the PRIDE Fund. This is necessary in order to prevent the PRIDE Fund from simply being a continuation of UNRWA under another name.

6. The governments of Israel and Jordan will recognize the Palestinian Temporary Leadership Council (PTLC) as the legal representatives of the Palestinians while this proposal is implemented, and until independent elections can be held in Palestine.

   The Oslo Accords will be formally cancelled, and the Palestinian Authority will be nullified. Israel will extend Israeli law and sovereign power over the areas now called the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and everyone in these areas will live under Israeli civil law. These areas will no longer be subject to Israeli military law.

   In order to cancel the Oslo Accords, Israel and the PTLC will have to notify the Quartet [15], a body comprised of the United States, the United Nations, the European Union, and Russia, that the Accords are no longer in force.

7. Palestinians who own real estate in the West Bank or the Gaza Strip will be granted comparable lands in Palestine.

   Wealthier Palestinians will not wish to give up the land that they own. Starting them off with comparable land in Palestine will make this transition easier. This right to land in Palestine will also include Palestinians who have made claims to land ownership in Israel where that claim has not been upheld by Israeli courts.

8. A homesteading plan will be established by which Palestinians who do not own land can be granted land in Palestine, with details to be determined.

   The large majority of Palestinians do not own land, and never have. This is only one way in which the considerable gap between upper class and lower class Palestinians are separated. In order to help close this gap, a program similar to the American Homesteading Act of 1862 could be useful in Palestine, albeit with far smaller land grants. Palestinians immigrating to Palestine would be granted sufficient land for a home and a field, the size of which could be determined in negotiations or by the Palestinian government, once that is up and running. In order to keep the land, they would have to “prove” it over a period of 5 years by living there continuously and improving the land, possibly by growing produce there. Unproven land would revert back to the Palestinian government.

   The two most important elements of this program would be to reduce the gap between upper class and lower class Palestinians, and to give Palestinians an ownership stake in land of their own.

9. Palestinian security prisoners will be released to Palestine. Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip who are wanted by Israeli authorities for security offenses will be allowed to leave for Palestine.

   Once a government has been established in Palestine, Israel will transfer all Palestinian security prisoners to the custody of the Palestinian government. All Palestinians who are wanted by Israeli authorities for nationalist crimes will be allowed free passage to Palestine, and relevant details on these wanted individuals will first be given to the Palestinian government.

10. Fifty percent of Israel’s profits from this exploitation will be placed in a fund, similar to the Alaskan “Permanent Fund”, and payments will be made to Palestinians upon their migration to Palestine, and annually thereafter. These disbursements will be made directly to the Palestinians who have relocated and will not go through any Palestinian leadership body.

    The Alaskan Permanent Fund [16] is a privately run fund that holds a percentage of earnings from North Slope oil and issues checks to all Alaskans once a year. This is a good model for ensuring that money from the Gaza Marine gas field gets to Palestinians directly and is not subsumed into a national/ governmental pot.

    There are a number of benefits to this arrangement. One is that it will provide incentives for relocating to Palestine, and financial means for doing so successfully. Another is that it provides an ongoing incentive to preserve the peace, since war would disrupt the exploitation of the gas field and affect annual dividends to Palestinians in a detrimental way, which would in turn incentivize Palestinians to elect government representatives who will maintain the peace.

11. Palestinians who choose not to emigrate will be considered foreign nationals of Palestine, and will be subject to the same laws as Israeli citizens and other foreign nationals. Israel will pass a law prohibiting the use of “administrative detention” for Israelis as well as foreign nationals, and no Palestinians shall be forced to emigrate unless they have been convicted in a court of law of violent crime or conspiracy to commit violent crime.

    Administrative detention is a procedure by which a government puts someone in prison without any charges, and without the ability to see legal representation or confront their accuser. It is the antithesis of habeus corpus, and is something that no civilized country should be using, least of all against its own citizens. In the case of Israel, it is law left over from the British Mandate and not law that was ever passed by Israel’s Knesset. This proposal is a good opportunity for Israel to divest itself of this leftover from the British Empire.

    Palestinians who do not engage in violent or nationalist crimes in Israel, and have no history of doing so, can remain. But as foreign nationals, if they do engage in such actions, they will be deported to Palestine. It will not be like the current situation, where there is nowhere to deport such people.

    But as resident non-citizens, Palestinians in Israel will be able to travel freely and work freely throughout Israel, just as Israelis will be able to travel freely and safely under the protection of Israeli law.

12. Palestinians of all religious persuasions will be able to visit their holy sites in Israel, just as anyone from other countries can.

    This perhaps goes without saying. Israel has always respected the holy sites of other religions, and has always allowed access to them. This will not change.

