'Holy Land Confederation': Oslo Accords Architect Presents New Peace Plan

Israeli and Palestinian flags over Jerusalem.Credit: Reuters/Raneen Sawafta/Ohad Zwigenberg/Moti Milrod

A new plan for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that proposes the creation of a confederation instead of relying exclusively on a two-state solution, and would allow West Bank settlers to remain in their homes, is being presented to Biden administration officials and the United Nations this week.  

 
The proposal for a “Holy Land Confederation” is a 100-page document that was been crafted over the past two years by Yossi Beilin, one of the architects of the Oslo Accords in the early 1990s, together with Palestinian attorney and veteran peace negotiator Hiba Husseini. Along with a small team of Israeli and Palestinian advisers, they met regularly over Zoom during the pandemic to craft their plan.

 
The effort was underwritten by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, a German organization associated with the Social Democratic party.

 
Beilin and Husseini spoke to journalists Tuesday from Washington, ahead of presenting their plan to U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman and Barbara Leaf, the administration’s nominee for assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs.  

The pair made it clear that they harbored no illusions that the proposal would be embraced by either side of the conflict. It was telling that they chose to unveil it in Washington and New York instead of Jerusalem and Ramallah, and that it was formulated independently, without the direct involvement of either the current Israeli or Palestinian leaderships.  

 
But both said they hoped it would break what they saw as the dam of inaction over the past three decades and reopen talk of serious negotiations for a resolution to the conflict. They added that they were willing to face what they predicted would be harsh criticism.  
 
“We are hoping it will make it easier for leadership on both sides to accept something that is important for the two peoples but is difficult politically,” Beilin said.  

“It’s a plan designed not to replace the two-state solution; it is designed to provide a fresh opportunity for the resumption of talks,” Husseini said. “I urge everyone to read [the proposal] very carefully, and to look at the details and not pass immediate judgment and reject it outright.”

 

Yossi Beilin in his Jerusalem home last week. Credit: Tsafrir Abayov/AP

Beilin said the plan builds on both the Oslo Accords signed in 1993 by Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization, and the Geneva Initiative – the peace plan he helped craft in 2003, together with Israelis and Palestinians, and designed as a model permanent status agreement.
 
In the Holy Land Confederation, “we added another layer to the Geneva Initiative: that everything should be done in a framework of cooperation,” Beilin noted.

The new plan, he said, abandoned a two-state vision based on hermetic separation – “You live over here and we live over there” – which he said was not feasible or desirable for either side.

 
“We’re speaking about a very small area, geographically, and its partition is very artificial. So, when we speak about building roads, infrastructure, using joint natural resources, and so on, it might be much more acceptable to live in a confederation,” he said.  

 
He believes that for both Israelis and Palestinians, “it might be much more acceptable to live in a confederation than in two separate states, especially when a wall divides them.” 

 

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, last May.Credit: POOL/ REUTERS

Under the proposal, he explained, the parties would begin negotiating for one year, determining the structure of a “Holy Land Confederation” while hammering the parameters of a Palestinian state using Oslo and Geneva as their starting point – the state would be comprised of what are currently known as Areas A and B in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem. Israel would then formally recognize an independent State of Palestine.

 
That, however, would not be an ending point but rather the place to start. Over the course of the next two years, Beilin said, negotiations would continue between the two states to shape the nature of a cooperative, European-style confederation between the two.  

 
The most controversial aspect of the plan – and a radical departure for a figure on the left like Beilin – is the plan’s proposal to allow settlers living deep inside the West Bank to choose between relocating or becoming permanent residents in the State of Palestine.

 
In exchange, an equal number of Palestinian state citizens would be allowed to reside inside the State of Israel: a form of people-swapping in addition to land-swapping.  

 
“If a settler happens to be on Palestinian sovereign soil and wants to stay as a permanent resident of the State of Palestine, and that is an arrangement agreed to [in negotiations], then they can stay,” Husseini explained. “By the same token, that would be a quid pro quo whereby Palestinian refugees would also be allowed to have permanent residency in the State of Israel.” 

 
Israeli soldiers preventing settlers from approaching Palestinians as they plant olive trees on their land near the Palestinians village of Salfit last week.Credit: JAAFAR ASHTIYEH - AFP

Beilin said he came to the idea of taking settlement evacuation out of the plan after “watching the efforts to make peace between the two people” and seeing that “one of the major impediments, or the biggest one, is not necessarily Jerusalem or the refugees – though both of these issues are difficult to solve and emotional. It is the issue of the settlements.”

 
He recalled asking the question: How can we get to the only reasonable solution – the two-state solution – when there are so many settlements and it is so difficult to uproot them? “It is the most difficult obstacle to this much-needed peace effort,” he said. 

 
Beilin hoped that taking the painful forcible removal of settlements out of the equation would make his plan more palatable both to the Israeli public and political leadership. 

 
“We would say to the settlers: ‘If you wish to stay out of the permanent borders of Israel and wish to live elsewhere, you can.’” He added with a wry aside, “If you ask me if I recommend it, I’ll tell you a secret – I don’t.”

 
But, Beilin said, he wanted to tell the settlers that he “won’t be the one who will drag you by your hair out of your homes.” 

 
Potentially, if such a plan was implemented and final status negotiations became “serious,” he said, “I can imagine the leadership of Israel would say to the settlers that it is better for you to create a cluster and be together ... but we are not telling them what to do. If you want to stay put, you can stay.” 

 
Beilin said he had not consulted with Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s government regarding the plan, nor settler leaders while formulating it. 

 
“The fact that Naftali Bennett is the first prime minister of Israel … the first one who says I’m not going even to meet with the Palestinian president and [rejects] a Palestinian state is not something that should prevent us from suggesting ideas,” he said.

 
He said he was similarly not deterred by those who argue that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is too old and politically weak to enter into any kind of peace negotiations. 

 
“In my view, we should use the opportunity that he is there – knowing him quite well – in order to try to cut a deal. He is not a very young person, he may not be too strong. But he has something that many others don’t: he has the power of [being one of the] founding fathers, and as such is much more able than others to sit and sign a peace treaty with Israel.

 
“I hope that what we are suggesting today will make it easier for leaderships on both sides to accept something which is very important for the two peoples, although it may be quite difficult for them politically.” 

 
Husseini agreed, arguing that Abbas “is not only a founding father but is among those who believe in the peace process. President Abbas started on a peace mission and the circumstances have not led themselves to a peace agreement, but we have an opportunity with him in office” to address the conflict. That opportunity, she said, should not be allowed to slip away. 

 
The Associated Press noted that Israel’s Foreign Ministry and the Palestinian Authority declined to comment in response to the confederation proposal.