American Friends of A Land for All

American Friends of A Land for All:

Two States One Homeland

American Friends of A Land for All:

Two States One Homeland

Confederation, a practical elaboration of the two-state solution, is a plan to resolve the 100-year conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, two peoples who hold a deep spiritual and historical attachment to the same land.

Confederation is a framework for peace that is founded on the principles of equality, dignity, partnership, independence, interdependence, reconciliation, and mutual respect.

While each group has a strong and distinct national identity, the facts on the ground make clear that Jews and Palestinians are geographically, environmentally, and economically intertwined. Moreover, both peoples consider the entire territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea to be their homeland. For Jews, that homeland includes Hebron in the West Bank as much as Tel Aviv. For Palestinians, it encompasses Jaffa within the Green Line as much as Ramallah beyond it.

Any solution to the conflict must recognize these deep emotional connections and this historical reality and build a framework that accommodates those feelings and convictions.

An Israeli-Palestinian Confederation would do just that. It would shift the paradigm for resolving the conflict from separation to interdependency/sharing. Among its components, a Confederation would establish:

Two independent states, Israel and Palestine, with two heads of state, two separate governing bodies, and a border based on the pre-1967 “Green Line.”
1. Each state would be sovereign and free to define its national, legal, and religious character.
2. A confederated structure with shared institutions would govern issues of mutual interest, such as water, climate, human rights, and the economy. (A good analogue is the European Union.)
Open borders and freedom of movement and residence for the citizens of both states.
1. Freedom of movement — to tour, work, or study — would be the default policy of both Israel and Palestine. Travelers and commuters would not be banned or restricted from either state based on their group identity or affiliation but only if they, as individuals, pose a specific security threat.
2. Jewish-Israeli settlers could, if they wish, remain in the West Bank so long as they agree to be law-abiding residents under Palestinian sovereignty. As residents of Palestine, they would participate in local elections but would vote in Israeli national elections for their representatives in the Knesset.
3. A similar provision would apply to Palestinians refugees of the 1948 war and to their descendants. They could choose to move to Israel under the same terms – permanent residency, provided they agree to be law-abiding residents under Israeli sovereignty – or receive agreed upon compensation or restitution.
4. With the aim of eventually enabling all persons to live wherever they wish within the larger borders of the Confederated Israel/Palestine, the process of allowing Israelis to reside in the Palestinian state and Palestinians to reside in the State of Israel would start from a substantial, agreed upon a mutual step and continue with coordinated and gradual steps.
Restitution or compensation for past wrongs without creating new inequities.
Sophisticated security measures grounded in the principle of robust cooperation in fields of security, intelligence, policing, etc. Israel and Palestine will have joint responsibility on the outer borders of the confederation.
Jerusalem would be an open city. It would serve as the capital of both states. It would also be governed by a joint overarching municipal entity composed of Israelis and Palestinians from the city’s east and west boroughs, with each national group having veto power on major issues.
The delicate urban fabric of the city would remain intact. Jerusalem would be united under shared sovereignty however each national capital would be established in a separate physical location.
Holy places would be governed by a special regime, possibly with international support, as was provided for in earlier two-state proposals.
The border between the two states would run around the city, rather than through it.

The Confederation model has been developed and advocated by a wide range of public figures, scholars, and activists. Since 2012, a group of prominent Israelis and Palestinians has been working to refine the Confederation plan and advocate for it. This group has now consolidated into one organization called A Land for All — Eretz L’Kulam / Balad li’l jamih’.

Today, it is abundantly clear that, while sharing the land is a lived reality for Jews and Palestinians both inside and outside the Green Line, equality is not. Individuals and groups have different rights — from full civil and political privileges to none — based solely on their nationality or ethnicity. This unjust reality must be rectified, not with the illusion of complete separation, as was imagined in previous two-state frameworks, and not with the flawed, often incendiary, idea of one-state, but through a practical model that weds cooperation to enlightened self-interest and guarantees equal individual and collective rights for all.

Some may deride it as utopian, but Confederation is clearly more achievable than a two-state solution based on policing a hard border between Israel and a Palestinian state, evicting 500,000+ Jewish settlers from their homes on the West Bank and pushing the Palestinians to surrender the right of return (the details of which would be negotiated between the two parties). Confederation is rightly considered “two-states-2.0” because it allows Israelis and Palestinians to stay where they are, live where they wish, improve their current reality, and fulfill their national imperatives.

Those who support Confederation include secular Jews and progressives, as well as Israeli settlers and Jews those who describe themselves as religious or right-wing. Confederation supporters also include a comparable spectrum of Palestinians.

No one considers Confederation a quick fix. Its realization demands a sustained campaign of promotion, education, and consciousness raising. But the paradigm must change. Two states with a hard border and mass transfer of populations are no longer options. One state is a nonstarter. The only path to a resolution of this heretofore intransigent conflict is the creation of two states under one shared umbrella of peace.

Contact Us