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In the midst of escalating tensions, I, Alexandra Appelberg, an orientalist residing in Israel and contributing to the local news outlet “Details,” find myself compelled to shed light on the recent turmoil gripping the Gaza region. Additionally, I curate a Telegram channel dedicated to disseminating insights on the intricacies of the Middle East.
On October 7th, Hamas militants breached the Gaza border, unleashing a barrage of violence upon neighboring settlements. What ensued was a harrowing ordeal, with reports indicating the loss of approximately 1,200 lives, while over two hundred individuals were taken hostage and whisked away into the heart of Gaza. In response, Israel vowed to dismantle Hamas, thus igniting a conflict that has claimed the lives of both combatants and innocent civilians alike. Regrettably, this war has already resulted in the loss of tens of thousands of Palestinian lives, with over 70% of residential infrastructure in Gaza reduced to rubble. As one of the most significant humanitarian crises of our time unfolds, Israel finds itself under scrutiny in the International Court of Justice, facing accusations of genocide.
According to the United Nations, out of Gaza’s pre-war population of 2.3 million, 1.9 million have been displaced, further exacerbating an already densely populated territory. Forced to seek refuge in the southern reaches of Gaza, many now find themselves seeking shelter in schools, hospitals, makeshift camps, or simply beneath tarpaulins, all the while living under the constant specter of danger. Alarmingly, half a million locals grapple with the scourge of hunger amidst the chaos.
Yet, perhaps the most chilling aspect of this conflict is its seemingly interminable nature, with a sustainable peace appearing increasingly elusive. Neither side appears willing to relent until the other is vanquished, leaving only hypothetical scenarios for resolution. Nevertheless, glimmers of hope persist, emanating from various quarters, including the governments of the United States and Israel, as well as the Palestinian populace and other regional stakeholders.
In this discourse, I shall delve into the intricate web of proposed coexistence plans, ranging from full-scale occupation to the utopian ideals of a Swiss-style confederation. Moreover, I shall expound upon the formidable challenges hindering the realization of each proposal.
This letter spans 18,000 characters and is estimated to take approximately 15 minutes to read.
Within the text, we delineate four distinct plans proposed by various entities for the post-war configuration of Israel and Palestine. The first plan originates from the United States, advocating for the establishment of a “renewed” Palestinian state. The second plan stems from Israel, detailing further military actions aimed at clearing and reoccupying the Gaza Strip. The third plan emerges from Palestinian organizations, advocating for a new unity among their ranks to govern the Palestinian state. Lastly, the fourth plan is a utopian vision crafted by Palestinian and Israeli intellectuals and activists, proposing the formation of a confederation between the two states, where all individuals enjoy equal rights.
Understanding the Fundamentals
The events of October 7th were preceded by a century-long conflict between Arabs and Jews. To fully comprehend these events, one would typically delve into numerous books. However, for the sake of our discussion, grasping a few key concepts will suffice. This concise glossary is based on comprehensive materials from our colleagues at the “Signal” newsletter — I highly recommend delving into it for further insights.
For those well-acquainted with the conflict’s background, feel free to skip ahead to the first chapter.
Israel — a nation-state for Jews in the Middle East, established in 1948, coexisting with a significant Arab minority. Its inception and subsequent history have been marked by wars with surrounding Arab countries and factions acting on behalf of the Arab populace of Palestine.
Palestine — a partially recognized (by 139 out of 193 countries) Arab state, comprising two areas divided by Israel: the Gaza Strip and the West Bank (referring to the western bank of the Jordan River). In 1947, the UN proposed dividing the lands of Palestine between Jews and Arabs in vastly different proportions. However, through numerous conflicts, Israel significantly expanded its territory.
The Oslo Accords of 1993 affirmed the necessity of Palestinian self-governance. As a result, the Palestinian National Authority was established. Under its jurisdiction, Israel transferred control of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip (although Israeli troops withdrew from there only in 2005).
Fatah — a secular nationalist movement currently governing the West Bank; its representative, Mahmoud Abbas, heads the Palestinian Authority.
Hamas — a radical Islamist organization that seized power from Fatah in the Gaza Strip in 2006, leading to a prolonged schism between the two factions. Hamas aims for the complete destruction of Israel and the establishment of a theocratic Islamic state on the historic land of Palestine. For decades, Hamas militants have perpetrated attacks and rocket barrages on Israeli territory. During the five-month war in Gaza, Israeli forces killed or severely wounded up to half of Hamas’s 40,000 fighters, but the movement remains far from being decisively defeated.
