[index]
Talk of a Two-State Solution
Craig Turner, 9 December 2024
--
There is a regular claim that a /Two-State Solution/ would solve all ills in
Israel/Palestine.
More often than not, such talk is a subterfuge for rhetorical attacks against
Israel. You will not find that here.
Instead, I will outline the major obstacles to a Two-State solution, both of
which lie on the Palestinian side. Then I will outline my ideas about a
pathway to success.
Why should we care?
There are millions of Palestinian Arabs stuck in some form of uncertain
sovereignty, which presents unreasonable quality-of-life problems for
those people.
Palestinian groups are a recurring source of instability. They were a
factor in the start of the Lebanese Civil War, and have at times attempted
to seize power in Jordan. Israel has recurring security problems in Gaza
and the West Bank.
Niall Ferguson has stated that institutions are the key building blocks for
functioning states. He gives the example of East and West Germany, and North
and South Korea. In each case, these are cultures that are separated at first
only by institutions. Institutional differences caused them to evolve into
different creatures. [1]
In late 2024, several factors combine to open a new opportunity to make
meaningful change,
The levelling of Gaza offers a clean-slate rebuild of a distinct
geographic region.
The weakening of powers like Russia, Iran, Iraq, Syria. Each of these
states have at one time or another cultivated Palestinian groups as
proxies to destabilise the region. They will struggle to do so at this
time.
The re-election of Donald Trump. He is unlikely to use the sort of
land-for-peace approaches that the US establishment has traditionally
requested from Israel. Rather, he presents an atmosphere that is open to
fresh thinking.
In this paper I will attempt to describe a program for bootstrapping [2] a
functioning Palestinian state within this change window.
These are the two most significant obstacles to a Palestinian state,
1. Palestinian groups live in denial about the outcomes of 1948 and other
wars since: that Israel won, and that Israel has sovereignty over its
territory. Palestinian interests keep revisiting the matter, through
disorder, war and terrorism, and through a claim to a 'right of return'.
2. The Palestinian Territories do not have effective institutions. Its
powerful groups hate each other and refuse civil engagement with one
another. Its leaders practice corruption.
Any proposal for a Palestinian state must offer convincing fixes to these
obstacles.
I propose a joint US/French/British collaboration to bootstrap a state along
these lines,
US supplies executive authority and engages with Israel to ensure its
ongoing confidence.
French appointees run police and customs.
Britain bootstraps the legal system.
Detail,
Start small,
The goal should be to bootstrap a successful state that is run by
Palestinians within a small and well-defined territory.
Taking on governance for all Palestinian Territories is too much
challenge for the initial project.
Rather, focus on bootstrapping a functioning state of Palestinian
people within a smaller region, with the idea that either (1) this can
be grown to cover more territory later or (2) the same patterns can be
deployed in a second small region to create a series of small
neighbouring states.
If the world can bootstrap one successful Palestinian state, then it
will be possible to apply the same pattern, and lessons from the
experience, to other regions later.
Focus on Gaza, or a subdivision of Gaza,
Gaza has been flattened, and will need to be rebuilt.
It looks increasingly likely that Israel will subdivide it into three
or more sectors, separated by Israeli-run security corridors.
That suits this project well, because it allows us to focus on
achieving good governance within well-defined and secure borders.
Proven western institutions,
The West originated in Western European countries under the strong
influence of Christianity.
Within the last century, the concept of the West has gradually
changed.
It is now mostly about institutions that respect individual-agency and
the principle of live-and-let-live.
In our era, some of the most successful countries are western in the
institutional sense, whilst not being culturally European: Japan,
Singapore, Taiwan.
Israel is also a successful western country.
For this project, we will be seeking to bootstrap a Palestinian state
that is based on a foundation of proven western institutions.
All parties to respect Israeli sovereignty of Israeli territory,
The concept of the Right of Return was a western invention, initially
opposed by Arab interests. Western nations continue to pay lip-service
to it. It is a form of posturing, a serenade intended for domestic
voters with Arab sympathies. [3]
Both Western and Palestinian interests need to abandon the /Right of
Return/ and to explicitly accept full Israeli sovereignty over
Israeli-controlled territory.
The re-election of Donald Trump offers a change window for this.
Scrapping any notion of US support for the Right of Return would have
some of the same character as decisions from his last administration
to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and to recognise
Israeli control of the Golan. These are policies that are grounded in
reality, and which respect Israeli sovereignty.
Overhaul the Basic Law,
The Palestinian Territories have a constitution of sorts that they
call the /Basic Law/. [4]
It is broadly and deeply flawed.
