The Palestinian Emirates?

From Barry Shaw:, this is also known as the “eight-state solution”:

Dr. Mordechai Kedar of Bar-Ilan University, a Middle East expert…calls his alternative “the Palestinian Emirates.”

He visualizes eight emirate-type city states with designated borders that will incorporate the Arabs within them. The rest of the land can be populated by the inhabitants, whether they be Jews or Arabs, living and behaving with respect and deference to the inhabitants of the various city-states. The states shall be granted sovereignty. They shall be granted surrounding land for expansion and development. Road systems in vacant lands shall be developed for transport of people and commerce, both Jewish and Arab.

If Palestinians could “vote with their feet” across these various Emirates, it would be interesting to see what kind of policies would evolve, relative to what is produced by currently existing forms of political participation.

Here is a web site devoted to the concept, with one more detailed account here.  I should add that there are versions of this idea which do not add all of the “baggage” found on this web site.

In presenting this material, I am not seeking to have MR commentators reprise all of the usual debates on the broader topic of Middle East peace or lack thereof.  Nonetheless I had never heard this idea before, and so I am passing it along.