Parallel states: two states on the same land
Two states, Israel and Palestine, each covering the whole land between the river and the sea. Citizenship follows the person, not the territory: every resident belongs to one of the two states, wherever they live.
What happens to Israeli Jews
Israeli Jews keep a Jewish-majority state with its own identity and Law of Return, and can live anywhere in the land, including the West Bank, as Israeli citizens.
What happens to Palestinians
Palestinians get a state of their own with its own citizenship and right of return to it, and can live anywhere in the land, including inside today's Israel, as Palestinian citizens.
What it requires
- Separating sovereignty from territory: both states' laws apply across the whole land, each to its own citizens
- Shared institutions for what can't be split: security, borders, water, infrastructure, the economy
- Freedom of residence: settlers can stay in the West Bank as Israeli citizens, and Palestinian refugees can settle anywhere as Palestinian citizens, without changing either state's demographic balance
- Jerusalem as the capital of both, with equal status
- Courts and rules for disputes between citizens of the two states living side by side
Who supports it
Worked out in a Swedish-led academic and diplomatic project (Lund University) and published as 'One Land, Two States: Israel and Palestine as Parallel States', edited by Mark LeVine and former Swedish ambassador Mathias Mossberg (University of California Press, 2014). Not adopted by any government or major party; rarely polled.
What history says
- The Ottoman millet system: communities with their own law living side by side on one territory (see 'A religion doesn't justify having a country')
- Personal federalism in some multinational states, where cultural autonomy follows the person rather than the region
- Belgium's language communities: overlapping community and regional governments, workable but complex
The hard questions
- Who has the final say on security when two sovereign states share one territory?
- What happens when citizens of the two states clash over the same piece of land, and whose court decides?
- Does it solve the fear of losing a majority, or only postpone it, if millions of Palestinian citizens live inside today's Israel?