Overhaul it as follows,
1. Remove all references to Islamic law.
2. Remove clauses that bind the constitution to the cause of Arab
nationalism.
3. Scrap the clause supporting "welfare for families of martyrs" and
any other references to terrorism.
4. Reduce references to positive rights, so as to clear the way to a
neat separation of powers between judiciary, legislature and
executive. [5]
5. Remove flowery language and references to symbolism. Refine its
focus towards administrative matters.
6. Remove special-privilege clauses, e.g. "welfare for prisoners of
war".
7. Strip it back to a minimal core of clauses that are sufficient to
define the state.
8. Cleanse the document of any and all concerns that could be
implemented as legislation. e.g. the current document talks about
pension commitments. Those are matters for a legislature to sort out,
they do not belong in a constitution.
Governor,
During a transition period, the territory needs a powerful governor
who will wield executive power. An accomplished foreign diplomat with
no local business interests should serve in this role. [6]
Legal reform,
The current Palestinian legal system is influenced by Islamic theory,
which is incompatible with western values such as the separation of
church and state. Hence, the current system needs to go.
Bootstrap a Common Law system. Common Law originated in England, but
has been extended to dozens of other countries including Canada,
Australia, and Singapore.
The British have hundreds of years of experience at bootstrapping this
system in far-away places.
Per tradition, a foreign team of magistrates should initially serve in
this role, aided by translators. [7]
The court should be explicitly mandated to eschew judicial activism.
The governor and sponsoring government each have the right to recall
judges.
Sovereignty,
Sovereignty must reside with the Governor, subject to the ruling of
local courts.
The legal system must not be subject to any international oversight
bodies - the ECJ, the ICC.
The purpose of this project is to bootstrap a nation-state.
Internationalist projects explicitly complete with that goal, and so
should have no role in the project.
The governor should have be able to recommend the recall of judges.
(This privilege will be removed during the evolution of the system,
which is described below in more detail.)
Police and Customs,
The state will need muscle to reliably implement the will of the
governor and judiciary, and which is not corrupt.
In this Palestinian setting you will need,
1. A leadership group who can be relied on to manage the
execution of responsibilities, which will at times be complex.
2. An implementation team of police on the ground who can patrol,
who are able to converse in Arabic and who are seen as impartial
to special interests by the man in the street.
Britain maintained a division of Gurkhas to enforce policing through a
period of conflict in Malaya. There, the English language served as a
standard language. The troops were generally seen as impartial by the
different ethnic groups, and loyal to the rule of law.
The French could direct its Foreign Legion to raise a Gurkha-like
division from Comoros. France would supply a leadership structure
drawn from its Gendarmerie and similar units. Comoros recruits would
converse with their leadership in French and on the street in Arabic.
The Comoros economy would benefit from the remittances.
When the Ukraine war is over, there will be a surplus of veterans
available to the Foreign Legion.
Market economy,
Establish a market economy, keep government out of economic affairs.
Corruption is far easier to avoid if government stays out of business.
Follow the example of Hong Kong as described in the first episode of
Milton Friedman's /Free to Choose/ series.
Keeping government limited will also lower the bar for what is needed
in the next matter.
Civil service culture,
The Governor needs to establish an effective civil service.
This will be a significant responsibility for the governor, assisted
by foreign hires.
Independent audits,
Build a system where independent audits measure progress of the
jurisdiction.
This would be similar to the process that countries need to go through
to join the European Union.
The audits should include hard-metrics about quality-of-life criteria
for the Palestinian Arabs: access to working air conditioning, uptime
of the power grid, infant death rates, school attendance, school
results, workplace participation per household.
Defer democracy based on objective criteria,
The move to democracy will succeed only if it is done gradually and in
a climate of stability.
Hence, it will appear in the plan but is not an immediate concern.
Avoid western activists,
There is a certain sort of westerner who would be attracted to this
project, and who must be avoided.
When appointing foreigners, the settlement must take a zero-tolerance
attitude towards activist appointees. i.e. Westerners who seek to work
in the project due to their attachment to the idea of Palestinians as
a victim civilisation.
Such agents would be tempted to prioritise their investment in
oppressor narratives over their responsibilities to the best interests
of the Palestinian Arabs, and should be filtered.
Ignore the UN, prioritise relations with the US,
The UN council is awash with bad faith actors. For example - countries
who posture their support for Palestinian causes, but then refuse to
accept Palestinian refugees.
UN agencies operating in the region have been constantly incapable.
This project needs to deliberately ignore UN influence.
Instead, coordinate a settlement through the United States.
Progress must be instead driven by Israeli confidence and support from
powerful nation-states.
