Parallel and meeting – two-channel negotiation

By: Erel Morris

The issue of annexation of Judea and Samaria has recently returned to the table. The voices calling for annexation are heard mainly among right-wing settler elements who see annexation as the fulfillment of their settlement vision and the exercise of ancestral rights in Israel. On the other hand, the ongoing failure of governance in the territories of Judea and Samaria, which is manifested in reversible and irreversible environmental destruction alongside other types of lawlessness, creates a situation in which even people interested in equality between Jews and Arabs in Israel are examining annexation as a legitimate course of action.

The one-state solution, proposed under the brand name "sovereignty," is not a morally inappropriate solution in itself. The Balfour Declaration and the Mandate document aimed at one state in the Land of Israel as a national home for the Jewish people and the Arabs living in the country. Arab opposition to Jewish immigration, which began in the Turkish period, and the formation of the Palestinian national concept led to violence in the Arab Revolt and, in its wake, to the partition proposal by the British Peel Commission in 1937. This strategy was later chosen as a proposed solution by the United Nations in 1947, when an existential obligation was created for the immediate absorption of Jewish Holocaust refugees from Europe. Palestinian leaders also opposed the two-state partition solution according to the UN outline.

The situation has reversed today, as the world's Jews who desire it have largely been absorbed into Israel, and the two-state solution has become acceptable to most countries in the world and to the Palestinian leadership as a political framework that is supposed to allow for the absorption of Palestinian refugees whose return to their homes was blocked at the end of the 1948 war. The years of Israeli civilian administration and the settlement enterprise operating together in the territories occupied in the Six-Day War have made the two-state solution so difficult to examine and implement that it has led to its failure over the years.

Many Palestinian residents of the territories occupied in 1967 are now concerned about their very possibility of living in Israeli territory in light of the growing radicalization of the Israeli right after October 7 under government elements who are trying to shift the war from Gaza to the territories of Judea and Samaria. The return of refugees as a Palestinian strategic goal has become secondary in importance today, and the idea of unilateral annexation proposed by the representatives of the settlers has brought the one-state solution back to the stage. In contrast to the strategy of apartheid and transfer to which we are being dragged, it is appropriate to examine a negotiated solution based on one state and consider the solutions it could provide to the myriad of unresolved problems that exist in the territories of Judea and Samaria and in Jerusalem.

For us to consider the one-state solution as a peaceful solution to the long and bloody conflict, it must be acceptable to both sides. Surveys conducted in recent years indicate an increase in the number of young Palestinians who prefer the one-state solution that would allow them a normal life from a security, economic, and social perspective. This change in perception, which often passes under the Israeli radar, opens up new opportunities for a discourse on the coexistence of Jews and Palestinians in Israel that is not necessarily focused on national rights but on human and civil rights.

It would not be right to dismiss the two-state solution outright, as many in Israel, the Arab world, and other countries around the world see the two-state solution as the right solution to the problem and continue to promote it as a single channel. A negotiation strategy is proposed here that aims to create two separate and independent channels of dialogue for Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation. One focuses on the recognized two-state solution and the other is aimed at the one-state solution, which has hardly been discussed in the past between the parties at the practical level. A structured process is proposed that combines the two parallel channels. In the first channel, negotiations will take place between Israeli and Palestinian representatives who both support the one-state solution and draft an agreement within this framework. The second channel of negotiations will take place between Israeli and Palestinian representatives who all support the two-state solution.

In the proposed outline, the two processes will take place simultaneously and separately, with two agreements being formulated at the end of the process. The main points of the agreements will be presented to the Israeli and Palestinian publics for a referendum – one or the other. There is a 50% chance that both peoples will choose the same solution and a 50% chance that each people will choose a different solution. To the extent that both peoples choose the same solution, we must start from the outline that was agreed upon by a double majority, while referring to the ideas that emerged in the minority outline in order to examine the creative assimilation of significant points that also emerged in it within the framework of the agreed and final arrangement. The expected product will combine the solutions within the framework of a federation of districts that can also incorporate confederal elements of national autonomous administrative bodies. In the other case, where the majority in both nations choose different solutions, a hybrid model is formulated, except that in this case, the starting point will be the two agreements and the four Israeli and Palestinian negotiating teams that participated in the processes will have to find the middle ground.

The process is not simple or trivial, but it allows expression to those who desire separation into two sovereignties and fear one state, as well as to those who believe in one sovereignty and fear two states. This outline will reduce the chance of outbreaks of disruptive violence during the talks, which often stems from a sense of exclusion and helplessness of entire communities. The process is expected to end with a referendum and an agreed-upon election in a joint manner, so that they retain the right to vote. Terrorists and even political opposition elements who nevertheless act to thwart the combined process will be monitored and punished in response to their harm to both sides by forcibly maintaining the state of hostility at the expense of striving for a solution. Choosing a two-channel process will first of all allow for a halt in the escalation process that the Jewish supporters of apartheid and transfer and their Muslim fundamentalist partners are unwittingly striving for. These feed on the unfortunate premise that peace is not possible at all – only "total victory," for those who think there is such a thing in a world rushing towards destruction.

Written by: Erel Morris