A 5-state solution, perhaps, but not as Friedman so naively puts it. The parties to any settlement have to be states, that is, people having effective and exclusive dominion over well-defined territories. That means they have to be able and willing to control the actions of anyone living in and operating from those territories. Any presumptive government that can't deliver on an agreement because it can't control its citizens is in no position to make an agreement, and any other government would be foolish to enter into an agreement with it.
What are the entities that could enter into an agreement? I count roughly five, although there are doubts about their ability to control their territories: Israel proper, the Jewish Settlements on the West Bank, Fatah and the West Bank Palestinian areas, Hamas and Gaza, and Hezbollah and the parts of Lebanon it controls. I call these the Inner Five. To these might be added the neighbors: Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, and Egypt. That makes nine. The Outer Four. I propose that we must abandon hope in getting the three Palestinian camps to unite, and also abandon hope in getting Israel to unite with its West Bank settlers. None of these camps are able to willing to control any of the others. That means that any peace agreements are going to need to be made among combinations of the Inner Five. It is possible that Israel might be able to reach a separate agreement with Fatah/West Bank, while leaving the others to continue the conflict. Such an agreement would have to involve abandoning the Settlers to defend themselves. It is unrealistic to expect Israel to evict them, but it doesn't have to defend them. Let Fatah and the Settlers fight it out to their own eventual agreement. Similarly, let Israel continue the conflict with Hamas/Gaza on one front, and Hezbollah/Lebanon on another, until they can reach some kind of truce or agreement. This approach recognizes the reality on the ground, upon which any end to the conflict must be based. -- Jon ------------------------------------------------------------------- Constitution Society 2900 W Anderson Ln C-200-322, Austin, TX 78757 512/299-5001 www.constitution.org [email protected] ------------------------------------------------------------------- [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
