Panarchy for Israel and Palestine?

Here’s a panarchy-oriented suggestion made by “Mordechai.” He suggests that any two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians not be done on the basis of traditional states defined territorially and monopolistically, but instead involve states that are defined by “sovereignty of the people’,” in this case two peoples. In essence, one signs up for the “club” of one’s choice, and that club carries out whatever functions its members deem appropriate. Then “This creates a co-existence without borders allowing either population to live where they wish.” Egad! That’s panarchy, or close to it. All one has to add is that anyone can opt out of either club and be a member of none. And, of course, no club can have power or sovereignty over those who are not its members.

For convenience, I quote the most relevant portion of Mordechai’s remarks:

 So what is the “two-state” solution? I will answer that in asking for a bit of an open mind in that we change or amend the definition of a “state”. Israel and the Palestinians are not going anywhere and are very much interdependent. That being said, the only solution I believe in is creating an economic umbrella overseeing two populations. The two populations would elect their own leaders and the respective governments responsible for its own citizens as in traditional states. However, the state would not be defined by borders, but by sovereignty of the people. This creates a co-existence without borders allowing either population to live where they wish. I do realize both governments would work out the details, but that is the general concept. For example, in the beginning Israel and the International bodies should revoke or disavow the current PA leadership and shut down the “terrorist groups” allowing enough room for a functional Palestinian government to eventually overwhelm its opposition. The end results would be Israelis keeping most of their settlements as well as Palestinians receiving compensation and funding to establish themselves and settling out of the refugee camps. Such a “two-state” solution would have more economic power to deal with immigrants and remaining resistance.

Territorial and monopoly states are a passing phase in world history. The territorial monopoly state controls everything and everybody in its territorial domain, even those who dissent or do not consent. Such involuntary states will eventually be seen as barbaric or as belonging to an unenlightened age or an error of mankind in that they involve a dysfunctional morality and do not reflect enlightened paths to progress. In the lengthy interim, it’s worthwhile to educate everyone about the non-territorial state alternatives.

It would be especially worthwhile to educate LEADERS, who are everywhere blind to the idea of voluntary clubs or governments or states. (I realize that many of you who are fussy about words think of a voluntary state as a contradiction in terms, but I think you know exactly what I mean. It’s basically a club. It’s territorial only to the extent that the club members aggregate property on a voluntary territorial basis.)  The leaders of Iran, Israel, and the Palestinians are all in mental chains, being held back because they cannot conceive of justice in anything but the narrow terms of THEIR territorial monopoly states or desired states.

I’m more than willing to give anyone the benefit of the doubt that they want justice (which they steer away from in their demonization of one another), but when they sit down and bargain (or worse simply threaten or bomb) and think of their conflicts only in terms of monopoly state interests, they are being terribly, terribly blind. In fact, it is their concept of the territorial state that reinforces their inability to think in terms of human life in a borderless world, i.e., where borders that may come into being exist as a consequence of property rights, not as a result of a monopoly state’s power and force.

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12:14 pm on February 28, 2012