HELPING OUT PALIN #4

This is the fourth in a twenty part series. Click here for an explanation.

#4 What is your preferred plan for peace between Israel and Palestine? A two state solution? What about Jerusalem?

Me? I don't have a plan. Or rather, we shouldn't dictate to someone else how they ought to run their country. And, in fact, it seems pretty irresponsible to try and do so. What we ought to do instead is acknowledge the grievances on both sides and try to play the role of honest broker and negotiator.

That said, Israel currently faces a demographic timebomb. The Palestinians that live in Israel are growing in population faster than the Jews, and will overtake them fairly soon. The United Jewish Democracy is doomed.

Israel can stay united and maintain its current borders.

Israel can stay a Democracy and maintain human rights for its citizens.

Israel can stay a Jewish state and maintain its cultural uniqueness and heritage.

Pick two.

Israel can stay whole and remain a Democracy by extending full rights to the Palestinians, but then it will lose its Jewish character.

Israel can stay united and Jewish by establishing a South African-style Apartheid regime that severely discriminates against the Palestinians and makes them second class citizens. But then it won't be a Democracy.

Israel can partition off a part of itself as a Palestinian state, and remain Democratic and Jewish, but smaller. How it goes about doing this is important, however, because a Sharon-style unilateral withdrawal from the territories (basically giving the Palestinians shitty slivers of Israel to quarantine them) will only provoke more violence from groups like Hamas.

Right now most liberal U.S. and Israeli politicians favor a negotiated two-state solution. After Sharon, some conservative Israeli politicians favor a unilateral two-state solution. Israeli likuds and U.S. neo-conservatives seem to favor Apartheid.

As a post-modern liberal technocrat, I think everybody'd be better off if Israel gave up its Jewishness and stayed united and Democratic. But other people take their cultural allegiances stronger than I do, and it's really up to the parties involved to work this out.