Leverage aid funding to force outcomes,
External aid bodies should not operate within the target state-let we
are designing. In those places, a local governor should administer
distribution.
There will be a continuing role for aid organisations as a bridge for
parts of the Palestinian Territories that are not the focus of this
project.
Western nations should in all cases refuse to give aid to bodies in
the region that have failed to recognise and respect Israeli
sovereignty.
This principle should indeed apply to the UNRWA, a run-away bureacracy
that acts as a conduit for UN funding to the descendants of
Palestinian refugees. UNRWA employees participated in the 7 October
attacks on Israeli citizens.
It should be straightforward for a Trump administration to bring the
majority of UNRWA donors onboard in order to either strong-arm the
UNRWA into reform [8] or - preferably - to entirely defund it and have
the collaboration administer aid outside of UN oversight.
The top funders of the UNRWA are Western: US, EU NATO nations, Japan,
Switzerland. [9] The first non-western country in the list is Saudi,
who could be drawn to a new position as part of Abraham accord
discussions.
No fixed timeline, progress is driven by results,
The Palestinian Territories are affected by two poisonous world-views:
Islamism and Arab Nationalism [10]. It would take deliberate activity
to stamp these out.
There is no fixed timeline for establishing Palestinian authority over
a Palestinian state. A fixed timeline would encourage a
wait-out-the-clock strategy from interests who are resistant to
western institutions.
Instead, progress towards Palestinian autonomy should be based on
qualitative assessments taken by the collaboration powers, and
informed by independent audits.
Here is a set of stages that could be followed for rolling this out.
1. The "Order and Stability" stage,
The US State Department appoints a Governor.
This Governor is mandated to pursue the best interests of the
Palestinian people within a framework.
Governor has full authority within the region, subject to that
oversight. This includes the right to some form of low-process
detention.
Legislation is published by the governor's office.
Bootstrap police and customs.
Bootstrap a Common Law legal system, focusing on civil matters, and
able to handle criminal matters by referral from the Governor.
The effort will focus on immediate improvements to quality-of-life
improvements for citizens of the region. Food, energy, sanitation,
shelter, hospitals.
2. The "Judicial Oversight" stage,
The Governor continues to serve as the executive, and starts to
develop a chamber of advisers. This is an embrionic legislature.
This legislature is still heavily foreign but will come to include
honourable and well-regarded Palestinians.
Low-process detention is changed to require a magistrate's approval.
Establish an ombudsman's office.
Develop an education system.
The effort will focus on reducing government intervention so that a
market economy can emerge.
The Governor and the nation sponsoring the judicial system work
together to produce a framework for selecting judicial appointments.
3. The "Effective Service" stage,
This era should focus on establishing an effective civil service that
gradually incorporates local talent. It should not move past this
stage until metrics reveal the civil service to be effective.
Establish a civil service code of conduct, and a taxing entrance exam.
A particular challenge will be establishing a competent planning
authority. Periods of rapid property development create the
circumstances for corruption. The governor should direct particular
effort to mitigations. This may involve some kind of independent and
evidence-based signoff of major planning works.
During this period, the Governor appoints a speaker to coordinate
operation of his legislative chamber.
At the end of this stage, the legislature will lay out a non-partisan
set of principles for an electoral commision, and that new commision
will go about establishing an electoral roll and a means of conducting
fair elections.
4. The "Unicameral" stage,
The Governor continues to serve as the executive.
The Governor's chamber continues to be appointed, but this chamber is
evolving towards becoming a "lower-house" for the nation state.
The governor opens some positions in the chamber which can be elected.
To start with, the electorates are large. This will result in only a
small number of elected members with middle-of-the-road sensibilities.
This number of electorates can grow gradually, based on the success of
attracting people of good calibre to the chamber.
People vote for candidates for the legislature based on a
single-member electorate system with preferential votes. People are
encouraged to vote for candidates based on their administrative
credentials. The governor has the right to dismiss and detain people
who pursue rabble-raising rhetoric. The Governor should use this power
to set an example, and to set the tone of the chamber.
A Prime Minister will form a cabinet drawn from the talent in the
chamber. This can be used as a means of gradually cultivating
executive competence from elected members.
There should be an effort in this stage to cultivate political
parties. These should be constituted as being local-only (i.e. not
part of global political movements), and with clear rules about
governance and sources of funds.
The project needs to stay in this state until (1) the project has
moved beyond all tinges of Islamism and Arab Nationalism and (2) the
elected members have a surplus of talent to be able to carry on
executive responsibility for the project in a two-party system.
5. The "Bicameral" stage,
Create a second chamber of parliament. Elected members stay in the
lower house. Appointed members move to the upper house.
