26 January 2025. The silver lining in any prolonged episode of shocking, large-scale violence such as the one being seen in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon at the moment is that it challenges long-fixed political positions and thereby offers hope for an eventual diplomatic solution. And it should be obvious to all impartial observers of the Israel-Palestine conflict that a solution must in due course be urgently sought.

I am no expert in this area, although I often had occasion to delve into it for teaching purposes, and many years ago went on a study tour of Israel courtesy of the Academic Study Group for Israel and the Middle East (air ticket supplied in ‘M&S’ embossed envelope). My broad sketch of a final – ‘day after’ – deal is probably a fantasy but, for what it’s worth, here it is:

Israeli concessions:

  1. Recognition of the West Bank as the sovereign state of Palestine.
  2. Removal – by an agreed deadline and therefore by force if necessary – of all hard-line Jewish settlers from the West Bank.
  3. Payment of reparations for loss of livelihood to West Bank Palestinians unlawfully evicted from their land by Israeli settlers.
  4. Generous subsidies for Palestinians willing to relocate from Gaza to the West Bank and full citizenship rights in Israel for those wishing to remain.
  5. Repeal of the Jerusalem Law of 1980 and surrender of the whole city to international control, as provided in the UN plan for Palestine of 1947, with guaranteed rights of access for religious observance by members of all faiths. Tel Aviv to once more be the capital of Israel. This is the only way to stop the Holy City being a perennial flashpoint.

Palestinian concessions

  1. Surrender of the entire Gaza Strip to Israel. This is now virtually a wasteland anyway, and likely to remain under de facto Israeli control indefinitely, if not formally annexed. In any case, the idea of a state in two pieces separated by a hostile neighbour is ridiculous; it didn’t work for Pakistan either.
  2. Surrender their own claim to East Jerusalem as their capital.
  3. Recognise the sovereign state of Israel.
  4. Proscribe in their new state the armed wings of any movement dedicated to the destruction of the state of Israel.
  5. Accept armed permanent neutrality endorsed by the UN Security Council.

The role of external parties

  1. The Americans (and the Israelis) to sugar the pill of Jewish West Bank settlers accepting relocation to Gaza by offering generous subsidies.
  2. The Americans (and the Israelis) to pay for the Strip’s reconstruction.
  3. The policing of a demilitarized border zone between Israel and Palestine by a multinational force on the model of the one introduced into Sinai following the Egypt-Israel peace treaty of 1979, which would thus have a large US contingent. (A UN peacekeeping force will probably never be trusted by Israel.)
  4. Mediation by a heavyweight contact group.