Separating the right to live in the land from the right to rule it. The first post tested Omer Bartov’s argument against settler violence and unequal enforcement in the West Bank. This post moves from diagnosis to possibility: could Jews remain in Judea and Samaria while accepting Palestinian sovereignty? The conventional two-state formula usually assumes that most Israelis living beyond an agreed border would return to Israel. Religious-nationalist settlers respond that Jews cannot be forbidden from living in their ancestral homeland. That objection deserves to be taken seriously. But it leads to a question that is rarely asked:

What if Jews could remain—but as citizens or permanent residents of Palestine?

What if Jews could remain—but as citizens or permanent residents of Palestine?

The question separates four things often treated as identical: historical attachment, residence, citizenship and sovereignty. The idea is not new.

In 2014, Benjamin Netanyahu raised the possibility that settlers might remain in a future Palestinian state. Some settlers said they would consider it because their attachment was to the land itself, not necessarily to the government controlling it. The proposal angered members of Netanyahu’s coalition and Palestinian negotiators alike.

A year later, Labor member of Knesset Hilik Bar proposed that settlers unwilling to relocate might become residents or citizens of Palestine. “If there can be a Jewish community in London and Berlin,” he argued, “then there can be a Jewish community in Palestine.”

Palestinian responses have also contained an important distinction. Hanan Ashrawi said that Jews, like people of other religions, could apply for Palestinian citizenship. What Palestinian leaders rejected were extraterritorial settlement enclaves that remained under Israeli law and military protection.

In other words, the objection was not necessarily to Jews living in Palestine. It was to extensions of Israeli sovereignty operating inside it.

Three different arrangements

One possibility is full Palestinian citizenship. Jewish residents would vote in Palestinian elections, pay Palestinian taxes and live under Palestinian law. This would be the........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)