The Union of Canaan: Two Nations, One Country
Introduction
I have an almost unimaginable mission, one of sustainable peace in the Middle East, a new union of nations; I call it the “Union of Canaan”. Humanity urgently has to find ways out of growing apart by conflict, instead, we need to fully focus on addressing the issues that impact us all, such as climate-change, inequality and forced migration. For this we need to grow together or establish convergence as I name it.
Since last October I have written daily about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Over time, my views have evolved, shaped by the situation on the ground. Initially, I hoped for de-escalation through temporary safe zones in Gaza, and dismantling Hamas’s military infrastructure. When this proved impossible, I suggested safe zones in Israel as a starting point for coexistence.
In January, I introduced the first concept of the Union of Canaan, a one-state peace solution based on local democratic governance where all local cultural communities would become equal members in a confederation.
This essay, influenced by Palestine’s growing international recognition, presents an alternative “two nations, one country” approach of cooperation between two confederations of such local autonomous cultural communities. It merges elements of both two-state and one-state solutions.
Disclaimer
I am not a historian or political scientist. My background is concept- and strategy development for innovation in the private sector, which requires out of the box thinking and a strongly looking forward attitude. Since my experience is international, I often had to bridge cultures and developed my own cultural communication models to do so. These are the basis of suggesting potential solutions in this case.
Finally, I have no real involvement in either side; I am neither Israeli nor Palestinian, neither Jewish nor Muslim. I am just deeply touched by the inhumanities happening at both sides and therefore strongly longing for peace and harmony. My vision should not be seen as an external proposition. It is food for thought, intended for those more directly involved.
Peace Building
Politicians start and end wars, but ordinary civilians must build peace through non-violent interaction. Only by communicating with each other as equals, mutual understanding and reciprocal empathy develops. This empathy is the sole basis for replacing fear and hatred by trust and solidarity and for solving conflicts forever.
One State or Two States?
Coexistence relies on non-violent interaction, not on governance. If a two-state solution implies erecting walls between them, there is no communication possible and hatred is preserved. Although one can live in sustainable truce for a long time, there is no true peace generated and a conflict can flame-up at any time.
While my concepts may seem far-fetched with the current level of hatred seeded at both sides, every road to peace will be tough and painful. At the moment, all pacification propositions seem unrealistic. In the beginning people will indeed likely require separation, hopefully, over time, this requirement will disappear.
Regardless of the difficulties, Palestinians and Israelis must coexist as equals, both are there to stay and no one outside is waiting for a new exodus of any of the two.
Two States or Nations?
The concepts of a state or a country both mostly relate to the governance or administration aspect of a territory, whereas a nation primarily refers to a cultural identity. In my opinion there are, in this specific Israeli Palestinian context, two nations sharing one common territory or country.
Using this vision, one will, on one side, try to safeguard a culture (such as for example the Jewish identity/”state”) from becoming diluted as a cultural minority, whilst, on the other side, one will try to govern the country jointly (as the union of two nations).
The above also implies that each of the two nations can independently represent itself by membership of international bodies, whereas simultaneously the territory can be governed on the basis of a union.
Autonomous Local Cultural Communities
How does this concept work in practice? If one wants the flexibility to share and split a territory on the basis of practicalities and a future outlook, instead of on history and returning to a certain point in time, one will have to establish what I call democratic autonomous local cultural “communities”.
It means to bring most governance to the local level, so that the “community” becomes the core of democracy and as autonomous as possible. Each “community” turns into a separated canton or “mini-nation” and is responsible for its own social and economic cohesion. Of course there remain many aspects that require coordination on a higher level, which implies the need for intense cooperation in an overarching structure; a nation.
However, the “communities” themselves are independent and culturally “homogeneous” which means being Jewish, Arabic or “of mixed coexistence” as an identity. This way, peaceful cells can be created, whereas at the same time the chosen identity is protected by local autonomy, regardless of the “community’s” size and its number of inhabitants.
Of course do these communities need a certain scale or critical mass in order to realize proper governance, and the cells are thus rather meant to be “clusters of homogeneity” than small scale units and represent “peaceful territories” or cantons instead of classical villages or small city structures. However, this is something to be determined by negotiation and political positioning.
