What Would *You* Like To See Happen in Palestine/Israel?

At my weekly lunch with the curmudgeons at the Cloverleaf we were talking about the Middle East, naturally. A professor told the story of how he had a Palestinian student once who invited him home for dinner. The food was wonderful and the family was warm as can be. After dinner, the situation in Palestine came up somehow in the conversation, and the professor asked, “What would you like to see happen with Israel? What would be your ideal outcome?” The family excitedly started talking about Palestinian woes and Israel’s sins. But they didn’t answer the question. So he asked again: “What would you like to see happen with Israel?” Again, they talked about their grievances, but not about what they wanted to happen. So he asked it again. And again. Eventually, he gave up.

I have the same question for you, attentive reader. “What would you like to see happen with Israel? What would be your ideal outcome?”

I really am interested in your answer, not in telling you what I think. The main purpose of this essay is to get people to think about their answer to this question, because you can’t talk about Injustice until you decide what Justice is. The secondary purpose is to find out what a few people think— please do write a word or two in the comments.

I should show you what I mean, though, so you don’t just start talking about the sins of Israel. Here are some possibilities. I’ll restrict them to “Palestine free, from the River to the Sea”; that is, to outcomes for the country of Israel as it was in 1950, so as to not get bogged down in the complexities of the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, and the Golan Heights. Put differently: what should be done with the ancestral homeland of the Palestinian refugees ?

1. Establish a secular democracy with no single favored religion. Allow the Palestinians to immigrate freely. Let everyone in Israel stay and keep whatever property they own.

2. Establish a secular democracy with no single favored religion. Allow the Palestinians to immigrate freely. Let everyone in Israel stay and keep whatever property they own. Tax the Jews in Israel to pay more compensation for land the refugees left behind in 1948 and pay it to the former owners.

3. Establish an Islamic state with Moslem control and Islamic law, even if there are more Jews than Moslems. Let the Jews remain, with their property.

4. Expel the Jews, to refugee camps nearby if they can’t find anywhere else to take them. Confiscate all their property: land, financial, and moveable. Kill them if they won’t leave. Establish an Islamic state.

5. Kill the Jews and confiscate their property.

You can mix and match these. For example, you might say that you would like Israel to remain a Jewish state, with a special Right of Return for Jews, but to let the refugees return also, and to top up the inadequate compensation paid to some of them many years ago for their land. I, myself, tend towards something like that.

Pinning down your favored solution also helps you and others to find out what really bothers you about the status quo, and helps to figure out your “second-best” solution.

For example, if you favor (4), then it isn’t just the absence of the Palestinian refugees from 1948 that bothers you, but the presence of any Jews at all, whether their ancestors arrived in 1200 B.C., 1200 A.D., or 1960. If you favor (3), you don’t mind states that base their laws on religion and tax people differently depending on their religion, but you think Israel should be heavily Islamic instead of mildly Jewish in its laws. If you favor (1), you don’t like religious states and you want the Palestinian refugees to be able to return, but you don’t want to treat Jews differently from them.

The two relevant “second-best” outcomes are those favored by the Israelis and by Hamas. We know the Israeli position for sure, because they are in control right now: it is the status quo of a democratic Jewish state to which the 1948 refugees are not allowed to return. The Hamas position is difficult to pin down. I think they have openly said they want an Islamic state (even though some refugees are Christian), and they want the 1948 refugees to be able to return. I don’t know if they have an official position on democracy and on Jewish lives, citizenship, and property. After October 7, I think it is fair to say they favor something like outcome (5) above, with all the Jews killed, though perhaps they would prefer (4), with the Jews expelled and their property taken. It is possible to dislike both of these second-best outcomes, but they are the realistic alternatives now in 2023.

But that is editorializing. I really do want to know which of (1)-(5) and the status quo you favor. Use the comment section. Note that I will of course allow you to advocate extreme positions such as gas chambers for Jews— that is the purpose of free speech, to allow people to disclose their substantive positions— but I may censor obscene language and racial epithets. You don’t need to use those to tell us what you believe, even if you’re an extremist.