The legislature consists of a mix of governor-appointed candidates and
democratically elected candidates.
The effort should focus on developing a culture of merit based
appointment to the upper house. The House of Lords and historic
culture of the Tasmanian upper house (by convention, elected
candidates are do not belong to political parties) should serve as
examples.
This era should gradually in-house police and customs.
Towards the end of this era, ensure that planning authority decisions
are subject to judicial oversight.
6. The "Domestic Autonomy" stage,
The Prime Minister recommends judicial appointments to the Prime
Minister.
For foreign affairs and border security, all power resides with the
governor (under US supervision). Customs oversight stays with the
Governor.
The Governor retains full powers to over-ride the Prime Minister on
all matters, and would be obliged to do so if a rabble-rousing culture
emerges.
Other than that, the role of the Prime Minister should become more
powerful, with the Governor following a convention of acting on their
advice of their Prime Minister for domestic matters.
The Governor should seek to include the Prime Minister on
international matters so as to develop local experience in this space.
This era should seek to gradually in-house legal talent. There is no
special pressure to appoint judges from the local population, but the
Governor could consider strong talent.
7. The "Full Autonomy" stage,
Governor releases executive responsibility to the Prime Minister, and
the Governor becomes a symbolic position, equivalent to the the head
of state of commonwealth countries.
Future governors to be appointed based on a vote of 2/3s of the lower
house.
At this point, the Prime Minister becomes responsible for its own
customs and security arrangements, and foreign affairs.
If we set out to build a state-let like this, we should expect the first one to
take fifty years.
Many self-described /progressives/ would oppose this model due to its colonial
character. These objections would be grounded in aesthetics rather than
tangible arguments. The colonial character of these proposals are strong
arguments in support of the model, because those models have produced success
stories in difficult past circumstances.
In particular, we should look to these traditions of colonial nation-building,
1. British colonial system leading to functioning democracies,
Britain bootstrapped Australia with a rough population of convicted
criminals and soldiers, and maintained order from London via remote
governors. This was in a period long before fast global communication.
There are different but similar stories for Singapore, Hong Kong and
New Zealand.
The situation in the Americas are more complex, due to great-power
conflicts, but also shows evidence of success in Canada.
2. American order after the Second World War
After the war, the US dominated Japan, West Germany, Taiwan, South
Korea. Each is now a thriving developed country.
The US did not rush to give local rule in these locations. Rather, it
focused on building healthy institutions. In each case, self
determination was built on results.
We should have particular admiration for the accomplishment of South
Korea. Before the second world war, South Korea had no living memory
of self-rule. Then, it was flattened in the Korean War of the 1950s,
reduced to ruin equivalent to Gaza now. Within a single generation,
South Korea transformed into a developed country and functioning
democracy.
There are counter-example we should be wary of,
1. Lebanon
There is a clause in the Lebanese constitution that mandates that
different roles must be held by people from different religious faith.
This is a poisonous clause that socialises the country into permanent
ethnic division. This should serve as an illustration of the
importance of getting a solid constitutional settlement in place.
2. India
After independence, India adopted a central-planning ethos, and built
a sprawling state to service this. India stagnated for decades, and is
still working itself out of this legacy.
3. Cyprus, Malta, some Caribbean Islands, many African counties,
In the 20th century, the British rapidly withdrew authority from some
countries before civil service standards were adequate. Typically
these countries retain a respectable common-law judiciary but have a
flawed civil service.
Sometimes the major weakness in these countries is the weak conviction
of the man in the street towards institutions. When presented with
clear facts about systematic corruption he shrugs his shoulders and
says, "that is just how it is here". Meanwhile, people in the UK are
chasing elites from office because they made invalid claims against
their parliamentary expenses account.
Singapore, Australia and Canada serve as examples of countries where
the handover was more gradual and where institutions stayed strong
well after independence.
4. South Africa
This scenario is similar to India.
As the Apartheid era was ending, an group of international advisers
drew together a new South African constitutional settlement from every
trendy idea in circulation.
This produced a system made from complex and untested building blocks.
That project has been a comprehensive failure: South Africa governance
is worse than it has ever been, the country now has a well-entrenched
corruption culture.
5. Iraqi reconstruction
After the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the United States rushed to implement
an elected presidential democracy there. This was a mistake. The
country's people and institutions were not ready for an open-ended
democratic settlement.
This led to a rise in conflict between ethnic groups, and war with
ISIS. Twenty years on, the Iraqi government remains overshadowed by
rivalries between ethnic groups. It is a highly corrupt country.
