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israel and the two-state paradigm From Reluctant Acquiescence to Self-Interest The complex and convoluted acceptance by the Palestinians of the two-state idea in 1988 was eventually matched in the 1990s by Israel’s somewhat less convoluted but equally reluctant acceptance of independent Palestinian statehood. For decades Israel had firmly rejected the notion, though there were occasional digressions. During the 1948 war, Israel did, albeit briefly, consider the option of an independent Palestinian state. It was clear from the pre-war deliberations between the Zionists and the Hashemites that the Zionists preferred partition to be effected by Jordanian annexation of what was left of Arab Palestine. However, as the 1948 war ground to an end, the Israelis had momentary second thoughts. After Jordan’s active participation in the war, its annexation of the West Bank was no longer regarded by the Israeli leadership as a foregone conclusion. In the summer of 1948, the Israelis seriously considered the option of an independent Palestinian state. Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett was of the opinion that Israel “ought to prefer the establishment of an independent Arab State in Western Palestine” to the option of annexation by Jordan , even if only as a negotiating tactic with King Abdallah.1 But beyond tactics, Ben-Gurion and Sharett shared the assessment that in the longer run Iraq might swallow Jordan, and if Jordan annexed the West Bank, in the future the Israelis would find Iraq “on our border at Qalqilya and Wadi Ara.” Ben-Gurion did not think much of King Abdallah either. “It was clear, the man had no substance,” he noted.2 In any event, no realistic Palestinian option was in the offing. When the war began, there were no Palestinians of stature who would countenance compromise. By the time the war was over, the Palestinians were in such disarray that there were no Palestinians of stature who could deliver on any agreement even if there were to be one. For lack of 3 Israel and the Two-State Paradigm 73 any better choice, Israel came to terms with Jordan’s annexation of what became the “West Bank,” which remained part of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan until the union was undone by the 1967 war. The war of 1967 was a historical watershed in Israeli domestic politics too. After the seemingly miraculous deliverance, “the secular and the pragmatic began to give way to the apocalyptic and eschatological. . . . In this way some lost sight of the original mission, which had been about saving and redeeming people and instead became about holding and redeeming land.”3 In the wake of Israel’s stunning victory, various prescriptions for the future of the “administered” or “liberated” territories were hotly but inconclusively debated in the Israeli body politic. One thing, however, was certain: the Six Day War had “undermined the Israeli majority’s two-state outlook.”4 On June 19, 1967, the Israeli cabinet passed a resolution according to which Israel would return the territories occupied from Egypt and Syria in exchange for peace treaties.5 The resolution, however, said nothing about the West Bank and Gaza. The use of terminology alone already indicated that, in the Israeli scheme of things, since these “territories” were anything but “occupied,” a return to the status quo ante was not an option. Trapped Between the Jordanian Option and the Absorption of Arab Palestine In the immediate aftermath of the war, Yigal Allon, one of Israel’s outstanding generals of the 1948 war and deputy prime minister in Levi Eshkol’s cabinet, presented a plan that envisaged the annexation of substantial swaths of West Bank territory, in the Jordan Valley and the Judean Desert, which would entail only a minimal annexation of Arab population. This, Allon argued, would enhance the country’s security and defensibility on its eastern front, without undermining its Jewish character. A corridor through Jericho would link the densely populated interior of the West Bank with Jordan to the east. Originally the Allon Plan envisaged autonomy fortheArabpopulation,butafterthatwasturneddown by thePalestinians in the occupied territories, the plan was adapted to have the remainder of the West Bank returned to Jordan in a negotiated settlement. The Allon Plan was never formally adopted as Israeli policy, but under Labor-led governments until 1977 it did determine the location of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, especially in the Jordan Valley, while deliberately avoiding the densely populated highlands.6 [18.188.40.207] Project MUSE (2024-04-24 13:02...

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