What do Israelis and Palestinians want?
The
Israel-Palestine difference has many issues at stake. “TERRITORIAL DISPUTE” is
the usual nomenclature used by legal and political sciences to refer to these
kinds of conflicts.
Yet,
the label does not show the complexity this and many other differences have.
This is not only a question about territory but includes people, government and
law, domestically, regionally and globally.
There
are many remedies that could be applied. The previous post presented a series
of articles which summarise the situation and the official position of Israel
and Palestine.
Today,
the post centers the attention of one of these parties: people. What do
Israelis and Palestinians want?
A Joint Poll (published on 25th January 2018) conducted by
the Tami Steinmetz Center for Peace Research (TSC), Tel Aviv University and the
Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR) in Ramallah, with
funding from the European Union (EU), the Netherland Representative Office in
Ramallah, and the UNDP
office on behalf of the Representative Office of Japan to
Palestine.
Key Results (my capitalization):
- Support for the TWO-STATE solution stands at 46% among Palestinians and Israeli Jews. In June 2017, 53% of Palestinians and 47% of Israeli Jews supported that solution. Among Israeli Arabs, support for the two-state solution stands today at 83%.
- Other solutions considered (fewer people agreed): one state with equal rights, one state without rights, and expulsion or “transfer.”
- 40% of Palestinians and 35% of Israeli Jews (a three-point increase from the June survey) support a PERMANENT PEACE AGREEMENT package, along with 85% of Israeli Arabs.
The
skepticism about the package appears closely related to serious doubts about
feasibility.
Mode
details available at:
It is
interesting to know what Israelis and Palestinians think about this territorial
dispute. In particular, because they are the ones that live in that region and
therefore, any decision affects them directly (and their future generations).
This study (like any other) has a main flaw: although it gives us a glimpse on
what Israelis and Palestinians may think about the territorial dispute, it
remains questionable to argue that this is what most of them want.
After all,
like any study, it is based on a sample. Yet, as an interpretative tool it is
indeed thought provoking.
It
would be advisable to have a more detailed questionnaire including clear
conceptual references for the respondents, a broader sample, and a more in
detail analysis.
For
instance, a suggestion: to define clearly how the two-state formula would
materialize? I propose to follow the EGALITARIAN SHARED SOVEREIGNTY model in
which both parties (Israel and Palestine) would be equal sovereigns with
implications related to territory, people, government and law.
The
formula secures in theory and in practice equal standing for both Israel and
Palestine in many senses (some of them previously presented when we introduce
Kashmir, the Falkland/Malvinas islands, and Gibraltar as case studies in this
series about TERRITORIAL DISPUTES).
NOTE:
This post is based on Jorge Emilio Núñez, “Territorial Disputes and State
Sovereignty: International Law and Politics,” London and New York: Routledge,
Taylor and Francis Group, 2020 (forthcoming)
Previous
published research monograph about territorial disputes and sovereignty by the
author, Jorge Emilio Núñez, “Sovereignty Conflicts and International Law and
Politics: A Distributive Justice Issue,” London and New York: Routledge, Taylor
and Francis Group, 2017.
NEXT
POST: The Israel-Palestine difference and the (re)interpretation by the media
Wednesday 04th December 2019
Dr Jorge Emilio Núñez
Twitter: @London1701
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