Day After Plan

Creating two countries will not be as simple as drawing a line in the sand.

Photo by Shai Pal on Unsplash

As the war continues between Israel and Hamas, there has been increasing discussion of what has most often been referred to as the “Day After”.  The Day After is the plan that needs to be made for what will happen on the day after the war is over; once the hostages are returned and Hamas is tranquilized. The global community is pushing for negotiations to create a lasting peace in the area, involving implementing the long-discussed two-state solution, something Prime Minister Netanyahu has said he will not do. But, just for a moment, let’s pretend that is what is on the table.

I have and continue to believe that if the Palestinian leadership and people can let go of dismantling the Jewish state as a lynchpin of their identity, a two-state solution is the best answer. I do not believe that it is realistic, at this point, for either people to expect or push for the entirety of the land, and that the focus should be on achieving the begrudging acceptance of a neighbour whom you don’t make small talk with. 

Recently, I saw a Twitter post about the Day After that, while still in line with my perspective, asked some poignant questions that I do not think that myself, or many others, not involved in international politics have necessarily stopped to think about. Today, I’d like to bring some of those questions into a productive conversation about the creation of a Palestinian state. 

As is often the case, I will provide the parameters of this conversation before diving into it. As stated before, I do and have always believed that the creation of a Palestinian state in the Middle East, either in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Gaza, or elsewhere, is the best option for achieving stability and peace, much in the way that Pakistan was created through the partition of India. I believe that this will involve both Israelis and Palestinians accepting that they are not going to get everything they want from the deal: Israel will likely have to move settlements out of the West Bank and cede some territory. The Palestinian people will need to let go of the idea that the Jewish state will be eradicated or that they will control the entire city of Jerusalem. 

Pretending for a moment that these things, which I fully recognize are highly improbable, happen, there are some important questions to ask about how that Palestinian state will look and what the world wants to allow. I am not going to be providing answers to these questions. I am not an expert in geopolitical conflicts. I will, however, provide some of the considerations that come to mind for me concerning these questions with the hope of helping to spark some productive dialogue. 

The first question, and perhaps most obviously in need of answer, is whether we should allow a prospective Palestinian state to have an army. Not only as a result of October 7, but also the events of May 2021, the 2015/2016 stabbing intifada, and so forth, it is not unreasonable to have concerns about the ability of Palestinian leadership to responsibly manage military forces. In the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, the Allied forces decided to prohibit West Germany from having a standing army. This decision was subsequently reversed as a result of the Cold War. By December 1945, Japan’s army was entirely dissolved and Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution prevented Japan from re-militarizing itself. This decision, similar to that of Germany, was made as part of the agreement with the Allied forces upon the end of the war. Furthermore, the United States has maintained a constant military presence in both Germany and Japan. It would be hard to say, considering the events of the Second World War, and specifically the actions of Germany and Japan, that any of these restrictions are unreasonable. Both nations needed to regain the trust of the international community. Considering the actions taken by Hamas on October 7 and the longer history of terrorism against Israelis, there needs to be a serious conversation about whether a Palestinian state would be a militarized state. 

In 2005, Israel pulled out of Gaza entirely. In 2006, Hamas was elected as the official Palestinian leadership. There has never been another election in Gaza. The West Bank, under the control of the Palestinian Authority, Fatah, has fared little better when it comes to the frequency of elections or the enforcement of a democratic system. This raises the question of what the governance of a prospective Palestinian state would look like, and if it is to be a democracy, whether the international community will have some responsibility for ensuring the regularity of elections. 

One of the issues the arguments that was raised before the International Court of Justice in the Israel’s defence to the accusations of genocide levelled against it by South Africa had to do with the jurisdiction of the court. This argument arose out of the fact that while Israel is a party to the International Convention on Genocide, it is not a signatory to the Rome Statute, more commonly known as the War Crimes Convention. Currently, neither Gaza nor the West Bank, because they are not nation states, can be held to account before the International Court of Justice. The question that arises from this is whether a Palestinian state would become a signatory to international conventions on genocide or war crimes, and whether, resultantly, Israel could level a case against them in The Hague for the events of October 7. 

Conflict is not the only thing that must be considered when talking about creating a Palestinian state. It will also be necessary to grapple with the question of what the economy will look like: what currency will be used? Will they be supported by the World Bank or IMF? And if so, how much and for how long? We need to ask what school will look like. What happens if religious fundamentalists decide that women are not allowed to receive an education past elementary school? That is, after all, what the Taliban did when they took control of Afghanistan. There should be real concerns about what freedom would like in a Palestinian State generally. Gaza, in particular, does not have a good track record when it comes to LGBTQ+, Women’s, and other minority rights. This is not to say that there should not be an independent Palestinian country, but that if that day arrives, these issues will be very much on the table.

For all of us still holding on to the hope that a two-state solution is a real possibility at some point in the future of the Israeli-Palestinian relationship, there are some very real questions that we will need to think about and answer.