Henry H. Bucher, Jr.

If we understand the ‘Hundred Years’ War’* or the Palestinian/Israeli impasse to be very complex and we take seriously the ideas and legal steps of international laws over the years, the best solution in my opinion would take many months, but eventually bring something close to peace. Peace talks can bring an end to the immediate violence and deaths but remain only ‘talks’ when extremists on both sides have the goal of destroying the other. My proposal for pace is as follows:

1. The United Nations’ Security Council should empower a special commission to review all the resolutions about the Palestinian/Israel impasse since 1947. The 1948 resolution** allotted areas with Arab majorities to Palestine and areas with Jewish majorities to Israel; however, the final map gave the majority of Ottoman Palestine to the new state of Israel and the minority to the Palestinian Arabs whose population outnumbered the Jewish, many of whom were new arrivals—many were victims of the Holocaust.
2. Because more than 80% of Gaza’s population are Palestinian refugees from previous conflicts (1948, 1967, to name the major ones), and because Gaza has no direct border with Palestine’s occupied West Bank, Gaza should be exchanged for areas in the north previously assigned by the United Nations to Palestinisn Arabs in 1948. The new Israel would include Gaza. The new Palestine would include the present West Bank, East Jerusalem, and areas to the north from Jenin to the Mediterranean sea south of Lebanon (Acre/Akka) with enough coastal area for Palestine to use the city’s natural harbor.  The northeast section allotted to Palestine in 1947/48 would be returned to Palestine. The future of the now Israeli occupied Golan Heights would have to be decided by Israel and Syria. 
3. Palestinian Gazans would have the choice of staying in Gaza as citizens of Israel***or moving to the new Palestine—in some cases their homes before 1948 and 1967. Israeli occupiers of the present West Bank would choose between returning to where they came from in Israel, remaining in the new Palestine, or be given funds to move to Israeli Gaza where they could use their skills as ‘pioneers’ to rebuild Gaza. Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, Jordan, Syria and from any other country, could chose to return to Palestine. 
4. The United Nations should encourage nations who wish to assist in this new arrangement to donate the same amount to Israel as they do to Palestine with a second requirement: the money must not be used for military purposes. 
5. A special commission would be assigned by the UN to guide and monitor the above. 

This will be a slow process but could bring a lasting peace. 

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*After World War One, the League of Nations mandated what had been Ottoman Palestine to Britain. Hitler’s attempt to kill as many Jews as possible reignited political and religious Zionists dreams of a state for the Jewish people to be safe from Judeophobic AntiSemitism.

**The 1947 resolution was defeated by vote, but the USA ‘convinced’ several nations to change their vote making the 1948 plan of two states the same as 1947’s.

***There are 1.6 million Palestinian citizens in Israel now—20% of the population.