The international community, including Arab leaders, is unanimous that the Palestinians should have their own State next to Israel. Even some Israeli leaders accept this idea. But we must not delude ourselves. At best, this State would include the West Bank and Gaza Strip with East-Jerusalem as capital and a corridor linking up the two regions.
Israel will hardly accept a Palestinian State with an army. One would expect that it will demand to control Palestine's international borders and its underground aquifers, and will refuse to allow the repatriation of the Palestinian refugees.
Even if such a Palestinian State will satisfy some Palestinians, it will generate deep frustration among Palestinian refugees. Nobody would be able to prevent refugees whose fundamental rights are denied to engage in suicide attacks. The Palestinian government will then be asked to play the policeman against its own people to satisfy Israel. And as it could never fully guarantee Israel's security, Israel would periodically feel legitimised to invade the Palestinianterritories to quell the revolt and destroy Palestinian infrastructure. The international community can be expected to attend as a powerless spectator to Palestinians' sufferings as it does today.
If these anticipations are correct, the Palestinians will not have a sovereign State, but a puppet State serving the interests of Israel, riddled with debt, gnawed by the corruption, incapable to defend its population, at the mercy of Israel and of the creditors, and economically non-viable.
Palestinian intellectuals would emigrate and the pauperisation would push, particularly in the refugee camps, towards extremism and religious fanaticism. As a reaction, fanaticism will inevitably grow on the Jewish side too. Peace will become then elusive in the whole region.
Instead of claiming a puppet Palestinian State, the international community and the Palestinians should demand the annexation by Israel of the West-Bank and Gaza Strip (as it did already with East-Jerusalem), the dismantling of the concentration camps where the refugees live, their integration in their lands as much as possible, the recognition of the same rights to Jews and Non-Jews at all the levels (Government, parliament, army, police and economic life), and the creation of mixed schools where young Jews and non-Jews can learn together Hebrew and Arabic as well as mutual respect.
This solution of annexation will be profitable for all the inhabitants of Israel/Palestine, whatever be their religion, and will prevent useless sufferings resulting from injustice and frustration. In this way, Jews and Palestinians will not have the feeling of being deprived from a part of the country to which they are attached by their religion and their history.
Both will have Jerusalem as their capital and will contribute to the economic and technological development of the Middle East instead of engaging in mutual destruction. Together, they will form a beautiful example of democracy for all the Arab and Muslim countries.
Union creates the force; division produces desolation.
It is only by becoming a land of justice and peace for all its children, whatever be their religion, that Jerusalem can claim its title of a Holy City.
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