The attack on October 7th, 2023, and the subsequent war have led many to assert that a return to the “pre-war” status quo, with Hamas controlling the Gaza Strip, Fatah controlling the West Bank, and Israel maintaining its dominance, is no longer feasible. But what might replace it?
American Plan — New “Two-State Solution”
The United States, Israel’s main ally, is discontent with the situation unfolding in the Gaza Strip and is formulating its own plan to resolve the conflict. By the end of January 2024, a representative of the US State Department, Matthew Miller, even stated that the best way to secure peace is to establish an independent Palestinian state within the borders of Gaza and the West Bank. This marks a significant policy shift for the US, which had previously advocated for Palestinians and Israelis to resolve their differences independently, essentially giving Israel carte blanche to make decisions for years.
According to the American plan, the “renewed” Palestinian Authority (currently governing only part of the West Bank) should take control of Gaza after the war, with international forces, primarily from Arab countries, managing the interim period.
It’s envisaged that particularly wealthy nations like the UAE and Saudi Arabia will bear the responsibility for Gaza’s reconstruction after the war. Israel has long sought to establish diplomatic ties with Saudi Arabia. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken promised to assist Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in improving relations with Saudi Arabia if Netanyahu shows flexibility regarding the future Palestinian state.
Other international powers echo the sentiments of the United States. “We want to achieve a decision on the two-state solution,” said the EU’s chief diplomat, Josep Borrell. Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia also support the creation of a Palestinian state. Russia and China endorse this idea as well.
Despite decades of Palestinians’ inability to create their own universally recognized state, this idea has received a new impetus. It seems that never before has the global community been so serious about the establishment of a Palestinian state. However, firstly, to create it, Israel will need to change its plans (which will be discussed in the next chapter). And secondly, even if everything falls into place, this plan has a significant drawback.
The issue lies in the fact that the Palestinian Authority, in its current form, cannot effectively govern Gaza. Even in the West Bank, where Fatah holds relative power, it lacks legitimacy. Elections haven’t been held since 2006 — the same year when the party led by the current leader of the Palestinian Authority and Fatah chairman, Mahmoud Abbas, lost to Hamas but retained power. The last presidential elections, in which Abbas emerged victorious, took place in 2005.
A survey conducted in December 2023 by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research showed that 90% of the residents of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are in favor of the resignation of the 88-year-old Abbas, viewing his rule as corrupt and authoritarian.
This is precisely why the US desires a “renewal” of the Palestinian Authority. This process has already begun: the old government, experiencing a severe crisis of legitimacy for over a decade, resigned in February 2024. However, it remains unclear who will replace the old Palestinian bureaucrats and whether the new government will garner the trust of the Palestinian people.
Israel’s Plan — Occupation
Meanwhile, the Israeli political leadership has made it clear that it has no intention of tolerating any neighboring Palestinian state. Netanyahu stated that he wouldn’t allow “Hamastan to turn into Fatahstan.” It appears that the majority of Israelis agree with him: 65% of Israeli citizens oppose the idea of two states.
In early 2024, Netanyahu presented his proposal for the post-war reconstruction of Gaza. After destroying Hamas’s military infrastructure, Israel must, according to this plan, retain “unlimited operational freedom in the Gaza Strip” for an unspecified period — essentially leaving occupation forces there. Civil administration and responsibility for maintaining public order will, according to this plan, be assumed by local officials who have not been associated with Hamas or other terrorist groups. Israel also plans to achieve the “complete demilitarization” of the Gaza Strip.
Regarding the reconstruction of the sector, Netanyahu’s plan suggests that “acceptable countries for Israel” will handle it, although it’s unclear which countries will agree to this. Moreover, it’s uncertain where a sufficient number of “local officials with management experience,” who have not been associated with Hamas, will come from, given that Hamas was the primary employer in the sector, and any official or municipal worker collaborated with it.
The “unlimited operational control” mentioned by Netanyahu essentially means the re-occupation of the Gaza Strip. This scenario is unacceptable to most of the Western world. Israel’s military actions, resulting in the deaths of thousands of civilians, already provoke outrage and massive protests in world capitals. If it turns out that the war has not led to a long-term political solution but rather to a new occupation, Israel risks international isolation.
There are already hints of this. In the United States — probably for the first time in the entire history of American-Israeli relations — serious discussions are underway about restricting military, financial, and diplomatic aid to Israel. The US, UK, and EU are imposing sanctions on Israeli settlers. Moreover, Israel is being pressured to be excluded from the Eurovision Song Contest — perhaps not crucial for the country’s survival but a symbolic step.
