WEST BANK: Many Palestinians would agree to Israeli citizenship

A poll on the Palestinian Ma’an news website that ended Monday showed that more than 56% of Palestinians support a former Israeli defense minister's idea to annex the West Bank and grant Israeli citizenship to its 2.5 million residents.

For Moshe Arens, the former defense minister, Israel has less to lose from incorporating the West Bank and its population than any other solution for the decades-long Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
 
Apparently, Arens' idea seems to have struck a chord among Palestinians. What the poll indicates is that a slim majority of Palestinians in the occupied territories have given up on the idea of two states -- Israel and Palestine -- living side by side in peace and security. Many now prefer the one-state solution, which means Israel would incorporate the remaining parts of historic Palestine, excluding the Gaza Strip, which Arens seems to have ignored.

However, the Palestinians’ reasoning for their decision is totally different from that of Arens, a right-wing Israeli politician. Whereas Arens dismisses the general Israeli concern that granting West Bank Palestinians Israeli citizenship would change the demographic and Jewish structure of Israel, Palestinians believe they would eventually become a majority in Israel in light of their higher birth rate, which means they could eventually take control through democratic and peaceful means.
 
The idea of a one-state solution gradually has been gaining Palestinian support as the Oslo process, started in 1993, has failed to bring about an independent state for the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Strong advocates of the two-states idea also now are talking about one state. Recently, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas suggested the one-state solution if negotiations to bring about an independent state failed.
 
The Ma’an poll, although not very scientific, reflects the general Palestinian mood in the occupied territories after efforts to give them a state have stalled and hopes pinned on the Obama administration have faded. Palestinians still carry the one card that can either make or break peace in the Middle East: their presence on the land. Israel will have to deal with that reality sooner or later.

-- Maher Abukhater in Jerusalem

Photo: A Palestinian man throws stones at Jewish settlers close to the northern West Bank village of Burin on July 26, 2010. The violence began when Israeli troops removed two mobile homes set up near the Bracha settlement, sparking protests from settlers, who hurled rocks at Palestinian vehicles at a nearby checkpoint, Palestinian witnesses said. Credit: Jaafar Ashtiyeh / AFP/Getty Images

Comments

[Joe]

For those people believing US and Israel are special allies, read this excerpt from Chas Freeman, whose nomination as Chairman of the National Intelligence Council was scuttled by Jewish-American groups in the early days of the Obama administration!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sharmine-narwani/chas-freeman-lets-rip-on_b_659571.html

[atrayu]

Palestinians believe they would eventually become a majority in Israel in light of their higher birth rate, which means they could eventually take control through democratic and peaceful means.
==============
Take control? So really this just another idea to steal Israel..

[OMAR]

Unfortunately, that news is 100% totally wrong. Simply because little only little number of Palestinians are TRAITORS. So the mentioned number (more than 56% of Palestinians support a former Israeli defense minister's idea to annex the West Bank and grant Israeli citizenship) is fabricated. That could be discovered easily when you read real news...

The proof of my words will be revealed very soon. I promise!!!

thanks for permiting me to talk...

[gandolf]

muslims are trying to out vote the europians and take over .
mulsims want to try to take over america the same way .
mulsims are trying to take over canada the same way.
but first they strike at israel .

america and Israel free people everywhere face the same enemy ,

[gandolf]

to salem sager ..

jesus was born in isreal , jesus was jewish , israel was here before islam was invented . these are facts my backwards friend .
mecca and medina where also jewish untill mohamd and his followers killed all the jews .
7 million jews against 1.5 billion mulsims .
i bet on the jews , so does america

[Stefano888]

The formal conception of equality is: treat equals equally, treat unequals unequally according to a rule. One major problem is Zionists and self-ordained chosen people have an extremely difficult time perceiving Palestinians as equal when the rule to be applied is religious orientation that is elitist or exclusive rather than a humanist rule that is democratic and inclusive. When applied, religious inequality leads at best to a form of Jewish polyarchical rule, while religious equality based on one person, one vote, in democratic elections eventually place Palestinian Arabs at the top of a single nation-state.

[fantazamaraz]

It sounds like a great idea, the palestinians would certainly enjoy a better lifestyle, living statndards and security in many ways, the question is, would anti-Israeli factions infiltrate together with the rest ? I rather believe that would be inevitable and therein lies the potential nightmare !