13. Palestinians who have collaborated with Israel in the past will be given preferential treatment should they opt to apply for Israeli citizenship.

    Palestinians who remain in Israel, in general, will be able to apply for Israeli citizenship should they want to after a cooling off period, but it will be a long and difficult process, requiring extensive background checks, and an oath of loyalty to Israel as a Jewish state. The lengthy conflict, even after being resolved, will have left scars that will be a long time healing, and trust must be earned.

    Palestinians who have collaborated with Israel, however, will be given preferential treatment in this process, due to their past service to Israel.

The greatest benefit of this proposal is that it does not require any of the parties involved to lose, either in fact or in appearance. It is a win-win-win scenario, which will create a stable Middle East, other than the problem of Iran, which this proposal does not address. It will allow the Palestinians, who have the highest percentage of university graduates of any Arabs in the Middle East, to build an exemplary and advanced state, and to raise their prestige in the Arab world. It will allow future generations of Palestinians to live fruitful lives, freed from the poison of resentment and hatred. It will allow Israel to live in peace with its neighbors. It will allow Jordan to thrive as it never has before. And it will allow the entire world to put behind it one of the most problematic geopolitical conflicts of the 20th and 21st centuries.

Appendix: Why One- and Two- State Solutions cannot work

One State Solution

There are a number of variations on the theme of a one state solution. All of them include a single political entity between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. We will refer to this area henceforth as Cisjordanian Palestine, as it was once called.

The simplest version of a one state solution is for Cisjordanian Palestine to provide a “right of return” for all people claiming Palestinian refugee status, and for a one-person, one-vote system to determine the nature of that state.

Jewish Objections

• The entire raison d’etre of the State of Israel is to be a Jewish State in the ancestral home of the Jews. Not merely for Jews to be able to live there as a minority.

• Jews have not been treated well in Muslim countries, and in fact were expelled from most of them in 1948. Most Jews believe that allowing Arabs/Muslims to control the land in which they live would lead to widespread slaughter.

• Many Jews believe that there simply is no other nation with a claim on Cisjordanian Palestine. That Palestinian nationality is an invention of the late 20th century, conceived for the explicit purpose of being a weapon against the existence of Israel, and do not see the justice in sharing the land with such people. As we will see, this objection applies to most two state solutions as well.

Palestinian Objections

• Palestinians have been raised to believe that all of Cisjordanian Palestine is their ancestral home, and that Jews are merely European invaders/colonists who need to be repelled. Sharing the land with these Jews is seen as fundamentally unjust.

• Numerous Palestinian leaders have made it clear that any future Palestinian state must be Jew-free.

One of the most common variants of the one state solution is a federal solution, or a canton solution, in which the entire area of Cisjordanian Palestine would be divided up into districts or cantons, each being semi-autonomous, having its own local laws, but being subject to an overall government for issues that cannot be left to the cantons, such as national defense, diplomacy, and inter-canton conflicts.

Advocates of this type of solution point to the cantons of Switzerland and the 50 states of the United States as examples. However, there needs to be some degree of cultural similarity for such a solution to work, and applying it to two groups that have been at war for close to a century seems unlikely to be successful.

Two State Solution

A two state solution is generally predicated on the areas of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip gaining independent state status, with Israel retaining the area within the 1949 armistice lines, commonly called the Green Line. Because the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are not contiguous, two state solutions generally call for some kind of connection between the two areas, cutting through the Israeli part.

In a two state solution, Jerusalem is either split between Israel and Palestine, with the areas that Jordan occupied prior to the 1967 war being ruled by the Palestinians, and the rest being ruled by Israel, or serves as a joint capital of the two countries, with details to be worked out.

Israeli Objections

• Israelis point to the fact that the West Bank protrudes into Israel’s heartland, placing all of Israel in direct danger of attack by the Palestinians. Ceding the West Bank would leave Israel with a 9-mile wide strip that could easily be cut, dividing Israel in two. And given the precedent of the Gaza Strip following the Disengagement of 2005, foregoing control over the West Bank seems suicidal.

• There are currently on the order of half a million Jews living in the West Bank and the areas of Jerusalem that were occupied by Jordan prior to 1967. The expulsion of some 9,000 Israelis from the Gaza Strip in 2005 in order to cede it to the Palestinians was incredibly traumatic to Israel as a society. The propect of doing the same thing to half a million Israelis, particularly in light of what happened after the 2005 Disengagement is something a significant majority of Israelis would reject.

Palestinian Objections

• Similar to their objections to a One State Solution, Palestinians do not consider the West Bank and Gaza Strip to be any more “occupied” than Tel Aviv and Beersheba, cities within the Green Line. Having control over the West Bank and the Gaza Strip would not be viewed as a “solution” to anything. Only a step in the right direction.