However, the problems won’t end there. Upon gaining control of the Gaza Strip, Israel will have to take care of the two million Palestinians living there: rebuilding homes, completely destroyed civil infrastructure, hospitals, and schools, paying salaries and allowances. In the face of diplomatic isolation, it’s unlikely that Israel can count on assistance from other countries.
There seems to be no clear understanding in Israel of what to do with more than two million hostile inhabitants. Politicians, including those in opposition, currently prefer not to answer these questions, focusing on military goals instead. But sooner or later, they will have to answer them.
Additionally, radical options are being proposed within the Israeli government. The Minister of Finance and leader of the far-right “Religious Zionism” party, Bezalel Smotrich, explicitly stated: “Jewish settlements must be established in the Gaza Strip.” According to this concept, Arab residents of Gaza would have to be relocated somewhere, so that out of two million, only 100-200 thousand would remain. For example, to the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt or to other countries in the region — which, among other things, is unacceptable to both Muslim countries and Western ones.
Religious Zionism is one of the influential political currents in Israel. Its founder, Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Kook, considered the return of the Jewish people to the land of Israel a sacred process leading to the spiritual renewal of the Jewish nation. Unlike other Zionism ideologists, Kook cared little about peaceful coexistence with Arabs. The decisive victory in the Six-Day War of 1967 against the united forces of Arab countries convinced religious Zionists of the correctness of their teachings. Some ministers from among its followers are now calling for the direct annexation of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
The Plan of Palestinian Movements — Unite and Lead the Renewed State
Before the terrorist attack on October 7, the population of Gaza had very low regard for Hamas’s activities and little trust in the organization. This can be inferred from opinion polls conducted in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank by the Arab Barometer organization in collaboration with the Palestinian Center for Political and Survey Research.
67% of Palestinians in Gaza stated that they did not trust Hamas. The most popular potential candidate for the presidency in Gaza was Marwan Barghouti, a member of Fatah who is imprisoned in an Israeli jail and one of the leaders of the First and Second Intifadas, rather than Hamas’s political leader Ismail Haniyeh or the current chairman of Fatah, Mahmoud Abbas.
Palestinians have a negative view of the idea of the Palestinian Authority, which would govern both the West Bank and Gaza. The majority of respondents in these territories referred to it as a “burden.” However, Fatah was slightly more preferable to Gaza residents than Hamas: 30% versus 27%.
The war changed everything. By December 2023, Hamas’s popularity had risen to 42% in Gaza and 44% in the West Bank. And Fatah’s authority had plummeted even further — to 18% and 16%, respectively. “Today, most Palestinians believe that ending the occupation and establishing a Palestinian state is only possible through armed struggle,” said Palestinian sociologist Khalil Shikaki in an interview with Meduza in January 2024.
At the beginning of the war, Hamas and Fatah constantly accused each other: of posing a threat to the Palestinian people on the one hand and of political passivity on the other. The two largest Palestinian factions have been at odds since Hamas violently seized control of the Gaza Strip following the success of its supporters in the Palestinian Legislative Council elections in 2006. The movements failed to agree on a coalition government and decided to settle their differences by force.
Against the backdrop of renewed discussions about the creation of a Palestinian state, Hamas and Fatah have again begun talking about reconciliation and even met in Moscow to discuss the post-war future of Gaza. Plans were announced there to unite Fatah, Hamas, and smaller groups under the auspices of a single umbrella organization similar to the old Palestine Liberation Organization. This organization is likely to be the one that should govern the state of Palestine, which Israel must recognize.
The creation of a new country and life alongside Israel would suit many Palestinians. According to a survey by the Palestinian Center for Political and Survey Research, the popularity of this idea is even higher than before the war (32% in September 2023 and 34% in December).
Fatah lacks support among Palestinians (the population of the West Bank and Gaza does not trust it) — unlike the international community and, primarily, the US administration, which has already stated that they want to see representatives of the Palestinian Authority at the head of Gaza. Hamas, in turn, enjoys greater trust among Palestinians but has no legitimacy in the eyes of Americans, who consider this movement terrorist and support Israel’s efforts to destroy Hamas.
Thus, potential reconciliation with Fatah for Hamas is an opportunity to maintain its political influence, and perhaps just to survive. And for Fatah, it’s an attempt to maintain relevance in the eyes of Palestinians.
