Ok, this one is a little long, but with a title like the above, it couldn't be short. So please be patient, keep reading and I think you may be a little surprised. If these ideas have been proposed before, I certainly haven't heard of them.
One of the problems with the Israeli Peace Initiative and every other peace plan with the Palestinians, is that they don't recognize the inherent difference that they have from those made with Egypt, Jordan and Mauritania. The reason why negotiations with the Palestinians are so different is that they aren't just negotiating a peace treaty, but the Palestinians are negotiating their way into existence as a state. This means that even before talks begin, there is an inherent disparity between the two parties. So, should the Palestinians declare statehood in September as they have threatened to do, this does not necessarily mean it will be bad for Israel and in fact, it could even be good if it allows the Palestinians to negotiate from a better, more equitable place.
This would put Israel and Palestine on more equal footing. The Palestinian Declaration of Independence of 1988 is based on its Israeli counterpart. The Israeli and Palestinian peoples are inseparably linked and by creating parity and reciprocity between the sides, it may be easier for each to accept compromises as they see their enemies doing the same. It is for this reason that obligations should be carried out simultaneously and not one after the other.
By allowing the Palestinians to declare independence prior to the signing of a peace treaty, Israel would take much of the pressure off Palestinian leaders who are constantly afraid of compromising too much and giving up too much at the beginning. If they are already independent, they will have more latitude for movement. Many people are afraid that this will hurt Israel but the fact of the matter is that any declaration of Palestinian independence would be largely symbolic and have little effect on day to day activities. Israel would not automatically pull out of the West Bank, so there would be no vacuum of power for Hamas to run in and fill. People often forget that the Palestinians already declared independence in 1988 during the first intifada and since then this has been recognized by over a hundred countries and yet it has done nothing to change the situation. Such a declaration will only bring about change should Israel recognize it and allow for the Palestinian Authority to take on more responsibilities. Then the PA leaders could talk with Israeli negotiators as equals, giving them more legitimacy and therefore the ability to make the hard decisions they were previously afraid to make.
By allowing the Palestinians to declare independence prior to the signing of a peace treaty, Israel would take much of the pressure off Palestinian leaders who are constantly afraid of compromising too much and giving up too much at the beginning. If they are already independent, they will have more latitude for movement. Many people are afraid that this will hurt Israel but the fact of the matter is that any declaration of Palestinian independence would be largely symbolic and have little effect on day to day activities. Israel would not automatically pull out of the West Bank, so there would be no vacuum of power for Hamas to run in and fill. People often forget that the Palestinians already declared independence in 1988 during the first intifada and since then this has been recognized by over a hundred countries and yet it has done nothing to change the situation. Such a declaration will only bring about change should Israel recognize it and allow for the Palestinian Authority to take on more responsibilities. Then the PA leaders could talk with Israeli negotiators as equals, giving them more legitimacy and therefore the ability to make the hard decisions they were previously afraid to make.
The main issue that the parties keep running into is defining the borders of the new State of Palestine. The Palestinians keep saying they need the '67 borders and have convinced the whole world that before the Six Day War, these were the borders of a Palestinian State (which of course isn't the case, but that is a discussion for a different time), while the Israelis keep on saying that the new state should have provisional or intermediate borders. But the Palestinians are worried that any temporary borders would eventually become permanent. And they have good reason to be worried since that is exactly what happened to Israel and Israel is still trying to define it's borders 63 years after its creation. For this reason, there should be no discussion of the borders of a Palestinian state. When Israel declared independence, the leaders made no reference to the new state's borders, Abbas and Fayyad should follow this model.
Many people say that a unilateral declaration of independence by the Palestinians would bring more pressure on Israel since it would then be occupying an sovereign state. But they fail to recognize that that is happening anyway and will be sure to continue until an agreement or an end to the occupation comes. Also, occupation of another state is not illegal (if there is cause). Israel itself was occupied by Arab forces when Ben Gurion declared independence in 1948, so it seems somewhat fitting, or ironic (take your pick) that Israel should be occupying Palestine when it finally declares independence.
