General Discussion

The ethos is based on a single fundamental concept: the creation and sustenance of a sanctuary for all Jews facing persecution elsewhere in the world. It was the UN (speaking of opportunistic outcomes) and subsequent treaties that eventually identified the territorial boundaries of this sanctuary which became the State of Israel.

The relationship between the parcels of land and the Jewish faith, on the other hand, is rooted in the concept of "holy land". It had endured for millenia outside of the existence of a sovereign state, and the identifiable parcels of land it aspires to are the ones described in the Torah and promised by God to the twelve tribes of Israel that Moses led out of Egypt. It roughly corresponds to the current center and north of Israel, and Judea and Samaria, which is roughly the land of the occupied territories and the south of Galillee. It is almost entirely about the land and not the state. In fact, there are religious sects that actively advocate the dissolution of the State of Israel.

I firmly believe that a two state solution is inevitable, not for ideological or religious reasons, but for practical ones. A single state containing all of mandatory Palestine is bound to be so volatile and unstable, it will inevitably fracture into two or more states. The dynamics between three or more states are potentially even more volatile than that. The mini-civil war between Fatah and Hamas in 2007 amply illustrated this eventuality. Any one-state or three-state solutions are bound, by the virtue of inter-state dynamics, to eventually, likely following much turmoil, stabilize into two separate states. The only question I have is whether the resulting two states will exist in the perpetual state of confrontation or will find ways to cooperate for mutual benefit. The current moves towards the Abraham accords as a working model for cooperation promises the latter.