( Seven minute read)
Israel’s post 7/10 resort to massive force, dropping an unprecedented total of about 30,000 bombs by mid-December 2023 (equivalent to two Hiroshima-sized nuclear bombs), has so far failed to eradicate the military force established by Hamas amid the torrent of bloodshed, 25,000 Palestinian dead and the 62,000 wounded, and the mass displacement of 1.9 million Palestinian civilians in Gaza (85% of the population), easily exceeding the toll of the ethnic cleansing that accompanied Israel’s establishment in 1948.
Hamas’s brutal tactics in its 7 October assault have been washed out of Palestinian political consciousness by the subsequent indiscriminate and mass erasure of Palestinian civilian lives.
A TWO MONTH CEASFIRE WITH EXCHANGE OF ISRAELIANS HOSTAGES/ PALISTIAN PRISONERS WILL NOT BRING AN END TO THE WAR.
Its most likely effect will be to remythologise the notion of resistance and sow the seed for future iterations that may be inspired by Hamas but have no necessary connection to its history, ideology or organisational structure.
The real issue is how to incorporate Hamas and its associated “spirit of resistance” into a new Palestinian authority, rather than how to quash or excise it. Within or associated with such an authority, Hamas could be part of the solution; outside, it would remain both a spoiler and an opposite pole of attraction.
Netanyahu and other Israeli officials have made it clear that they will seek to impose a strict and indefinite Israeli-determined security regime over the Gaza Strip for the foreseeable future.
In other words, to reinstitute what amounts to a long-term occupation.
This, in turn, will not only keep the flame of Hamas alive and galvanise Hamas-inspired resistance but will ensure that Israel’s “right of self-defence” will only produce the very insecurity that Israel and its allies claim to be addressing. 
It took years for the ANC and IRA to be recognised as partners to a resolution.
Hamas rejects Israel’s right to exist and is committed to its destruction, so a two state resolution would create a Palestinian state ( what left of it ) that would exist alongside Israel.
Another words The world’s largest ‘open-air prison.
It takes one hour to drive from its southern point, Rafah, to Beit Hanoon in the north.
Sixteen years of an Israeli land, air and sea blockade has crippled its economy and tightly restricted the movement of its people in and out of the enclave. Gaza residents need special permission to cross into Israel and Egypt. This is usually for urgent medical treatment but is very difficult to obtain.
The enclave has one of the highest unemployment rates in the world at 45 percent. Access to education and medical treatment is also lacking after years of Israeli air strikes on schools and hospitals.
More than 60 percent of Gaza’s people are refugees from what is currently Israel.
More than 750,000 Palestinians were ethnically cleansed from their homes by Israeli militias in 1948 when Israel declared its independence.
YOU TELL ME IF YOU WERE IN THE GAZA WITH YOUR FAMILY WIPED OUT, WITH YOUR COUNTRY REDUCED TO DUST, WOULD YOU TAKE UP ARMES?
There will be no two state as it requires two states to agree one.
And that’s before dealing with the same difficult details – borders, refugees, security, and the sharing of Jerusalem.
Israel is a very different country to the secular state that was created in 1948 – with far more religious citizens who believe God gave them the land, and who have massive political power. The Palestinians will need to bridge the deep divide between Hamas and Fatah. Because as much as the world might condemn Hamas for the atrocities of October 7 – and much that came before – it’s still there.
All the walls and barber wire (which Israel has now learned) does not and will not bring security.
Any future agreement must make it impossible for either side to inflict the horrors we are now witnessing.
Leaving behind all the religious conations there can only be a one state solution and that is a Federal/Confederation State with a written constitution that protects all its citizens both Jews and Arabs.
To make two states, you would need to create a new state of Palestine. And to do that, you would need to agree where its borders would be.
The steady and systematic expansion of settlements [is] moving Israel in the wrong direction.
The prospect of a two-state solution has become even more remote, with Mr Netanyahu naming settler activist Itamar Ben-Gvir — a convicted criminal, with a rap sheet that includes inciting racism and supporting a terrorist organisation — as minister for national security and another settler leader, Bezalel Smotrich, controlling planning in the west bank. (He caused an uproar in March when he quoted French-Israeli Zionist Jacques Kupfe: “There is no such thing as Palestinians, because there is no such thing as a Palestinian people.”)
A one-state solution would mean absorbing everyone in Israel and the Palestinian territories into a new nation with the Holy Sites of Al-Aqsa and the Temple Mount, as their capital city.
How it can remain a Jewish state if the majority of its population is Palestinian.
When this crisis is over, there has to be a vision of what comes next. Lasting peace must follow the bloodiest fighting between Israelis and Palestinians for decades.
A confederation with a written constitution is the only solution.
What it present is a flexible model:
As a means of facilitating a two-state/one state solution, providing a new framework for the negotiation
A permanent solution between the two sovereign states of Israel and Palestine, and not as a substitute for it.
Under the confederation plan, Israelis living in settlements deeper in the West Bank would be able to choose whether to relocate to homes inside Israel or stay where they are as Israeli citizens who are permanent residents of Palestine, agreeing to abide by the new state’s laws. A comparable number of Palestinian citizens would be able to move to Israel on the same terms.
A setup between states rather than citizens; that is, the citizens belong to their respective state and are not direct members of the confederation.
This would involve both states in joint strategic defence through close coordination and would focus them on maintaining internal law and order.
The Old City of Jerusalem could host some of the joint authorities, paving the way toward dual sovereignty or other creative solutions over that sensitive area of less than 1 km2 or 0.39 mi2.
The first step would be to negotiate a permanent agreement and establish an independent Palestinian state, without the confederal umbrella. An implementation period of up to 30 months would follow.
Palestine and Israel would live side by side as sovereign States and only at the end of the implementation period, they would establish the HLC (Holy Land Confederation) if they want it.
The European Union, which does not call itself a confederation, is the most successful and consequential confederation ever.
The EU, which has changed Europe and fostered a continent of peace after centuries of endless wars, is a miracle in the eyes of many. It includes aspects of a federation (freedom of movement, currency, trade, and agriculture) and aspects of a confederation (no common language, separate education
systems, no joint army, and relatively weak central institutions), as well as aspects of sovereign states. In many ways, the EU is sui generis, but its structure is very close to that of a confederation and may serve as a model for the HLC.
We have to distinguish between aspiration and reality. The odds are very, very low. It’s essentially mission impossible as we will be left with two deeply traumatised societies. What is lacking on both sides is leadership and political will. Both sides need to wake up after this horrible war and find new leadership.
Rest assured if not Israel will go down in history not as a country that was found on compassion for the Jews but a
Compassion knows not whom it chooses to help in some way, shape or form, it just knows it’s the right heartfelt thought to have for another and to bestow some type of good upon another.
One thing sees another, but two things feel together, creating unity.
#Compassion is one of Judaism’s highest values. The existence of the entire world depends on this virtue.
Below link to one written by Israel, which would have to be amended to accommodate the few Palestinian left a live.
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