Scott McConnell writes:
In Avi Shlaim's The Iron Wall, I came across this account of Begin's autonomy plan, presented to Carter and his aides on Dec. '77. Begin of course wanted to deflect proposals from the US and Egypt for Palestinian self-determination and possible statehood.
Begin's plan consisted of 26 articles. It envisaged the abolition of Israeli military government and its replacement by administrative autonomy of the residents of the West Bank and Gaza for an initial period of five years. . .Security and public order were to be Israel's responsibility. . . . [NOW IT GETS INTERESTING] The Arab residents would be allowed a free choice between Israeli and Jordanian citizenship, and this choice was to determine where they would have to vote. A joint committee of Israel, Jordan and the adminstrative council would review and amend existing legisltion. Another committee would determine norms of immigration, including immigration by refugees. Israeli citizens were to be permitted to purchase land and to settle in Judea and Samaria and in Gaza. Residents of these territories who opted for Israeli citizenship would be permitted to purchase land and settle in Israel. These principles would be subject to review after a five year period.
I haven't investigated this further and obviously nothing came of it, but in the hands of a shrewd Palestinian negotiator, a proposal like this might lead in interesting directions. Could Menachem Begin have midwifed the one-state solution? In a somewhat parallel vein, I've read on Helena Cobban's blog that local Hamas figures on the West Bank could often negotiate quite reasonable modus vivendis with the settlers and their rabbis--the latter being more interested in the rights of Jews in Biblical lands than the non-rights of Arabs.
McConnell is for 2-state solution, I think the way a lot of us are, to end this madness. But note that his point about a de facto one-state solution is also made by Dana in this post on Palestinian civil rights inside Israel.
Phil, Begin's "autonomy" plan was a plan to continue the settlement enterprise unhindered while preventing Palestinians from establishing any form of meaningful, actual autonomy, let alone an independent state. The "immigration" clause was a cunning play on words, not unlike the Balfour declaration. The so-called "free choice" was not as simple as it is made to appear to be. It wasn't at all about what Palestinians would "opt for". An Israeli acceptance of that is not short of an Israeli acceptance of the return of refugees, something that Israel strictly refused to do. So the "free choice" was to be a function of a "committee [that] would determine norms of immigration, including immigration by refugees." The committee would supposedly be joint Israeli-Jordanian, let's say divided equally in terms of members? Very well. But a stalemate within the committee would not have lost Israel anything. Quite the contrary, Israeli members of that committee could have stalled a decision on the so-called "norms" of immigration because the status quo by default favored Israel. In the meantime, Israel would have maintained and indeed cemented its control over the West Bank & Gaza Strip, and increased settlers' presence there. I am not sure what makes you think that this was about setting the grounds for a one-state solution. Far from it. Take a look at Israel's intransigence regarding the West Bank & Gaza Strip in the Camp David Accords with Egypt. Israel insisted that the status of the territories be left undetermined and subject to future bilateral or multilateral negotiations over a period of five years (note the similarity in Begin's autonomy suggestion in terms of the time-frame). The Director-General of the Prime Minister's Office at the time in fact openly admitted that Israel wanted the five-year period in order to have a limited time frame within which it could stall negotiations and prevent a breakthrough, and at the end of that period, its opponents on the negotiating table would have to leave empty-handed while Israel would have maintained the status quo. Here's what the PMO said at the time: "after five years when both sides will disagree, the situation would mean that things stayed the same in Israel’s favor." I am not making this up. You can find it in Jonathan Rynhold's "Reconceptualizing Israeli Approaches to Land for Peace and the Palestinian Question Since 1967." [Israel Studies 6(2), Summer 2001]. I came across it while doing research for my thesis.
Shlaim is not an economist and has no background in finance.
He totally missed the implications of Jabotinsky's ideas about ethnonational financial warfare. (See qunfuz: Misha'al (and Clegg).)
The worldwide financial meltdown is probably to almost certainly a result of the implementation of Jabotinsky's program by his followers in the USA, Canada, the UK and the State of Israel. (See Blaming Jews for Financial Meltdown.)
I'll bet Joachim is blaming a Jew for his inability to consumate a relationship.
Personally I think that the good Karen likes it up the ass.
I would assume that this is the problem with this type posting. Anyone can use any signature.
Onlookers, note the mature comments by Sword and chris. And, please also read Joachim's blog references–you will learn a lot, rather than reading infantile comments.