The Reemergence of One-Statism

Strip—but this division, based on the current political separation of the Hamas-run Gaza Strip and the Palestine National Authority–Fatah-run core of the West Bank, is unlikely to persevere because the Arab inhabitants of the two territories are one people, in every sense, and are unlikely for long to fly off in separate political trajectories. Furthermore, Gaza, given its minute dimensions (139 square miles, 25 miles from north to south and 4 – 7.5 miles from east to west), is hardly a candidate for separate political existence, though, of course, history is full of surprises. But it is unlikely that this will be one of them.

So it’s one state, comprising the whole territory of British Mandate Palestine, between the Jordan and the Mediterranean (about 10,000 square miles), or two states, meaning the area of the pre-1967 State of Israel (about 8,000 square miles) for the Jews and the bulk of the West Bank and Gaza Strip (about 2,000 square miles) for the Arabs. There are a number of possible permutations. Let us first look at the variety of one-state solutions propounded in the past or present.

One possibility, which can be dismissed fairly rapidly, is that Israel/Palestine will be governed, as one political entity, by neither of its indigenous national groups but by a third party, from outside, be it the United Nations or a Great Power or a combination of Great Powers. The idea, given the apparent unbridgability of the basic political positions of the two sides, is not as outlandish as it seems. A number of countries were governed, as League of Nations mandates, by Great Powers between the two