Elon Peace Plan
Encyclopedia
The Elon Peace Plan is a plan to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
through the principles of rehabilitation of Palestinian Refugees, Israeli Sovereignty, and Strategic Cooperation with Jordan.http://www.israelinitiative.com/rewr-true/language-en_us/Principles.aspx The plan was originally proposed in 2002 by Rabbi Binyamin Elon
, who was the Israeli tourism minister at the time he put forward the proposal. The plan advocates the formal annexation of West Bank
and Gaza
by Israel
, the Palestinians becoming citizens of Jordan
, which would become a Palestinian state, with their final status to be negotiated. The Palestinian refugee camps would be dismantled, and the Palestinian refugee
s would be fully absorbed into their host countries. Elon and Moledet
(Elon's party and the chief supporter of this plan) proposed that "Israel, the United States
and the international community
will allocate resources for the completion of the exchange of populations that began in 1948 and the full rehabilitation of the refugees and their absorption and naturalization in various countries".
Seeing as it concerned the transfer of Palestinians to this hypothetical designated state without their consent, and that Jordan was far from enthusiastic to allocate its own territory for the sake of a Palestinian state (having reneged on its claim to the West Bank and taken away citizenship of the Palestinians living there in 1988), this idea came to be seen as irrelevant by the majority of Israelis and Palestinians. Elon continued to advance his plan, including a 2004 visit to Jordan for this purposehttp://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/67417, but did not manage to win substantial support for it.
General public support for Elon and his plan has been ambiguous. The National Union received 5.5% support on the Israeli legislative election of 2003https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/is.html#Govt (which went up to 7.14% in the 2006 election after the party's merger with the National Religious Party
http://www.knesset.gov.il/elections17/eng/Results/main_results_eng.asp).
The changing political climate in Israel following the 2006 Lebanon war and the Hamas takeover of the Gaza strip
prompted Elon to resume advancing his plan in 2007, complete with a million-dollar advertising campaign, as "The Israeli Initiative - The Right Road for Peace". Similar in principle to his original proposition, this new formulation gave up on the idea of a Palestinian state being formed in Jordan; while it still has Israel annexing the West Bank, it proposes that the Palestinians would become citizens of Jordan and residents of Israel rather than being re-located (though it also advocates providing them with a financial incentive to leave of their own accord). This idea directly opposes the direction taken by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert
and the Kadima
-Labor coalition, which aims to negotiate with the Palestinians with the ultimate goal of establishing a Palestinian state.
The case presented by proponents of the planhttp://www.hayozma.org/Summary.aspx is that Israel, the Palestinians, Jordan and other moderate Arab states would all stand to benefit from such a solution. Ideally, Israel would see a sharp drop in terrorist attacks and the dissipation of the demographic threat; Millions of Palestinians would turn from refugees to citizens and would be given new economical opportunities; and the abolition of the Palestinian state would prevent an extremist threat to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, while international financial support and increased co-operation with Israel would provide financial growth and opportunities (which, to a lesser degree, applies to other Arab states as well). Republican US Senator and former presidential candidate Sam Brownback
has expressed support of the plan.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wl2QC9842Hc
Detractors of the plan claim that Elon doesn't explain how countries would be induced to recognize Jordan as the Palestinian state. In an essay titled "The Yamin Israel Plan", Prof. Paul Eidelberg
wrote that "Even if [the Palestinians] were made Jordanian citizens, as proposed by the otherwise meritorious Elon Plan, it is wishful thinking to believe they will live in peace with the Jews in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza".http://www.buffalo-israel-link.org/politics10.htm
Israeli-Palestinian conflict
The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is the ongoing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. The conflict is wide-ranging, and the term is also used in reference to the earlier phases of the same conflict, between Jewish and Zionist yishuv and the Arab population living in Palestine under Ottoman or...
through the principles of rehabilitation of Palestinian Refugees, Israeli Sovereignty, and Strategic Cooperation with Jordan.http://www.israelinitiative.com/rewr-true/language-en_us/Principles.aspx The plan was originally proposed in 2002 by Rabbi Binyamin Elon
Binyamin Elon
Rabbi Binyamin "Benny" Elon is an Israeli politician who served as a member of the Knesset for Moledet and the National Union between 1996 and 2009. A ninth-generation Jerusalemite, Elon has lived in Beit El, an Israeli settlement in the West Bank for the last twenty years...
