This is a follow up to a piece I did for called Just What Am I Agreeing To: The Orthodoxy Of "Supporting Israel" that you can find HERE.
I have tried to really listen to both sides of the Israel/Palestine conversations ever since Hamas went in and murdered innocent civilians on October 7.
Obviously what Hamas did to Israel was insane. Murdering innocent civilians is the genocide everyone should be talking about.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian people have a crappy deal. And while I am not convinced they have an open-and-shut case claiming rights to the Palestinian lands, it would be difficult to say that they should just sit back and enjoy what they got out of the post-World War II deal that created Israel.
So when I am asked my opinion on Israel and Palestine I sometimes have a hard time articulating a concise response. It would be easier if I knew what the objective for each nation was.
What is each side’s goal? What’s the plan? What’s their solution?
From The River To The Sea
The Palestinian objective seems fairly well articulated. It seems they want all of Palestine to themselves, with all Jews gone.
Now maybe there are some variations to this, but a good chunk of the planet seems to understand this goal. From Tik Tok white Islam converts to Hamas leaders to Queers For Palestine to much of the Arab world the message is clear: get rid of the Jews and let the “indigenous” Palestinians live in the land of milk and honey.
What’s crazy about this is that it involves the total removal of the Jewish people from Palestine. More than that, if you listen to Hamas and much of the Islamic world, it involves the elimination of the Jews (and Christians). As in: once they have been removed from certain lands then they need to be killed.
Maybe something it being lost in translation, but it appears that genocide is definitely in play. And depending on who you are talking to, this genocide could include Jews and Christians beyond just the land of Canaan.
As you can probably imagine, genocide is a non-starter.
But what if the Palestinian goal could be softened to simply: Palestine recognized as a state that has no Jews in it. Is this an objective that the Muslim world would support? Hamas? Iran? What about the green-haired trans kids at Columbia?
A Land Flowing With Milk And Honey
The objectives of Israel seem way less clear to me. Here are four basic frameworks I have heard:
Status quo (Israel + Gaza + West Bank) after eliminating Hamas and any other terrorist organizations.
Two-state solution.
Re-occupy Gaza (and possibly the West Bank).
Re-claim Gaza and move Palestinians.
Here’s the deal. I have no idea if these are, in fact, on any list in a government think-tank in Tel Aviv or Washington. When I talk to people about Israel, these are the buckets that tend to come up. But that’s not really the point. The point is that if there is one agree-upon objective, it has certainly not been made widely known and articulated.
The two-state solution seems to make the most sense, but it’s my understanding that the Palestinians (or Hamas or Iran or…) have rejected this idea multiple times. Heck, I think Israel has rejected it (most certainly recently). The reasons for this might be many, but it might be just as simple as Hamas not really having a purpose any more if a state of Palestine exists.
And if I am Israel, I would probably only agree to a two-state solution with some strings. Especially after the Oct 7 massacre. Like maybe Israel would need to heavily police Palestine until some normalcy sets in, easing restrictions with good behavior over time. Remember, there is quite a bit of genocide chatter coming from many Muslim leaders around the globe. If the Palestinians get their own state they would need to stop trying to “eliminate” the Jews.
Solution
I certainly don’t have the answer to this ultra-complex problem, but I think a place to start is to encourage each side to fully write down their objectives. Document it. It’s one thing to chant some stuff in the street or leak stuff to the media; its another to put it on paper. I, for one, would like to see the formal written statement by any nation and/or government that has skin in the game.
Let’s collect the statements (solutions?) and read them out loud. I’m serious.
Will Hamas’ and Iran’s statements actually articulate, in writing, and as their official policy, the elimination of the Jews? If so, will the midwestern white kids who walk out of their high schools in protest “supporting Palestine” really get on board with the removal of the Jews from Israel and even their “elimination” so often mentioned by Iran?
Similarly, can Israel come up with a concrete plan? Sure, Hamas will reject it, but can Israel even articulate what their plan is? Can they define what “rooting out Hamas” means…and then what they intend to do next? Or better yet, what is the long term vision for the Palestinians in Israel?
Because I don’t know what anyone’s solution really is. All I know is that if the Palestinians don’t have Gaza and the West Bank not a single other Muslim country seems eager to embrace Palestinian refugees. Meanwhile, if the Jews don’t have Israel they literally don’t have any other Jewish state to go to (oh, and no Muslim country will take them).
So what’s the plan? What is the solution?
Write it down.