Plowshares for Palestine

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict produced multiple wars, consumed $300 billion in U.S. tax dollars, and concerns Americans, especially those of us with Jewish or Palestinian connections. It is useful to understand three preliminary points:

First, Palestinians are as genuine as any other people, formed by a century of distinct struggles and circumstances. This point is important because some in Israel deny the existence of the Palestinian people.

Second, “from the river to sea” rhetoric is unhelpful. Such rhetoric is not genocidal but does imply expelling one of the two peoples. From the 1977 original charter of Likud, the party which most often ruled Israel since: “between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty.” In 1988, the Hamas charter similarly sought control “over every inch of Palestine.”

Third, we should not award land titles based on holy books. In Numbers 34, the Jews are given boundaries for Israel. In the Quran, the Almighty is sovereign over all the earth. How would scriptural claims on behalf of 16 million Jews fare against those of 2 billion Muslims? The Torah grant of title is also conditional, promising exile and ruin if the covenant is broken, both of which happened in Jewish history.

The Palestinians are a real people, legitimately living alongside Israel, who should not be driven out. Here are some of their legitimate grievances:

The Nakba, the deliberate ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in the 1948‑49 Israeli war of independence, expelled 700,000 Palestinians from the new state. David Ben-Gurion, first prime minister of Israel, wrote: “In each attack a decisive blow should be struck resulting in the destruction of homes and the expulsion of the population.” The Jewish forces were not genocidal but committed many war crimes. In Ein ez Zeitun, Jewish forces took 37 boys, who were never seen again. In Safad, the Israel Defense Forces executed 70 prisoners.

In the 1967 war, Israel captured the West Bank from Jordan, becoming the occupier and governing power ruling over what are now 2.7 million Palestinians. Since 1994, there has also been a Palestinian Authority, with much less power.

In any occupation a question arises: Is the occupier exercising power with the legitimate interests of the occupied in mind? This has not happened in the West Bank. Israel built Jewish settlements in the West Bank, now housing 670,000 settlers, taking lands that were benefiting the Palestinian population and converting them to Israeli lands. A current map of the West Bank looks like Swiss cheese, separating Palestinian enclaves and making Palestinian community and commerce more difficult.

To make matters worse, some settlers have attacked and sometimes murdered Palestinians. In October 2023, settlers forced an entire Palestinian village, 250 people, to flee.

Israeli authorities have routinely violated Palestinian rights of due process. In one village, Israeli soldiers and settlers tortured three Palestinian detainees. Thousands of Palestinians are detained without trial, sometimes for years. Any trials are by Israeli military courts, which almost always convict.

Does recognizing Palestinian rights require supporting a Palestinian state? No. In Gaza, Israel withdrew completely, there was no occupation, Palestinians effectively had a state, and they turned their state over to Hamas terrorists. On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas’ unprovoked attack on Israel killed more than 1,100 and took more than 240 hostages.

In Gaza, Hamas fighters use 2.4 million Palestinians as human shields. The justified Israeli campaign to destroy Hamas is reducing Gaza to rubble. Civilian deaths, casualties, and hardships are considerable and unavoidable. However, starvation of civilians is avoidable and should never be a military tactic. Much more food must enter Gaza; Israel as the main power in control of Gaza is responsible for safely accomplishing that.

Peace, currently a distant dream, needs new leadership for both Israel and the Palestinians. The current Israeli government prefers to expel Palestinians rather than live alongside them. The current Palestinian Authority is corrupt, authoritarian, and has refused to hold elections for 15 years. However, democracy may not be an improvement, as many Palestinians still support terrorism.

Instead of a state, we suggest Palestinian homelands, under joint Israeli-Palestinian-international control. Accompanying international agreements should provide a genuine bill of rights for Palestinians, genuine judicial safeguards for Palestinians, Israeli withdrawal from many settlements, and a permanent end to Palestinian terrorism through joint policing.

Israel, militarily ascendant, needs peace. War strains its finances, fills its cemeteries, and blocks relations with its neighbors. It is a small country in a world where more countries, including its enemies, are building nuclear bombs. Its 76 years of independence are no guarantee. A millennium ago, Europeans controlled the Holy Land for two centuries before they were swept away by patient and determined Muslims.

Palestinians or their allies fought Israel in 1948, 1967, 2000‑05, 2023, and many other times, always losing in their attempts to create a new holocaust. Each failure of violence has further marginalized the Palestinian cause.

The prophet Isaiah said, “they shall beat their swords into plowshares.” No group fighting for a cause wants to stop fighting, but nonviolence is sometimes the best choice. Anglo-Saxons surrendered to Normans nine centuries ago; we now know their unified population as British. Native Americans stopped fighting the U.S. government a century ago. They have prospered more through political and social action than they did through armed conflict.

We hope for that future peace, when Israelites and Palestinians live side-by-side, when both make progress toward the time when they can all trade, travel, and work without fear in their shared land.