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Is a Palestinian State Possible?
| Article
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16805 |
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Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
Date : |
9 / 1989 |
1,567 Words |
| Author
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Sheila Ryan
Sheila Ryan is director of the Middle East Peace Network, an
organization that seeks to change U.S. policy toward the
region. |
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
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