A Third Possibility
Reader comment on item: Palestinians Who Cling to Israel

Submitted by Joseph Wechsler (United States), Jul 7, 2005 at 19:54

That tiny piece of land in the Near East once called Palestine had been mandated by the League of Nations as a national home for the Jewish people. But first the largest part, Trans Jordan, was given to a Bedouin ally of Britain who became King Abdallah, of Jordan. Then the tiny remainder of Palestine in Jordan was partitioned into what became Israel and what wants to become a Palestinian State. And the Arab population of that territory is torn between ethnic pride and the vastly superior way of life as citizens of Israel.

I propose a more practical solution: CANTONIZATION, Swiss style. Let there be a new geographic entity, say, Neo Canaan. with a canton named Israel, and two cantons of different names for Gaza and the West Bank, each with its own language and traditions, but all are citizens of the new entity and serve in the same army, just like the four ethnic groups in Switzerland who keep their separate ethnic identity and language but are proud to be Swiss citizens. .

---

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened for relevance, substance, and tone, and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome, but comments are rejected if scurrilous, off-topic, vulgar, ad hominem, or otherwise viewed as inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the Guidelines for Comments. For informational purposes, we identify countries from which comments are sent.