Those who argue for a Palestinian State from the current position are
pursuing a form of naive idealism that resembles the American
"neocons" who drove the rushed and failed democratisation of Iraq. No
good would come from this.
6. Afghan reconstruction
This has much of the same character as Iraq. A meticulous conquest
mission, followed by a rushed and unsuccessful reconstruction.
Israel dominates hard power concerns in its region.
Since the mid-90s, several Israeli governments engaged in negotiations towards
an independent Palestinian state. In one case the Palestinian groups were
offered everything they wanted except for the Right of Return, and declined
the deal.
The Palestinians leadership had to do no work to get a seat at the table for
those discussions.
Recent events have changed the dynamic,
The 7 October 2023 campaign by Hamas to murder and kidnap Israeli
civilians traumatised Israel, and demonstrated exceptionally poor
judgement by Hamas.
The sympathetic noises towards Palestinian causes after those attacks in
the West Bank, in the Arab world, and even in parts of the West.
The strategy by Hamas of hiding behind its own civilian population, in
order to farm dead Arab civilians into international support.
The lack of meaningful value they received from that support.
A successful Israeli military campaign to crush Hamas.
A successful Israeli military campaign to crush Hezbollah.
That this success came despite the US discouraging Israel from pursuing
military action.
The resulting diminishing of Iran.
The collapse of the Assad regime in Syria.
Israeli seizure of strategic Syrian territory north-west of its Golan
Heights region.
Israel has achieved victory after victory over the last year through the use
of hard power and determination and is experiencing a level of confidence not
seen for decades. In light of this, it seems fanciful that Israel would
entertain the sort of land-for-peace proposals that they have offered in
the past. [11] [12]
We should expect Israel to ignore low-effort calls for Palestinian statehood.
However, Israel does have an interest. When the territories are in poor order,
this creates security problems for them. A convincing strategy would find an
audience.
This paper started out with me reflecting on the two key problems in the
region. I highlighted these: a refusal by Palestinian groups to accept the
outcomes of long-lost wars, and the awful state of Palestinian institutions.
At that time I was reflecting on how implausible the two-state solution
seemed. But, then I considered Niall Ferguson's comments about institutions
and asked myself whether these was a path available. The notes are my current
best-effort to answer that question.
When we talk about a two-state solution, we should understand that this is
what it would take. It would take significant partnership, and investment, and
decades of patient resolve.
There is no evidence that the political will for such a project exists in the
suggested collaboration countries at this time. Yet, the circumstances make
this the best time in decades to contemplate such a project.
[1] Seen in a recent youtube interview. Unfortunately I do not have a copy of
the link. Write to me if you know.
[2] I use the terms /bootstrap/ and /bootstrapping/ often. The terms are used
in computer science to describe the act of building a system to a standard
where it can function by itself, without further external inputs. The term is
an allusion to the idea that you can pull yourself up by your own bootstraps -
which implies the significant challenges of such projects.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootstrapping
[3] See http://songseed.org/post/20240514.aa.right.of.return.txt
[4] https://security-legislation.ps/latest-laws/the-amended-basic-law-of-2003/
[5] That is - on the subject of rights, be guided by the example of the
Australian constitution, rather than the US settlement. Positive rights force
judges into activism, which undermines separation of powers and future intent
to install democracy.
[6] Consider that this model used to manage colonies in Australia, Singapore
and Hong Kong. Alternately, you could view the person as being similar to the
governors of the Coalition Provisional Authority posted in Iraq after the 2003
invasion.
[7] There is a recent tradition where Australia supplied magistrates to
Pacific Islands along the lines proposed here.
[8] A reviewer of this essay pointed me to an interview with Alexander Downer,
Australian's former minister between 1996 and 2007. Downer views UNRWA as
beyond reform and calls for abolition, https://youtube.com/watch?v=wSDfUHnOSBo
[9] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/17/which-countries-are-still-funding-unrwa
[10] Arab nationalism is a project to create an arab nation with a streamlined
ethnicity, culture and politics. Like many -isms, there are competing theories
within the group, and then a gap between theory and practice. Regardless of
these details, Arab Nationalism resembles a type of politics that we call
/fascism/ when discussing European politics.
[11] Note that where land-for-peace deals have been struck, they have given
terrible results. 1. After their South Lebanon withdrawal Hezbollah occupied
the region and made rocket attacks on Iraeli civilian populations for years.
2. The forced withdrawal of settlers and security from Gaza predated a Hamas
takeover and, once again, years of rocket attacks against civilian
populations, followed by the October 7 attacks.
[12] Commentary by Thomas Sowell on land-for-peace,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aozxj-no98M&ab_channel=ThomasSowellTV