Two Peoples--One Land:
Federal Solutions for Israel, the Palestinians, and Jordan
Preface
Daniel J. Elazar
The land known to Jews as Eretz Yisrael and to Arabs in recent
times as Falastin is the home of two peoples -- Jewish and Arab
-- with the latter defining themselves as Palestinians. At
present it is divided among two states -- Israel and Jordan --
plus territories inhabited principally but not exclusively by
Palestinian Arabs whose political fate has not yet been settled.
These two peoples, weary of several generations of conflict, are
now seeking a way to coexist and share the land between them for
their mutual security and prosperity.
Since the time of the British Mandate, the leading elements on
both sides sought coexistence and security through successive
partitions of the land, between Palestine and Transjordan in
1921-22, and again west of the Jordan in 1947-48. Partition,
however, has not brought an end to the conflict or sufficient
satisfaction of the claims of all parties. Now it is time to
find a way to share the land without an exclusive reliance on
partition. This book is dedicated to the proposition that the
only way to do so is through some form of federal solution which
will secure for each party a polity of its own but in such a way
that all three must share in the governance of the land's common
goods. It is this writer's deep and considered belief that the
federal option is the only option for peace.
Federalism combines self-rule and shared rule. It is a coming
together of equals in such a way that they can remain separate
yet be joined, as appropriate. The federal option rejects
solutions imposed by force and conquest or the establishment of
government through power pyramids. Rather it is based upon
reflection and choice, and mutual consent among equals to
establish a new governmental matrix within which all will find
their place without foregoing their separate characters and
cultures and their desire for independent development.
There are many different ways of combining self-rule and shared
rule, offering greater or lesser independence for the partners to
the federal bargain, more extensive or less extensive common
institutions, and different degrees of separation and sharing
depending on the function or task to be accomplished. Finding
the appropriate federal option for Jews and Arabs, Israelis and
Palestinians, Israel and Jordan, is the most urgent task
confronting the peoples in this land in their search for peace
and comity. This book is one effort to advance the federal idea,
explore the available options, and, where possible, advocate
appropriate solutions to our mutual problem.
It is recognized that the achievement of peace in this shared
land is a difficult, even daunting, task that requires strong
commitment on all sides to a peaceful solution and the requisite
political will to make the solution work. All of us are
painfully aware of the conflicting claims of the parties to the
conflict that until now have been considered by many to be so
mutually exclusive as to permit of no compromise. All parties
must recognize that however legitimate they believe their claims
to be, none can be exercised fully and that the federal option
allows all parties to preserve some fair share of their claim by
sharing in its exercise with those who are today their
antagonists. Once the parties are prepared to take this step, we
are confident that they will find the way to make things work.
If they are not prepared to do so, we fear that the conflict will
continue indefinitely to the very great detriment of us all.
This book is unashamedly written from the Israeli point of view
and reflects, first and foremost, Israeli interests in a secure
peace that will enable the Jewish state to survive and thrive and
to fulfill its Zionist mission. Saying that is not to say that
it does not consider Palestinian Arab interests seriously.
Quite to the contrary, the virtue of thinking federal is that in
a true federal bargain all parties must gain. One who is
seriously concerned with Israel's interests would have to be very
foolish not to recognize that those interests are bound up with a
fair response to the interests of the other people in this land.
A federal solution is a way for all parties to try to have their
cake and eat it too. Amazingly, that can be done and has been in
many parts of the world. Given the conflicting claims with which
we are dealing, it is the only way to do so in this case.
This book owes its existence to the many people who have been
involved in the program of the Jerusalem Center for Public
Affairs exploring federal solutions for Israel and the
territories. That program has been one of the cornerstones of
the Jerusalem Center since its founding in 1976. It was
initiated at that time as a result of requests from Shimon Peres,
then Israel's Minister of Defense, and Teddy Kollek, Mayor of
Jerusalem, for studies that would identify all the possible
federal options for a general solution and specific applications
of the federal principle in the case of Jerusalem. I would like
to acknowledge my gratitude to both for helping me take an idea
on which I had been working for seven years at that time and
bringing it into the policy process.