The problem with this plan is that many countries view radical Islamist militancy, which Hamas adheres to, as a threat: both Egypt and the wealthy Gulf monarchies. The exception may be Qatar, which provides refuge and a platform for negotiations to Hamas leaders. Moreover, Hamas and Fatah recently quarreled again when Mahmoud Abbas unilaterally appointed a new prime minister.
It’s also unclear whether the US and Israel would accept any hypothetical participation of Hamas in the region’s political life. On the other hand, for the plan to be accepted by the Palestinians themselves, it must include various Palestinian forces — including the most popular ones in the region.
Alternative (and currently quite fantastical) Plan of Activists — A Confederation akin to the European Union
Since at least the 1960s, discussions about another alternative — a beautiful but seemingly unattainable idea of a confederation of the Jewish and Palestinian states — have been ongoing in Israeli and Palestinian civil societies. Because of the new surge in violence, this idea has once again become actively discussed.
In November 2023, The New York Times reported on two activists — Israeli May Pondak and Palestinian Rana Salman — who have assembled a team of activists and experts to try to devise alternative solutions to the conflict. They consider the Oslo Accords a disappointment and a “hollow shell.”
“It all started as a promise of freedom and liberation for the Palestinians, but turned into numerous systems of oppression, lack of hope, lack of vision, and lack of a future,” says Pondak. According to her, two million Palestinians — Israeli citizens and over half a million Israeli settlers in the West Bank — make these peoples inseparably linked to each other and to the common land. For her, the ideal is the European Union, where countries that were recently at war with each other, such as France and Germany, peacefully coexist within a supra-national state.
Unlike the concept of two states, such a confederation envisages a joint space of two countries with common institutions and borders. According to the plan, residents of these states would be able to move freely between them and choose a place to live (but vote only in their own country). Both countries would have a common economic policy.
Among other things, the proponents of the idea suggest rejecting the ethno-national separation of Israelis from Palestinians — so that Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Palestinian refugees in Israel would cease to be such problematic issues.
According to the project of Pondak and Salman, Jerusalem would become the capital of the confederation, and a special international body composed of representatives of various religions would oversee its holy sites and ensure equal access to them.
In the discussion around plans for reconciliation between Israel and Palestine, there is another theoretical (and equally fantastical) option for the coexistence of the two peoples: the creation of a single multinational state, incorporating the territories of Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza. Such proposals have been voiced since the founding of Israel, for example by Jewish socialists. This unified state could resemble South Africa after the victory of the anti-apartheid movement in the late 20th century. However, many in Israel find such a solution unacceptable, as due to differences in birth rates, Jews would become a minority in such a state within the next few decades.
The idea of a confederation is supported by individual politicians and intellectuals, as well as activist groups bringing together Israeli Jews, Palestinian citizens of Israel, and residents of the West Bank and Gaza. For example, “Israeli-Palestinian Confederation” or “Land for All.” Among the population, the confederation is also quite popular: in 2022, 28% of Israelis and 22% of Palestinians were willing to support it.
In 2022, one of the co-authors of the Oslo Accords, Yossi Beilin, together with Palestinian lawyer and experienced negotiator Hiba Husseini, published a 100-page document titled “The Confederation of the Holy Land.” The main ideas are the same: a confederation modeled after Switzerland or the European Union with free movement within borders and a common capital and “exchange” system for settlers. According to this plan, each Jewish settler could obtain residency in the Palestinian part of the confederation. In exchange, an equal number of Palestinians could settle in the Jewish part. The authors of the plan have no illusions that it will be accepted, but they hope that the alternative idea will help “break the dam of inaction” and at least resume serious peace talks.
After October 7, supporters of the confederation once again began vigorously discussing the justification of this approach. “Division, fragmentation, and isolation carry a danger that many somehow fail to notice,” says sociologist Dalia Sheindlin of “Land for All.” “To understand this, it’s enough to look at Gaza.” At the same time, Sheindlin says, the West Bank is much less isolated from Israel and could more easily integrate into such a confederation.
Of course, right now, after the attack on October 7 and during the fighting in Gaza, both peoples are increasingly afraid of and hating each other. It’s difficult to imagine their peaceful coexistence, so discussions about a confederation are nothing more than a mental exercise. At least for now.
Some of the solutions described in this text may seem ineffective and outdated, while others are just too fantastical. But no matter how much the two peoples fear and hate each other, they will have to learn to live together. Otherwise, as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, the region faces an “endless cycle of violence.”
Because it’s obvious that in the long run, neither Palestinians nor Israelis will go anywhere from this land. They will live here — side by side. The only question is how.