Global IssuesA Lasting Peace Between Israelis and Palestinians
PORTLAND, USA / JERUSALEM, Jan 27 (IPS) - Following the long-sought cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas, the major challenge for the Israelis and the stateless Palestinians is how to achieve a lasting peace that will end the disastrous cycle of death, destruction, displacement and despair.
Several major factors continue to play fundamental roles in the decades-old conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Among those factors are religious identities, demographics, land and the broader regional geo-political context.
Closely related to those major factors are critical issues for achieving a solution to the conflict, including borders, refugees, civil/human rights and legal equity, authority over Jerusalem’s Holy Sites, and very importantly security.
A narrative of mutual recognition, tolerance, and pluralism should prevail. While the memories of the past cannot be forgotten nor dismissed, the emphasis today needs to be placed firmly on achieving a lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
Recent History
Along with the defeat of the Ottoman Empire by the western powers in World War I, its territory was partitioned into several British and French Mandates.
The British Mandate for Palestine, or Mandatory Palestine, initially intended to include Transjordan, was approved over the territory west of Jordan by the League of Nations in 1922. Among its declared goals was the establishment of the Jewish national home and the development of self-governing institutions, safeguarding the civil and religious rights of all the inhabitants of Palestine, irrespective of religious affiliation and ethnicity.
The religious composition of the resident population of Mandatory Palestine at that time was approximately 10 percent Christian, 11 percent Jewish and 78 percent Muslim. Under the British, all those resident in the territory, irrespective of their religious affiliation, held Palestinian citizenship.
After many decades of violence and confrontations among the major populations of Mandatory Palestine and the various attempts by the British and others to resolve the conflict, the problem was turned over to the United Nations to resolve. By 1947, in large part due to immigration, the religious composition of the resident population of Palestine had become 7 percent Christian, 32 percent Jewish and 60 percent Muslim.
On 29 November 1947, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the resolution terminating the Mandate and dividing Palestine into two states. One state was Arab, primarily Muslim, and the other state was Jewish, with the Jerusalem area separately remaining under direct United Nations control (Figure 1).
On 14 May 1948, David Ben-Gurion declared independence of the Jewish state of Israel. The opposing side, led by Mohammed Amin al-Husseini, rejected the partition plan. War immediately erupted between the armies of neighboring Arab states and Israel.
As a consequence of the war, the demographic composition of the territory underwent significant changes. In particular was the compulsory as well as the voluntary exodus (subsequently called the Nakba) of an estimated minimum of 625-650,000 and a maximum 725-750,000 Palestinians from Israel. They included persons who lived in Palestine in 1946 and those who stayed but whose property remained within the borders of the Jewish state.
In the newly founded state of Israel with a population of 873 thousand, the proportion Jewish was 82 percent. If the Palestinians had not been displaced but had remained in their homes, the proportion Jewish in Israel in 1948 would have been about 45 percent.
Following the 1948 war and subsequent armistice, the borders of Israel expanded to 77 percent of the original territory of Mandatory Palestine, including the western part of Jerusalem. The West Bank with East Jerusalem was occupied by Transjordan, later renamed the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. The Gaza area remained under occupation by Egypt. In 1950 the combined population of West Bank and Gaza contained approximately 830,000 stateless Palestinians.
Following the 1967 war, Israel began expanding Jewish settlements in the occupied territories (Figure 2). From a few families in 1968, the number of Jewish settlers grew from 69,700 in 1987 to 293,400 in 2007. By 2024, the number reached 530,000, which does not include the 245,000 residents of new neighborhoods in East Jerusalem.
Current Demographics
Israel is a relatively small country with about the territorial size of El Salvador. At the end of 2024, Israel’s population surpassed 10 million, which is about the same size as Sweden’s population. The proportion Jewish in Israel is 77 percent, including citizens who live in East Jerusalem and the occupied territories.
The Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), which has about one quarter of the land area of Israel, has a permanently resident population close to 5 million, plus 380,000 living in East Jerusalem.
The combined population of Israel and the OPT is approximately 15 million. In that combined population, about 51% of the residents would be Jewish.
Peace Proposals
The first serious peace proposal examined here is the one-state solution. It calls for establishing a nation that includes Israel, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem. A major advantage of that solution would be the creation of a secular democracy with the separation of church and state with equal rights for each of the country’s citizens.
The chief disadvantage with the one-state solution is that at least at this time, it does not appear to be a realistic political scenario. The two opposing parties in the conflict still nurture considerable mutual hostility. Moreover, both are seeking their own independent statehood sovereignty, i.e., a continuing Jewish national homeland and a newly established Palestinian national homeland.
The peace proposal that is most widely supported is the two-state solution. It remains the internationally agreed way forward and is strongly supported by the United Nations, the Security Council and the world’s major powers.
The two-state solution involves a fully sovereign, independent State of Palestine comprising the West Bank and the Gaza area, existing peacefully alongside Israel, with borders along pre-1967 lines and security ensured for both nations.
A major difficulty with the two-state solution is the lack of territorial contiguity between the two parts of the Palestinian state. Israel could facilitate the establishment of a single Palestinian state by permitting a corridor connecting the two parts of the Palestinian state while ensuring their own security.
Another difficulty is the lack of political agreement and the prevailing de facto conflict between the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza.
A third peace proposal, if acceptable to the Palestinians, is the attainment of sovereignty separately for Gaza and the West Bank. Each territory would negotiate its own autonomy, boundaries, political structure and economic sustainment with separate governments and separate membership in the United Nations. In the future, if feasible and desired, the two Palestinian states may wish to negotiate a federal configuration or a full union.
Conclusions
It is time to stop the killing, violence and destruction and have the Israelis and the Palestinians negotiate a peace settlement.
It is also time to recognize that on this small territory known as Palestine /Eretz Israel/the Holy Land, at least two major actors exist, each with their historical rights, ethnic solidarity, cultural heritages, languages, political autonomy and religious rituals.
The Palestinians in their proposal for a lasting peace with Israel are essentially calling for a state of their own.
The Israeli government has developed extensive plans for war to ensure its security. However, it has not offered explicit plans to resolve the post-war situation in Gaza nor on how to achieve a lasting peace with the stateless Palestinians. The Israelis do demand that their Jewish nation is not menaced nor delegitimized in attempts to secure a lasting peace with the Palestinians.
Continuation of the status quo is untenable. It is certainly not a resolution to the conflict and continues to place Israelis and Palestinians in peril.
It’s time for diplomacy that leads to a negotiated settlement and a lasting peace. Military action and terrorist acts simply won’t resolve the conflict. The major nations of the world need to be proactive in the pursuit of a plan for securing a lasting peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
Joseph Chamie in Portland, Oregon, USA is a consulting demographer and a former director of the United Nations Population Division.
Sergio DellaPergola in Jerusalem, Israel is Professor Emeritus and former Chairman of the Hebrew University’s Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry.
© Inter Press Service (2025) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service