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 preparing 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 are built on the principles of individual-agency and live-and-let-live. In our era, some of the most successful countries are western yet not 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. It would take special care 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. [10] [11] 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] 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. [11] Commentary by Thomas Sowell on land-for-peace, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aozxj-no98M&ab_channel=ThomasSowellTV