Aggregation into Two Confederations and One Union
Next step is that administrative aggregation of all homogeneous, culturally identical communities is used to form a nation; in this instance two (or more) nations. Each nation has its own parliament and sets its own internal rules as long as these do not conflict with those of the others. Finally, the two nations together constitute a union in order to “govern” the country as a whole on the basis of equal rights.
The result is that the communities can be spread over the entire territory or country and do not necessarily have to follow the classical division of bordered grouped partitions. Instead, the communities are in constant dialog with all their neighbors, regardless of the nation they belong to.
In this case, the approach leads to two confederations of communities, the confederation of Israel and the confederation of Palestine. These two confederations are, regardless of their population size, fully independent of each other and possess a strict Jewish or Arab cultural identity. People can coexist without threatening each other’s culture this way. On a union level, one can then use a proportionality principle in order to guarantee equality. This is the heart of what I name “the Union of Canaan”.
Three Obstacles
There are a number of obstacles to establish such a union. First issue is that politicians must find a way to divide the current territory. Second, the security of the communities must be warranted, which can be challenging in an environment of hatred, and when the communities are potentially located as enclaves in “hostile” areas. Third, there must be a solution found for the currently displaced people and for people that will need to move in order to establish the two nations. This, last, relocation aspect of both Jews in illegal settlements and displaced Palestinians, separates the “Union of Canaan” approach from a pure one-state solution, where people are free to settle and mix wherever they want.
Why Canaan?
I have opted to use the name “Union of Canaan”, since the name goes back to the earliest times and antedates both Israel and Palestine as a name for the region. Its use in this context does thus neither refer to the biblical narrative, nor to the later, more limited, area covered by Canaan. Key is that in the earliest times, various cultures and religions peacefully seem to have coexisted in the area.
Politics Blocking the Way to Peace
There is no future for Israel and Palestine based on the narrative of its radicals. Anyone who wants to claim the entire territory exclusively for themselves will only find eternal war, violence and further destruction, whereas the moderates at both sides hold the key to peace by entering into non-violent interaction and dialog as equals with each other.
The problem is that currently the politics, at both sides, are dominated by radicals who seek war and that, during a stage of conflict escalation, it is impossible to reliably measure the real opinion of a population. Anyone having a deviant opinion from the main “war narrative” is considered to be a traitor. This, clearly and predictably, leads to unrealistic, high, support percentages for the war at both sides. To have a more reliable indication of radicalism, it is better to look back before October 7th in analyzing the opinions about Hamas and the radical Israeli government and its settler policies.
Further, in such an escalated radicalized environment, parties must often externally be forced to a truce, after which the situation can de-escalate and a process of reflection and introspection can take place. After such “normalization” and realizing what happened, people may find an incentive to change their opinion and, after elections, a majority of moderates may return and be reinstated as a government at both sides.
Without such a development occurring and as long as the radicals, who are insisting on claiming the total territory, are in charge, there is no chance on true peace-building whatsoever. There first must be general willingness or consensus at both sides to coexist, this in order to be able to then share or divide the territory and other resources.
Looking at Hamas, its support in Gaza was relatively low on October 6th and represented a clear minority. Further, in my observations, Hamas has two components, a Jihad and an Intifada one. For their terror-based religious extremist Jihad component there is just no place in the current world order; it is an incompatible concept unless one wants to strive to return to the Caliphate. Hamas’ Intifada, liberation, component is another story; that one also comes with terror, but after achieving its goals, Hamas could, in principle, become a normal political force in the spectrum (analogue to the IRA). In my opinion, although intertwined, the Intifada component far outweighs the Jihad one in this case. Finally, there are more political forces in Palestine along with Hamas, especially if one looks at the other Palestinian areas besides Gaza. Altogether, if the Palestinian independent state rights are internationally recognized and general elections held, the outcome would most probably generate a basis for peaceful coexistence with Israel as two separated states or two separated nations.
