I’ve never been to Africa.

But I have seen a number of safari-type nature shows, and the shot that always knocks me out is the watering hole. For the dwellers of the savannah, here is concentrated all risk and reward. Life is not possible without it, and yet one courts death with every sip of its murky elixir.

This is how I see the region known to much of the world as Israel. Others might refer to the area as Occupied Palestine. The distinction is one of perspective.

In every struggle there are those whose immediate objectives have been realized. We call these people the “winners,” with the others invested in unrealized, competing objectives rendered “losers.” Each will tell a story about how they came to be in their respective positions, and the narratives advanced by either side will continue to frame their unique perspective as just and true. The implication, of course, is that the alternate perspective is neither of these things.

Stepping out of this binary, I’ve referred to the area in question as “the Holy Land,” the watering hole of the global soul, a place of unparalleled import to the Abrahamic traditions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. I do this not out of romance or nostalgia, but out of the pragmatic recognition that regional stability is impossible in the context of polar narratives.

Hope requires a shared vision.

We are not talking about the elimination of tension. That’s impossible. The zebra and the jackal do not drink at the same time. They remain ever wary, alternating sips with surveillance. Thirst uneasily quenched, they back away, eyes on each other as they slip into the brush.

We’re talking about a wild truce, one in which prey trusts not the predator, but rather in the predator’s need to drink. If either refuses to allow that all are required to drink from the same waters, only death will follow.

And this is precisely why a two-state solution will never work. It’s also why the two-state proposition is continuously advanced as the only solution. It ensures the death and destabilization of the indigenous semitic peoples and the vacuum to follow. A two-state solution is meant only to affirm opposing narratives and give each party a sovereign “base” from which to attack the other. Nobody actually imagines that two neighboring independent states born of bloodshed, dispossession, and generational trauma will ever peacefully coexist.

Gathering at the watering hole means giving up certain ideas about safety and security. What is promised in exchange is life itself. This is a most extraordinary vulnerability, perhaps the reason for Abrahamic monotheism’s recognition of the area as sacrosanct.

For here it is only God that can be trusted.

But if we give up our utopian delusions, if we are willing to jettison the ultimately peripheral elements of our polar narratives, then there is room for a shared, albeit uncomfortable, vision.

We propose the following two integrals in formulating a template for just such a vision.

The Zionist project must come to an end. It is a philosophy of apartheid conquest and therefore untenable in any arrangement requiring compromise.

Hamas must be legitimized. We’re entitled to whatever feelings we have about them, but we cannot dismiss their efficacy or their appeal. Popularly elected by the people of Gaza, they hold considerable influence among all Palestinians. This has only been bolstered by Israel’s squandering of any post 10/7 moral authority they may have had through their genocidal counteroffensive. In addition to their popular appeal, Hamas has proven their military prowess not only in their resistance efforts, but also in the suppression of competing jihadi elements. Hamas is a horse that virtually every player in the region has backed at one point or another, including Israel.

Current administration of Israel should give way to the establishment of a consociationalist democracy. Political scientists, according to Wikipedia, define a consociational state as one with major internal divisions along ethnic, religious, or linguistic lines, “but which remains stable due to consultation among the elites of these groups.”

We propose a coalition cabinet of anti-Zionist Jewish moderates and a tempered Hamas leadership.

Here’s how that works:

Get rid of the name Israel. It’s a polarizing relic. Hamas (an Arabic acronym for the Islamic Resistance Movement) and the Israeli Defense Force will also need new names.

Call it whatever, but I really like the Confederacy of David (COD). It’s not actually a confederacy, but “consociationalist democracy” doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. Besides, the fishy acronym is nice and if we can agree to an inaccurate use of the term, the amalgamated Hamas/IDF security forces can then be called the Armed Regiment of the Confederacy (ARC). We’re trying to keep everything biblical, reinforcing shared Abrahamic roots, and maintaining the COD’s status as a global Jewish sanctuary.

All areas within Israel’s 1967 borders continue to allow dual-citizenship for diaspora Jews as per custom.

Netanyahu and his associates should be tried for war crimes and a Palestinian-led Bureau of Reparations must be established. It took 76 years (approximately three generations) to get to this level of Palestinian dispossession, and this is a rational timeline to make it right. The reason for doing so is not to center Palestinians as the victims of Jewish aggression, but rather to affirm the ascendant morality of the new collaboration.

Reparations can take many forms. The release of political prisoners is important. Compensating civilian families for lives lost in conflict is also a good start. These are reparations that should be paid out by former Hamas and Israeli leadership.

With the exception of the immediate dismantling of illegal Jewish settlements, nobody should be kicked out of anywhere, but rather Palestinians holding deeds to property currently in the possession of Israelis would inherit such properties upon the death of the occupants. In addition, they will be given priority in any pending estate sales. This leads to the gradual reincorporation of Palestinians into predominantly Israeli communities along with an increasing need for representation at the government level. NGOs with an humanitarian interest in normalizing relations between these traumatized semitic cousins will have much work to do here in conjunction with a streamlined deportation process in place for those who refuse to be good neighbors. Mandatory ARC conscription for both Arabs and Jews is another opportunity for reprogramming the hearts and minds poisoned by a generations-long curriculum of vengeance.

Although considered sovereign for administrative purposes, the borders between predominately Jewish and Arab regions are made porous. Walls come down. Full rights of citizenship are enjoyed by all residents irrespective of ethnic or religious identity. There is natural movement between these areas, along with the exchanging of culture, ideas, goods, and services.

The ARC will have its hands full managing internal insurgencies and they should do so with ruthless efficiency. Let them discharge any lingering resentments through the elimination of any who would threaten the fragile tension of the watering hole.

The Confederacy of David may find itself with new enemies, among them the United States and the UK. The intended power vacuum was theirs to fill and they will not easily give up on their imperial, apocalyptic designs. Iran, with its all-or-nothing grandstanding, will also deeply resent the dissolution of their Sunni Hamas proxies and some belligerence is to be expected.

On the other hand, the normalization process begun between Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the Gulf States will experience invigorated popular support and rapid acceleration, with a flood of funding and resources to back the fledgling state.

Here at Dust and Tribe, we’re fond of saying that the wilderness teaches. A lot of that education comes from simply being outside and paying attention.

Rather than dismiss our proposition as the pipe-dreams of the woefully misinformed, consider that predatory animals can stay their impulses long enough to allow their quarry a drink. They do this as a matter of course, intuiting that their long-term survival depends on this important concession.

But we are not predator and prey. We are Jews and Arabs, semitic cousins linked by blood and tradition.

How much greater then is our opportunity for sacred collaboration?

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