Among my first partners in the effort was Ira Sharkansky of
Hebrew University, with whom I worked on the development of the
eleven federal options, and David Clayman who, as the first
Director-General of the Jerusalem Center, helped facilitate our
work. After we identified the eleven options, we launched a
systematic effort to explore them through a series of conferences
held jointly with the Department of Political Studies at Bar-Ilan
University through the Senator Norman M. Paterson Chair in
Intergovernmental Relations, which I have the honor to hold, and
assisted by the Bar-Ilan Institute of Local Government. The
conferences resulted in a series of books which laid the
groundwork for the entire enterprise. I would like to thank all
the contributors to those volumes who helped me in my education:
the late Benjamin Akzin, Gabiel Ben-Dor, Yehuda Ben-Meir, Leonard
Binder, Aryeh Bregman, Moshe Drori, the late Ivo D. Duchacek,
Fried Esterbauer, Francine Friedman, Zvi Gitelman, Nathan Glazer,
Ilan Greilsammer, the late Louis Guttman, Robert M. Hawkins,
Martin Heisler, Dan Horowitz, Eliahu Kanovsky, Jacob M. Landau,
Fabio Lorenzoni, Alexandre Marc, Robert Melson, Emile A. Nakhleh,
Benjamin Neuberger, Elinor Ostrom, Vincent Ostrom, Shimon Peres,
Robert Pranger, Rozann Rothman, Shmuel Sandler, Stephen
Schechter, Dan V. Segre, Moshe Shokeid, Shlomo Slonim, Rephael
Vardi, Myron Weiner, Alex Weingrod, and Raanan Weitz.
In the course of those conferences the American Enterprise
Institute joined us as a partner to help facilitate the
exploration and to communicate the results to the Arab world. I
would like to thank Robert Pranger and William Baroody, Jr. of
AEI for their assistance. The principal published product of
that joint effort was Judea, Samaria and Gaza: Views of the
Present and Future, whose contributors Moshe Drori, Elisha Efrat,
Hillel Frisch, Abraham Lavine, Sasson Levi, Mordechai Nisan,
Shmuel Sandler, Jehoshua Schwarz, and Rephael Vardi have my
thanks.
After laying the groundwork, the Jerusalem Center sponsored a
Study Group on Israel-Arab Peace that issued its report, Shared
Rule: The Only Option in June 1983. The members of the Study
Group were Gabriel Ben-Dor, Yehuda Ben-Meir, Moshe Drori, the
late Haggai Eshed, Yehezkel Flomin, Marcel Korn, Jacob Landau,
Yosef Lanir, Ehud Olmert, Dan V. Segre, Shmuel Sandler, Zalman
Shoval, and myself. In addition we benefited from the advice and
counsel of Yitzhak Modai, Yehuda Ben-Meir, Ehud Olmert, and
Yaakov Landau.
As in everything I do, I owe a great debt of gratitude to my
colleagues at the Jerusalem Center and Bar-Ilan; especially
Shmuel Sandler, who has worked with me in an effort to develop
concrete and practical applications of one or another of the
federal options as appropriate, and Hillel Frisch, who has been
the Center's eyes and ears in the territories for many years.
Both also made a notable contribution to the advancement of this
project through their book Israel, the Palestinians and the West
Bank: A Study in Intercommunal Conflict, and continue to
accompany me on this long road toward a federal solution to the
conflict.
My graditude also to Zvi R. Marom, the Jerusalem Center
Director-General, and its staff, Andrea Arbel, Projects
Coordinator; Mirjam Dorn and Pam Sher, our secretaries, make all
of this possible. I owe a very special debt of gratitude to Mark
Ami-El who has accompanied this manuscript from first to last and
Ellen Friedlander, my able research assistant who undertakes the
many unglamorous but vital chores that turn a manuscript into a
book.
My gratitude also to the Center for the Study of Federalism at
Temple University, its staff, and my colleagues there. Nothing I
do that deals with federalism is done without my benefiting from
their counsel and assistance.
Jerusalem
Adar II 5749
March 1989
