Many have been pushing Israel to get out of the West Bank and Gaza, assuming that Palestinian statehood will solve many of the problems in today’s Middle East. The “compromise” envisioned involves a pullback by Israel to its pre-1967 borders and the creation of a Palestinian state alongside the Jewish State. This idea has its proponents; more than a few of them work in the U.S. State Department. But it faces several obstacles and may, in the long run, prove to be little more than a band-aid applied to a spurting arterial wound.

1. Who’s in Charge Here Anyway?

Arafat may be the world’s most well-known Palestinian, but in the West Bank and Gaza he is hardly the most well-respected. His administration has gained a reputation for corruption and incompetence, and has done little to improve standards of living for the Palestinian people. The Israelis make noises about removing Arafat from power: the truth is that without Israel providing a convenient enemy, Arafat would have been out of office years ago. Arafat’s words mean very little to the folks in Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, or any of countless other groups of varying sizes and philosophies. These splinter organizations have been responsible for the majority of suicide bombings and terrorist atrocities against Israel. They have nothing to gain – and a great deal to lose – from an Arafat-brokered peace, and have no reason to honor any peace treaty Arafat signs.

2. Geography, Geography, Geography

At present Israel is approximately the size of New Jersey. Under the Israel/Palestine partition envisioned by the Oslo Accords, it will be less than 15 miles wide at its narrowest point. It will also be a country in which some 75% of the population lives in a narrow strip along the coast between Haifa and Tel Aviv. Should their neighbors once again take a crack at pushing the Jews into the sea, they wouldn’t have far to push. They’d even be fighting from high ground: the mountains along the Dead Sea and the Jordan River are key strategic points for anybody wishing to attack – or to defend – Israel. The Jews in the coastal plain would be sitting ducks against a massive invasion like the 1967 and 1973 wars. Some defense analysts have claimed that today’s sophisticated radio and satellite monitoring equipment makes high ground less strategically important. Others have pointed out that radio signals can be jammed and computers can be hacked much more easily than the view from the Judean hills can be obstructed.

3. Water, Water Everywhere? Well, actually…

In the barren Negev, which often goes years between rainfalls, kibbutzniks grow oranges and lettuce. Like Los Angeles, Israel is a place where the desert blooms. And like Los Angeles, this blooming depends on irrigation, and on the water tables of the Occupied West Bank (a/k/a Judea and Samaria). Palestinian farmers get far less access to the West Bank’s water than the Jewish settlers, one of the many daily irritants that frequently becomes explosive. Should the West Bank be turned over to the Palestinians, their usage of the water will most certainly increase, threatening not only Israel’s farms but also its cities. While Israel’s desert kibbutzim are an important part of its national identity, they are not a particularly efficient use of a scarce national resource; indeed, they would not exist at all without heavy government subsidies and tariffs. In a peaceful world, it would make far more sense for Israel to buy vegetables from its neighbors and concentrate instead on its high-tech and intellectual capital (i.e. Japan or Singapore). Alas, this is not a peaceful world, and so this is not likely to happen in the near future

4. There Will Be Poor Always, Or At Least Long After This

Should the Palestinians gain statehood in the West Bank and Gaza, it would mean that the IDF and the settlers were gone. Little else would change. Palestine would remain a country whose largest export was unskilled labor, and whose largest importer was Israel. The economic and political imbalances of today would persist. The radical elements who are blowing up buses today would remain as disaffected, disenfranchised and disempowered as they were before, and just as angry at the Israelis. Crowding subjugated people into a Bantustan and using them for cheap labor will do nothing to improve the lives of the Palestinians -- or the safety of Israel. There’s little reason to believe that Arafat’s security forces will be as effective as the Israeli Defense Forces at keeping their bombers in check – and lots of reasons, starting with their current track record, to believe they won’t be.

5. Old Habits Die Hard

Twenty-five years after Israel signed a peace treaty with Egypt, relations between the two countries are frosty at best. Egypt and Israel are separated by the large and largely barren Sinai peninsula. Israel and Palestine will be separated by wire fences. For better or for worse, the Israelis and the Palestinians have become integral parts of each other’s lives. Should the economic inequalities and social injustices persist, there is no reason to expect a cessation to terrorism. Unless Israel kicks its cheap Palestinian day labor habit, and unless Palestinian leadership stops railing against Zionists long enough to bring some development to the occupied territories, it is highly unlikely that they will be able to lead separate but equal lives on their own sides of the tracks.