Looking at the Netanyahu Israeli government, one can see that it has already been unpopular for a long time. Its war narrative can nevertheless count on a majority support of the population. However, there is another issue found here; even if there is a stage of de-radicalization and a new Israeli government is elected; one important problem would likely remain unsolved. For a long time there is a relatively high level (50%) of support for the settlement policies of the Netanyahu administration, meaning that the expansionist Israeli settlers (who claim the entire territory for themselves) possess a reasonable level of backing from the Jewish Israeli population (not from the 20% Arab part). Still, internationally, the situation is clear and none of the Israeli settlements built after 1967 in the occupied Palestinian territories are internationally recognized and they are thus considered to be illegal. This issue will need to be solved by political negotiation, international mediation, and recognition of rights. First then, when there is a solution for this issue, there can be proper territory sharing and coexistence effectuated. A big plus here is that a confederation of communities model allows a certain flexibility in the territory division, there can be enclaves created when suitable and wished for; it is thus less rigid than drawing straight lines.
Securing Communities
The flexibility of the spreading of culturally homogeneous communities in order to prevent cultural dilution, which most probably would lead to a loss of cultural identity over time, has it limits though. If there is sustainable peace, the flexibility would be unlimited; unfortunately, in times of hatred and erupting violence, much less so. In order to secure the communities, especially in the beginning of establishing non-violent interaction, separation will still be needed, which may require the involvement of UN-Blue-Helmets peacekeepers.
The above practically limits the fragmentation of the shared territory and will likely force parties to use the borders of 1967 as a starting point, but with the option of making exceptions. Longer term, and based on migration, new settlement or new community development may be required, which should by then be possible to handle more flexibly, border- or separation-wise.
Migration and New Settlements; Return of the Previously Displaced
A last obstacle is the huge number of displaced or to be displaced people in the combined territory of the two nations.
Israel has currently a population of 10 million inhabitants of which 7 million are Jews and 2 million are (Palestinian) Arabs. Palestine has a population of 5 million inhabitants and a refugee Diaspora in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria of another 3 million people. If everyone returns, the Union of Canaan would have 18 million inhabitants, 7 million Jews and 10 million Palestinians (other cultures are not taken into account in the scope of this article, also mixed communities are omitted; these two categories can constitute a further independent confederation of communities and join the union).
From the 10 million Palestinians, 5 million are currently displaced and in need for resettlement. From the 7 million Jews, at least 10% are currently living in illegal settlements and are thus also in need of relocation.
The above implies a strong need for (re)developing new settlements both in Gaza and in the other parts of the territory, mainly in what is now called Israel because of the current disproportionate allocation of resources by the Jewish part of the population.
Although an enormous challenge, it is not undoable and the potential is in principle there. Next step is to develop the will to enter such a road to common prosperity.
Conclusion
Coexistence relies on non-violent interaction, not on governance. If a two-state solution implies erecting walls between them, there is no communication possible and hatred is preserved; peace-building does not take place in that case.
Both Palestinians and Israelis are there to stay and must find a solution to live together. If one wants the flexibility to share and split the territory on the basis of practicalities, one will have to establish democratic autonomous local cultural communities (rather meant to be “clusters of homogeneity” or cantons than small scale units). The aggregation of all homogeneous cultural communities is then used to form two nations; these nations together constitute a union in order to govern the country as a whole. This way there is no conflict between a minority and a majority.
If the Palestinian independent nation rights are internationally recognized and elections held, the outcome would most probably generate a basis for peaceful coexistence with Israel as two separated nations.
However, even if there is a stage of de-radicalization and a new Israeli government elected; one important Israeli problem would likely remain unsolved. For a long time there is a relatively high level (50%) of support for the settlement policies of the Israeli administration. Still, internationally, the situation is clear and none of the Israeli settlements built after 1967 in the occupied Palestinian territories are internationally recognized and they are thus considered to be illegal. This issue needs to be mediated and solved.
In order to secure the communities, especially in the beginning, separation will still be needed. This may require the involvement of UN-Blue-Helmets peacekeepers.
A last obstacle is the huge number of displaced or to be displaced people in the combined territory of the two nations. From the 10 million Palestinians, 5 million are currently displaced and in need for resettlement. From the 7 million Jews, at least 10% are currently living in illegal settlements and are thus also in need of relocation.
The above implies a strong need for new settlements both in Gaza and in the other parts of the territory. Although an enormous challenge, it is not undoable and the potential is in principle there. Next step is to develop the will to enter such a common road to prosperity as a Union of Canaan.
