When Mahatma Gandhi was asked what he thought of Western Civilization, he replied: “I think it would be a good idea.”
There has never been a separate, self-governing Palestinian state. But like Gandhi’s opinion of Western Civilization, most Israelis believe that establishing such a state would be a good idea. The main reason it has never happened is because of the actions of the Palestinian Arabs themselves.
In 1937, in the wake of a series of massacres of Jewish inhabitants instigated by the virulently antisemitic grand mufti of Jerusalem, the British rulers of Palestine proposed the Peel Commission partition plan, which would have allowed both the Jews and the Arabs to have separate states. Under it, the Jews would have two small non-contiguous sections of the land. The Arabs would have a much larger contiguous area, including all of Gaza and the West Bank. They would also get the entire Negev.
The Jews, reluctantly, accepted the Peel Commission plan. The Palestinian Arabs rejected it.
In 1947, as British rule was coming to an end, the United Nations proposed another partition plan. The plan also would have resulted in a Jewish state consisting of two non-contiguous sections of land, and an Arab state including all of Gaza and the West Bank. Again, the Jews accepted the partition plan and again the Arabs rejected it.
In 1948, the Jews declared an independent state called Israel on the borders set forth under the UN plan. Immediately, armies from five neighboring Arab states invaded the nascent State of Israel. To the world’s surprise, the Israelis repulsed them all, and gained more land, allowing them to establish their State in one contiguous land area with more defensible borders. In the fighting, Egypt seized the Gaza Strip and Jordan seized the West Bank.
From 1949 to 1967, while Egypt and Jordan ruled the Gaza Strip and the West Bank respectively, there was virtually no talk or movement to establish a Palestinian state in those territories.
In 1967, when Israel was again threatened with annihilation by its neighbors, it launched a preemptive strike. In the ensuing Six Day War, it defeated the armies of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria, and took possession of Gaza and the West Bank.
Israel has never been comfortable governing those Arab-majority areas. It has proposed returning them to Egypt and Jordan, but both countries refused to take them back. It has also proposed establishing a Palestinian state, on the condition that it would not be used as a springboard for future attacks on Israel.
In 2000, President Clinton invited Israeli leader Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to Camp David. Clinton’s administration was nearing its send, and the President hoped that a peaceful resolution would burnish his legacy. Under his pressure, Israel accepted a proposal granting the Palestinians Gaza, about 95% of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Arab Quarter of the Old City. To compensate the Palestinians for getting less than 100% of the West Bank, the plan also required Israel to give up a small amount of its own pre-1967 territory.
The Palestinian leader rejected this proposal. Clinton was enraged by Arafat’s refusal, and told him: “You are leading your people and the region to a catastrophe.” Instead of establishing a state on the offered land, Arafat launched a terrorist campaign that eventually cost the lives of over a thousand Israelis.
In 2008, Israeli leader Ehud Olmert offered the Palestinians a plan that would have given them Gaza and 94% of the West Bank. Israel would give up about 6% of its pre-1967 territory. To allow for contiguity between Gaza and the West Bank, a tunnel under full Palestinian control would be constructed connecting them. Israel would accept 1,000 Palestinian refugees every year for five years, and it would help establish an international fund to compensate other Palestinian refugees. The Palestinian border with Jordan would be patrolled by international forces, to ensure that no Arab armies could invade Israel from that direction again.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called Olmert’s offer “amazing.” She was astonished and disappointed when Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas rejected it.
Later in 2007, Hamas ousted the Palestinian Authority from Gaza in a vicious war in which the two Palestinian factions took turns throwing each other’s prisoners off tall buildings. Today, with Hamas controlling Gaza, and the Palestinian Authority administering the West Bank, there is no one united Palestinian party with which Israel can negotiate an overall resolution.
The frustrating history of the efforts to negotiate the establishment a Palestinian state illustrate the wisdom of the observation of the late Israeli statesman Abba Eban: “The Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.”
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