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Is a Palestinian State Possible?
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16805 |
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CURRENT ISSUES
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9 / 1989 |
1,567 Words |
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Sheila Ryan
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Perhaps the most realistic answer to the question of whether a Palestinian state is possible is that it seems the least impossible of the alternative scenarios.
An independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip appears, for instance, more possible than an indefinite extension of the status quo--Israeli occupation imposed by force on a population that resists it and demands its own sovereignty.
The other hypothetical possibility is ending the intifada with a devastating blow by the Israeli military against the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza. This would very likely be accompanied by a large-scale "transfer," or expulsion, of Palestinians to Jordan. (Once the pet project of the lunatic fringe of Israeli politics, "transfer" has now become a respectable political idea in Israel, with a Jerusalem Post poll in the summer of 1988 finding that 49 percent of Israelis were "leaning toward transfer.") Will the U.S. government accept such a challenge to regional "stability," long espoused in Washington as a policy goal? How will the Arab states respond? Syria, for example, is no pushover for the Israeli army. Can the Israeli political leadership create and maintain a consensus for such an action--and for the many years of military mobilization that would be needed to keep the defeated Palestinians at bay?
In this context, the option of a Palestinian state alongside Israel does not appear to be so unlikely a prospect.
The area of a Palestinian state is understood to be the territory occupied by Israel since 1967, that is, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. (Neither Israelis nor Palestinians have actually declared the borders of their respective states in any official document.) Various creative solutions have been hypothesized suggesting that Jerusalem remain an undivided city and the capital of both Israel and Palestine.
The present Palestinian population of the area of the declared state is approximately 1.5 million, with just under 1 million in the West Bank (of whom about 140,000 are residents of East Jerusalem, the part of the city occupied by Israel in 1967), and somewhat more than a half million residents of the Gaza Strip. These current residents would be the core population of a sovereign Palestinian state.
Only about half of the total Palestinian population, however, now resides in areas under Israeli rule. The remainder are refugees from the wars of 1947-48 or 1967. The government of Israel, and a very large portion of the Israeli population, rejects the Palestinian demand for the right of this population--and of the substantial numbers of the West Bank and Gaza residents who are also refugees from the area taken for Israel--to return to their homes. The Israelis aver that they will not accept a demographic change in the nature of the Jewish state. Thus, the extent of refugee migration to a new Palestinian state is impossible to predict at this time.
The creation of a viable national economy in Palestine will not be a simple task. The national territory is split in two; the Gaza Strip is crowded with a densely packed, poor refugee population, and many refugees continue to live in camps in the West Bank. The most cultivable land in historic Palestine, the fertile
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