[salem sager]

jesus was born in palestine not isreal palestine will live for ever, the isrealieas like it or not they tried to kill them imprison them .deport them , they still there and allways be there , if the paestinians accept one state solution the israelies better take now ,that will save their behind in the long run

[David]

@ Dean Blake:

It's pretty hard to govern yourself and have a productive society with Israeli infiltrators fomenting radicalism and chaos from the inside and the Israeli army blowing up your buildings, blockading your roads, and shooting your children from the outside.

The One State Solution is not the Palestinians giving up on themselves, it's them reaching a new level in their thinking -- where for the first time they are considering, essentially, a Palestine with a right of return also for Jews.

Once they cross that difficult mental line, Zionism is indeed in trouble, because Israel can shoot at "terrorists trying to destroy Israel", but cannot shoot at "minority civil rights demonstrators demanding the vote".

Once they get the vote, there will already be almost a majority of Arabs and Israeli far-leftists to form a Knesset majority, and open the door for the return of Palestinian refugees, who will bring the Arab population to a majority. Hopefully they will treat the Jewish minority vastly, vastly better than they were treated themselves. Hopefully it will be the "Republic of Jerusalem" and not "Palestine". Hopefully the flag will be Israeli blue along with Palestinian green and red. Hopefully Hebrew will be a co-equal language. Hopefully public housing won't be built for Arabs only, while Jews are left to shantytowns.

Well... all that's if Netanyahu doesn't agree to the Two State Solution AND QUICK. Which is why the Palestinian leadership is subtly floating the One State Solution at the moment to put some fire under his feet.

[Stefano888]

It keeps requesting me to comment further. Plenty of room here. Well, I really do not think any author should determine which comments are published or not. He or she is likely to be biased, consciously or subconsciously, and great comments or rebuttals like mine might not be selected for publication simply because of ignorance or discrimination. I can not believe that BD's hidden racist and hypocritical comment: (1) was published; (2) would be believable even as a propaganda ploy; and (3) has not been debated previously well before my other two comments by others believing in truth and justice, including by righteous Jews.

[Stefano888]

Even if only one state was created to incorporate the two peoples, Zionists and their supporters would still attempt to buy up land, find new legal ways to gain advantage to keep the Palestinians down, and control the media and financial resources, if not the military. I would not desire to live with that many parasites. How about you D.B.?

[Stefano888]

To Dean Blake: you say the Palestinians are parasites? What? That is one of the most racist comments I have read on a national newspaper website. That is what the anti-Semites and Nazis and others have been saying about the Jews for a long time. And, if you want to rephrase such a racist statement to mean a form of dependence, financial or otherwise, Israel has been living off the largess of the USA and the West to the tone of $3-5 billion a year straight out, without other forms of aid and perks, almost since its artificial creation . And, this amount to the wealthiest social group per capita in the world. Further, there would not be a state of Israel without the support of the US, Europe, and the former Soviet Union. What a shameless and hypocritical position to take and actually have it be published. By the way, I seriously doubt 56% of Palestinians want to be Israeli citizens, per se, but instead might prefer to to over populated the opposition. Regardless, be afraid, be very afraid.

[Don Mulcare]

Missing from this story is the further comment by Arens that full citizenship rights will only be permitted the Palestinians "after a generation" where they will conceivably come to accept their permanent status as second-class citizens.

Like the so-called Barak peace offer, it is intended to make Israel look good. When it comes to a firm, written proposal Israel and Israelis are unwilling to compromise.

[Joe]

Israel don't want one state solution or apparently a two state solution either, do any one know what Israel want short of deportation of whole Palestinians or giving them few patches of reservations on worthless parts of occupied lands without any authority as full pledge sovereign nation, no wonder 95% of world nations call it a apartheid regime fixated in nineteen century colonial mentality!

[Dean Blake]

That the Palestinians want such an arrangement is a flat out acknowledgement that they are incapable of self-governance. Who would want such person's to become citizens of your own country? If they can't have any hope of self-governance, they can't particpate in the 'social contract' and contribute to a society. To 'latch on' to an existing and dynamic society like Israel in order to solve their problems is to say they are parasites. Israel is too small and filled with its own deserving Jewish minorities who have yet to enter into the 21sth century and particpiate in its economy. They dont need more hanger's on with a Dark Ages mentality.

A one state solution is a 'no state' solution for Jews; dissolution. There is no way Jews are going to put themselves in the same impossible circumstance as the Lebanese christians. They might as well cut their own throats now rather than agree to such an arrangement; it would be quicker, and less painful or destructive.