Below is the conclusion of a longer piece posted in May 2010 found here: http://adamfrank.typepad.com/adam_frank/2010/05/a-tale-of-two-states.html
My 'solution' is to use these next 20-30 years to improve the lives of Israelis and Palestinians and to lay the foundation for a future peace agreement.
- A priority would be to protect the safety, security, and dignity of the Palestinians.
- A priority would be to improve the standard of living for Palestinians and show the benefits of peaceful co-existence.
- A priority would be to create a tolerance whereby Israel can feel a Palestinian State is not a threat to the Jewish State's security.
- THE priority would be the security of Israel's citizens. It certainly is fair to prioritize the security of Israelis over the security of the Palestinians as the Palestinian leadership condones, supports, and engages in its stated goal of eliminating the State of Israel – there is no such reciprocal goal or acts of Israel toward the Palestinians.
If the Obama Administration and international opinion supports the idea of imposing conditions onto the players in the Middle East in order to prepare the region for a resolving of the Arab/Israeli conflict, consider the following:
Impose on the Palestinians of West Bank and Gaza:
1. An international investment in the infrastructure of Palestinian institutions including government services, the economy and the manufacturing of goods, hospitals, roadways, police force, and judicial systems and the like.
2. A reform of the educational system that eliminates the vilification of Israel; that teaches the history of loss of both sides; that recognizes a Jewish State of Israel; that fertilizes the dreams concomitant with peaceful coexistence.
3. A no-tolerance policy on clerical, religious, political, or media-driven breeding of hatred toward the State of Israel and/or the Jewish people.
4. An active no-tolerance policy toward hate groups of Israel, the Jewish people and Western culture, including the dismantling of all groups committed to the active or passive liberation of Palestine.
Impose on Israel:
1. The immediate construction of comfortable modern 'passage centers' whereby residents of the West Bank and Gaza can respectfully and efficiently be recognized by Israeli authorities as non-dangerous for entry into Israel for the purposes of work and family visits.
2. The removal of all roadblocks between roads connecting Palestinian West Bank cities.
3. The release of Palestinians held without charges in detention jails.
4. The necessary utilities support to help the Palestinian infrastructure and economy advance and develop.
5. A no-tolerance policy toward anti-Palestinian activity.
6. A halt in construction of new site settlements and permission to expand currently settled areas of that have populations of 20,000+.
7. The dismantling of small, illegal settlements with an eye toward dismantling other settlements whose location purposes are no more than to frustrate a future land designation for a Palestinian state.
The separation wall stays up and is completed. Any breach of the wall is considered an act of terror.
International monitors who have been agreed to on by both sides will oversee and report to the P.A., Israel and the Quartet on the implementation.
At 5, 10, 15, and 20 years there will be incremental and appropriate steps toward an independent Palestinian State in 2035. Time is necessary to build trust -- trust cannot be imposed.
From Jerusalem,
Adam