Isratine
Isratine (Idea) | |
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Proposed Middle Eastern state (portmanteau of Israel and Palestine |
Isratine also known as the bi-national state is a proposed unitary, federal or confederate Israeli-Palestinian state encompassing the present territory of Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Depending on various points of view, such a scenario is presented as a desirable one-state solution to resolving the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, or as a calamity in which Israel would ostensibly lose its character as a Jewish state and the Palestinians would fail to achieve their national independence within a two-state solution. Increasingly, Isratine is being discussed not as an intentional political solution – desired or undesired – but as the probable, inevitable outcome of the continuous growth of the Jewish settlements in the West Bank and the seemingly irrevocable entrenchment of the Israeli occupation there since 1967.[1]
Contents
Gaddafi plan
The Gaddafi Isratine proposal intended to permanently resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict through a secular, federalist, republican one-state solution, which was first articulated by Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the son of Muammar Gaddafi of Libya, at the Chatham House in London and later adopted by Muammar Gaddafi himself.
Main points
Its main points are:
- Creation of a binational Jewish-Palestinian state called the "Federal Republic of the Holy Land";
- Partition of the state into 5 administrative regions, with Jerusalem as a city-state;
- Return of all Palestinian refugees;
- Supervision by the United Nations of free and fair elections on the first and second occasions;
- Removal of weapons of mass destruction from the state;
- Recognition of the state by the Arab League.
Federal Republic of the Holy Land
Saif al-Islam Gaddafi's proposal was eventually incorporated in Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's "White Book" of 8 May 2003, which served as his official guide to address the Arab–Israeli conflict and how to solve it. Despite the suggestion of "Federal Republic of the Holy Land" as the name of this hypothetical new state, the name Isratine, a portmanteau of the names "Israel" and "Palestine", has been used as a "working title" for the notion of a single state in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with Palestinians and Jewish inhabitants of all three having citizenship and equal rights in the combined entity.
Avoiding partition
Muammar Gaddafi again championed the "Isratine proposal" in an op-ed article for the New York Times as the "only option" for a solution to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The timing of the article approximately coincided with the inauguration of Barack Obama as US President and with the cease-fire that apparently marked the end of the Gaza War (2008–09). Gaddafi argued that this solution would avoid the partitioning of West Bank into Arab and Jewish zones, with buffer zones between them.[2]
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References
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