The Right of Return is another incredibly sticky issue. The Palestinians say that excluding it is a non-starter and the Israelis say including it is a non-starter. Even President Obama is making his own peace plan, but one of the key components (not surprisingly considering America's close relationship with Israel) is no right of return. So how exactly can you have the Right of Return but also not have the Right of Return? This requires some fancy maneuvering in which Israel recognizes the Palestinian Right of Return, agrees to resettle hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Israel, but at the same time not accept more Palestinians into Israel which would pose a serious threat to Israel as a Jewish and Democratic state. These may seem like contradictory and irreconcilable positions, but they are not.
After 1967, Israel began a policy of granting citizenship to foreign Palestinians through family reunification laws. Through this policy, from 1967 to 2001 over 250,000 Palestinians moved to Israel and gained Israeli citizenship. Let me repeat that: over a period of 34 years, during which Israel engaged in 3 wars with Arab states and 2 Palestinian intifadas, Israel granted citizenship to over a quarter of a million Palestinians! Nearly 100,000 Palestinians became Israeli citizens in the 1990s alone! Instead of focusing on the fact that no other state in the history of the world has welcomed as equal citizens members of an enemy nation in such incredible numbers, we should see this as a unique way out of the Right of Return issue. The generally accepted number of Palestinian refugees created in 1948 is 750,000, and taking this as a guide, Israel has already allowed at least a third of the number of the original refugees back to Israel.
Israel can therefore recognize the Palestinian Right of Return, apologize for its part in creating the refugee crisis and agree to take in a quarter of a million refugees (the Arab League should also agree to take in and grant citizenship to other refugees, while admitting their role in creating and perpetuating the refugee crisis) and then Israel can say that it has already fulfilled this obligation but as a gesture of goodwill will accept in a few thousand more (specific number to be determined later) over a period of ten years. In this way the Palestinians can claim victory in getting hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to return to Israel, but Israel doesn't actually have to take in any new Palestinians.
In the spirit of parity, the Palestinians should agree to recognize the Israeli Right of Return to Israel and the West Bank. It is accepted that most Israelis living in settlements will be annexed to Israel, however, not every settlement will be able to be annexed and the Israelis living these isolated settlements might not want to leave. These numbers will be significantly smaller than those Palestinians who have been accepted into Israel and they pose no demographic threat to the Palestinian people due to their extremely limited number (now Israeli Arabs make up 20% of Israel's population, but the only way Palestinian Jews would be able to even come close to those kind of numbers would be if every settler was granted Palestinian citizenship).
It still surprises me that everyone recognizes that Israel must stop building settlements in the West Bank, but when the Palestinians insist on building settlements in Israel AFTER a peace deal is signed - in the form of the Right of Return - those same people see no problem. After all, what is the purpose of creating a Palestinian State if Palestinians are going to move to Israel instead? Not even Israel is insisting on the right to build settlements in a future Palestinian State (though it easily could as I have shown), so why do the Palestinians keep insisting on the same thing? Just as Jews will need to give up on their Right of Return to Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), so too do the Palestinians need to give up on their Right of Return to Israel proper.
I am not bringing up a Jewish Right of Return to add another problem that needs to be solved. So why bother? Because the Palestinians need to recognize that Israel is also giving up on something extremely important. Giving up the West Bank is not merely the ceding of a piece of real estate; it is the birthplace and heart of Judaism and Jewish history. By relinquishing control of the West Bank, Israel is compromising on its birthright and on the central precept of Zionism that preached a return of the Jewish people to the land where the Israelite Nation was born. If Israel is willing to make such a difficult and impossible compromise, the Palestinians should agree to make similar compromises. This recognition of the suffering and rights of the other is an important component of a successful peace agreement.
Of course all of this will require some major good faith by both sides, which is always in short supply. Additionally, should the reconciliation agreement between Fatah and Hamas actually hold, all of this will be more difficult if not impossible given Hamas' open and consistent calls for the complete destruction of Israel. Only time will tell what this agreement will come to, if anything at all, and just because I have said a declaration of Palestinian Independence could move negotiations one way does not mean that will certainly happen. Only that it is plausible, logical, and our best hope.
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