Israelis, Arabs Offer Solutions to the Conflict

The Ariel University Center of Samaria held a special conference on Monday, entitled “Best Plans for a Peaceful Israel/Palestine” conference.

The conference, the second of its kind, featured three Israeli and three Arab speakers, each of whom presented his idea for a solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The event was attended by students at the Ariel University Center, some of whom are Orthodox Jews, but also by some Israeli-Arab students and Palestinian Authority Arabs from the PA-controlled areas of Judea and Samaria. This made the conference even more significant, since Ariel is considered by the PA a “settlement” built on “occupied territory”.

The event was held in the wake of last year’s boycott by leftist artists of the Ariel cultural center, who refused to perform in Ariel saying it was “against their consciousness” to perform in a theater located in Samaria. While some of the boycotters may talk about co-existence with Arabs, it does not seem as though they have done anything to promote that – unlike the nationalist participants in the conference, who respectfully listened to the other side’s opinion and created dialogue.

One of the Arab speakers was Attorney Kamal Nawash, President of the Free Muslims Coalition, whose proposal is one country for Jews and Arabs which provides security, independence, and self-determination that each side needs.

“We are proposing one country with two provinces,” Nawash told Arutz Sheva. “One province called Israel, once province called Palestine. Each province contributes 50% to the federal parliament, and each province has its own parliament to deal with its state issues.”

While Nawash’s solution will leave all the current Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria as is, his proposal essentially means that “there will be no borders”, as he put it....

Good intentions with bad common sense. Did we do the 4 million Jews a favorite when we let their grandparents settle in Arab lands in 1948? It defies common sense, European Jewish holocaust refugees into land inhabit by intolerant Muslim Arabs and not expect inter ethnic/religious violence from Arabs??!!! Now the 4 million Jews live in a Muslim kill zone and the US is dragged into a conflict with fanatical Muslims! This whole experiment is going to end with the Jews killing all the Arabs or the Arabs killing all the Jews. Problem is it doesn’t take many fanatics to get the Arabs going. Just look at the elections in Gaza, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and etc. Modernity is not winning, jihadist are.
Bottom line IMHO Ron Paul does raise a good question. How did we end up in this mess? Where I disagree with Ron Paul, it is too late to abandon Israel unless he can live with another potential holocaust. Since jihadist have elevated the destruction of Israel as a precursor to attacking the US we have no choice but see this thru to victory or death. However once this is resolved, we should learn that in the future DO NOT PLAY MAP MAKER again unless all parties agree to the borders. WTC, Afghanistan and Iraq are very expensive wars and the curtailment of our liberties for homeland security is quite substantial.

Sounds like suicide. Two provinces, one run by Hamas with enforced conformity on all votes and matters. The other run by a democratic ostensibly Jewish democracy complete with Peace Now sellouts, Arabs given the right to vote, and left wing nutcases pushing for self destruction.

A house divided cannot stand, and this sham would quickly destroy Israel and result in the genocide of millions of Jews.

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I know it's not popular here, but I'd use the Gaza plan. Draw the lines around territory Israel wants to keep, finish the wall, and leave. Where the lines are to be drawn is up to Israel, I wouldn't necessarily agree with where they were drawn in Gaza. Israel will have borders and the Arabs will have another state. There won't be anyone to negotiate peace with for a generation after the cessation of Arab antisemitic incitement, at a minimum.

“Good intentions with bad common sense. Did we do the 4 million Jews a favorite when we let their grandparents settle in Arab lands in 1948? It defies common sense, European Jewish holocaust refugees into land inhabit by intolerant Muslim Arabs and not expect inter ethnic/religious violence from Arabs??!!!”

Son, go learn some actual history. This is pure fiction. First, Jewish return to Israel didn’t happen in 1948. It went on at an erratic pace throughout the Middle Ages, accelerating in 1526 when the Ottomans conquered the Mamluks and Persia, and then getting a big boost in 1861 with the Land Reform Act of that year, and really picking up in 1882 when the Baron Edmond Benjamin de Rotschilde started buying up large tracts of neglected land and giving Jews a chance to settle them on condition that they raise grapes and make wine for him. When war broke out in 1914 between the Ottomans and Russia, the Turks attempted to forcibly expel all Jews from Israel, and the Jews returned the compliment by joining the British and helping them bring down the Ottoman empire. As a reward, they were promised a Jewish homeland, which promise the British promptly renegged after hiring Haj Amin El Husseini to incite anti-Jewish riots. Using the riots and Arab uprising of 1933-36 as a pretext, the British put the kibosh on all but very limited Jewish immigration, but the Irgun smuggled them in anyway to save them from the Holocaust.

That is why everything you just asserted is nonsense. In 1948, no Jews were resettled in Israel, and instead they were kept out, which is why Begin blew up the King David hotel. Second, these were not Arab lands. As Jews moved into Israel, they drained swamps, combated locust plagues, cleared rocky hills and otherwise developed the land, so that Arabs began immigrating into Israel in droves.

Go contribute some money to Ron Paul, since you seem to think he’s sane. But while you’re at it, as I said, withhold enough cash from him to buy a reliable history book and read it.

There might just be a solution. Turn Sinai into a Palestinian homeland.

The Palestinians can contribute to the world by farming. Desalinization can be the water supply, shipping can be utilized for transport and it gives the world the opportunity to build a country from the ground up using green technology.

For the Israelis, it gives them Gaza, the West Bank and a defensible border.

Win-Win all around.

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