Deadlocks · defusion
Reparations and compensation
Acknowledge a historical wrong with money and material help, so that justice can be done without undoing the present: compensation instead of reversal.
A fund, paid by the responsible state and by international donors, compensating people for property and lives lost: Palestinians for 1948 and after, Jews expelled from Arab countries for theirs. It separates the moral acknowledgement from the demand to reverse history on the ground.
The deadlocks it addresses
Where it has been tried
- The Luxembourg Agreement between West Germany and Israel (1952) — worked. Reparations accepted after a fierce debate in Israel; they helped build the young state and opened a relationship that became close.
- The Clinton Parameters (2000) — partly. Proposed an international fund for Palestinian refugees and recognition of Jewish refugees' claims; never implemented because the wider deal failed.
What you have to believe for it to work
- Compensation can be accepted as justice rather than as a bribe
- Donors will fund it at the needed scale
These are the assumptions the future solution builder will let you set yourself.
What has to happen first
- A settlement in which compensation is part of the answer to return
- Agreement on who pays: Israel, Arab states for Jewish property, international donors
How it can fail
- It's rejected as 'selling the right of return'
- Arab states refuse to count the Jewish claims