The Palestinians rush toward international recognition and Israel gnashes its teeth and does nothing to prevent it. The Palestinian Authority fights Israel in every international organization,and Israel thinks when it is spat upon that rain is falling. The Palestinian Authority continues its wild incitement against Israel and its undermining of the legitimacy of Israel as the state of the Jewish people.
If a Palestinian state is established in Judea and Samaria, it will continue to be hostile to Israel, even if only because Israel will not allow the refugees of from 1948 to return to Jaffa and Netanya. Such a state might become a Hamas state within a short time after its inception by means of elections as occurred in January 2006, or by means of a violent takeover as happened in Gaza in June 2007. Can anyone in the world promise that this scenario will not occur? Can anyone prevent a mutual defense pact with Iran for example?
The people who control the Palestinian Authority are not authentic leaders and therefore it is quite possible that a local movement such as Hamas might conquer it and overthrow it shortly after it becomes independent. The question that stands before Israel and the world is: should we be a party to a such a development? Can Israel function as a state when the kassams, the grads and the katyushas of Hamas are falling on Tel Aviv, Ramat Gan, Petach Tikva, Ra’anana, Kfar Saba, Netanya, Hadera, Afula and Haifa, not to mention Ben Gurion Airport, as they have been falling for years on Sderot, Ashkelon and the area surrounding Gaza? And if we take defensive action against the missiles, will there not be another Goldstone waiting around the corner?
Clearly, the P.A. exists only due to these three things: the IDF, which protects the P.A. and subdues its opposition, the handouts that the world transfers to the P.A., which serve as the blood in its veins, and the economic treaty with Israel. Without these three components the P.A. would collapse within one day like a balloon that encounters a pin. The Arab public identifies with the P.A. only as long as it proves to be economically useful, and will get rid of it as soon as it ceases to be an employment agency, the largest provider of employment.
The Real Solution
The Arab public in Judea and Samaria remains basically faithful to the tribe, not to national Arab ethnicity or the Palestinian narrative. In this it is no different from the other Arab countries surrounding Israel, the “Lands of the Mashreq (Orient)”: Jordan, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon. Every time the Palestinian police try to get involved with family disputes they are thrown out because they are “not one of us.” The large clans have much more meaningful control of the cities than the security organizations of the P.A., so it’s important to base any future arrangement on them. Contrary to the corrupt politicians of the P.A., clan leaders are legitimate, accepted and welcome leaders, and therefore they will succeed precisely where the P.A. fails: To gain legitimacy and recognition in the hearts of the public and to be accepted by it as natural leaders.
For this reason Israel must encourage the local authentic leaders of the cities to establish political frameworks, or emirates, defined according to the known sociological divisions: The Jabbari, Qasmi, Natasha, abu Snein and Tamimi families in Hebron, who have known for hundreds of years how to function with one another and are accepted as legitimate local leaders of the Jabbari clan. In Nablus, the al-Masri family can stand at the head of a local coalition with the Tuqan and Shakah families, and thus with all the other Arab cities of Judea and Samaria: Jericho, Ramallah, Tul Karem, Qalqiliyya and Jenin. Israel must forever keep control of the rural area between the cities in order to ensure that the mountains will not become Hamas Mountains with missile launching stations dug into the rock, as they are in South Lebanon.
The fact that the Palestinian emirates in the cities will be based on local sociology and local leadership, not the illegitimate rule that Israel imported, will afford to these emirates social stability, and therefore also political and economic stability. These emirates will live in peace with one another because they will be separate; each one will deal with its own issues and leave the others alone. This model is the only model that can exist in the Middle East. The troubles in the other countries of the region stem mainly from the fact that groups that are different from one another and hostile to each other have been forced to live together. Also the fact that the regimes of the Middle East are mostly dictatorships stems from the fact that most of the population sees its ruler as illegitimate.