There is a variation on the two state solution in which it is pointed out that both Cisjordanian Palestine and Transjordanian Palestine were originally considered Palestine. And that the partition of the two by Great Britain in 1921 and the renaming of Transjordanian Palestine, which made up 79% of the whole, to “Transjordan” (and later to “Jordan”) does not change the fact that there is already a two state solution: Israel and Jordan, and that the Palestinians who live in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, if they want to live in a Palestinian state, should move there.

This argument is strengthened by the fact that Jordan currently has a population which is 90% Palestinian, and that their queen is, in fact, Palestinian. During the Jordanian occupation of the West Bank (1948-1967), during which the areas that had been known as Judea and Samaria were relabeled “the West Bank” to distinguish it from the remaining area of Jordan on the east bank of the Jordan River, people moved freely between the east and west banks, and there is no cultural distinction between them.

It is also pointed out that the Palestinians living in the West Bank originally held Jordanian citizenship, and that the Jordanian cancellation of this citizenship, leaving West Bank Palestinians stateless, was highly problematic, if not contrary to international law.

Jordan would surely object to the percentage of their population becoming even more Palestinian than it already is, particularly given that there is a large minority of the Palestinian population of Jordan which has often expressed interest in overthrowing the Hashemite monarchy. Palestinians in Jordan attempted in 1970 to do just that, and King Hussein, father of the current King Abdullah, wound up expelling many of them after a protracted and bloody civil war. Jordan surely would not want to repeat that experience.

As stated at the beginning, there have been suggestions in the past for a three state solution, but these have been variants of the two state solution. In some of them, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are each given the status of independent states, so that there are two Palestinian states and one Jewish state in Cisjordanian Palestine. In others, the West Bank is combined with Jordan into a single state, and the Gaza Strip is left on its own as a small Palestinian state. Or the West Bank is combined with Jordan, and the Gaza Strip with Egypt, and Egypt (with the Gaza Strip), Israel (within the Green Line) and Jordan (including the West Bank) are the three states.

Appendix: Palestinian Leadership

Without revisiting the information at the beginning of section “C. Why Should the Palestinians Accept this Proposal?”, it must be noted that for many decades, the Arabs of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, as well as descendents of Arabs who left Cisjordanian Palestine in 1947-49, did not identify as a separate nation called Palestinians, and that when the Palestine Liberation Organization was created, many of them rejected the idea that the PLO represented them.

(It should be noted as well that despite the question of when a Palestinian national identity came into being, it exists now. There is a people who identify as Palestinian, who consider this their nationality, and whose national aspirations must be taken into account.)

It was the lack of any other representation as a de facto nationality among them that led to growing acceptance of the PLO and other terrorist groups as their representatives. And the Oslo process, wherein the State of Israel brought the PLO back from their exile in Tunis in the early 1990s to represent the Palestinians, cemented this state of affairs.

In truth, Palestinians have never had a free choice of leadership. Even when they were allowed to have elections in 2007, they were only able to choose between terrorist organizations.

History and bitter experience has demonstrated that these organizations have nothing to gain and much to lose by allowing Palestinians to be free. They rule the Palestinians with an iron fist and a vengeful heart. And they are among the most corrupt leaders in the world, as might be expected from what are essentially criminal organizations.

The Palestinian people deserve better. They are entitled to better. And this proposal requires an honest negotiating partner, which excludes the terrorist organizations who have for so long claimed to represent the Palestinians.

For this reason, there is a need for a group of no fewer than 20 Palestinians who have a documented history of speaking out against those groups and in favor of an end to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. A group which can serve as a Palestinian Temporary Leadership Council (PTLC) until an actual elected government can be chosen by the Palestinians in the new state of Palestine.

We believe that faced with this proposal, such a group will come together to pursue the solution it offers.

[1] Map modified from https://www.bible.org.sg/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/03-Israel-Jordan.jpg

[2] Retrieved from the Jewish Virtual Library: Jewish National Home Determined by San Remo Conference and The British Mandate

[3] Serugim: The Price of Oslo Until Today: Almost a Trillion Shekels (Hebrew)

[4] Wikipedia: H-4 Air Base

[5] Wikipedia: Prince Hassan Air Base

[6] Map of Governates in Jordan

[7] Google Maps snapshot

[8] Jordan with elevation, major cities, main roads and highways, and nature preserves

[9] Water Resources in Jordan

[10] Oil/Gas Field Profile

[11] Jordanian Exploration and Production Map

[12] United Nations: Water Scarcity

[13] Background - Seawater Desalination in Israel

[14] The Mandate of UNRWA at Sixty, Lance Bartholomeusz

[15] Office of the Quartet

[16] Wikipedia: Alaska Permanent Fund