, who was the Israeli tourism minister at the time he put forward the proposal. The plan advocates the formal annexation of West Bank
West Bank
The West Bank ) of the Jordan River is the landlocked geographical eastern part of the Palestinian territories located in Western Asia. To the west, north, and south, the West Bank shares borders with the state of Israel. To the east, across the Jordan River, lies the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan...
and Gaza
Gaza
Gaza , also referred to as Gaza City, is a Palestinian city in the Gaza Strip, with a population of about 450,000, making it the largest city in the Palestinian territories.Inhabited since at least the 15th century BC,...
by Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
, the Palestinians becoming citizens of Jordan
Jordan
Jordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan , Al-Mamlaka al-Urduniyya al-Hashemiyya) is a kingdom on the East Bank of the River Jordan. The country borders Saudi Arabia to the east and south-east, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north and the West Bank and Israel to the west, sharing...
, which would become a Palestinian state, with their final status to be negotiated. The Palestinian refugee camps would be dismantled, and the Palestinian refugee
Palestinian refugee
Palestinian refugees or Palestine refugees are the people and their descendants, predominantly Palestinian Arabic-speakers, who fled or were expelled from their homes during and after the 1948 Palestine War, within that part of the British Mandate of Palestine, that after that war became the...
s would be fully absorbed into their host countries. Elon and Moledet
Moledet
Moledet is a small right-wing political party in Israel. It advocates the notion of encouraging voluntary population transfer of the Arab population of the West Bank. Moledet was founded in 1988 by Rehavam Ze'evi, who headed it until his assassination by members of the PFLP in 2001, after which...
(Elon's party and the chief supporter of this plan) proposed that "Israel, the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and the international community
International community
The international community is a term used in international relations to refer to all peoples, cultures and governments of the world or to a group of them. The term is used to imply the existence of common duties and obligations between them...
will allocate resources for the completion of the exchange of populations that began in 1948 and the full rehabilitation of the refugees and their absorption and naturalization in various countries".
Seeing as it concerned the transfer of Palestinians to this hypothetical designated state without their consent, and that Jordan was far from enthusiastic to allocate its own territory for the sake of a Palestinian state (having reneged on its claim to the West Bank and taken away citizenship of the Palestinians living there in 1988), this idea came to be seen as irrelevant by the majority of Israelis and Palestinians. Elon continued to advance his plan, including a 2004 visit to Jordan for this purposehttp://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/67417, but did not manage to win substantial support for it.
General public support for Elon and his plan has been ambiguous. The National Union received 5.5% support on the Israeli legislative election of 2003https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/is.html#Govt (which went up to 7.14% in the 2006 election after the party's merger with the National Religious Party
National Religious Party
The National Religious Party ) was a political party in Israel representing the religious Zionist movement. Formed in 1956, at the time of its dissolution in 2008, it was the second oldest surviving party in the country after Agudat Yisrael, and was part of every government coalition until 1992...
http://www.knesset.gov.il/elections17/eng/Results/main_results_eng.asp).
The changing political climate in Israel following the 2006 Lebanon war and the Hamas takeover of the Gaza strip
Battle of Gaza (2007)
The Battle of Gaza was a military conflict between Hamas and Fatah that took place between June 7 and 15, 2007 in the Gaza Strip. After winning Palestinian legislative elections in 2006, Hamas and Fatah formed the Palestinan authority national unity government in 2007, headed by Ismail Haniya. In...
prompted Elon to resume advancing his plan in 2007, complete with a million-dollar advertising campaign, as "The Israeli Initiative - The Right Road for Peace". Similar in principle to his original proposition, this new formulation gave up on the idea of a Palestinian state being formed in Jordan; while it still has Israel annexing the West Bank, it proposes that the Palestinians would become citizens of Jordan and residents of Israel rather than being re-located (though it also advocates providing them with a financial incentive to leave of their own accord). This idea directly opposes the direction taken by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert
Ehud Olmert
Ehud Olmert is an Israeli politician and lawyer. He served as Prime Minister of Israel from 2006 to 2009, as a Cabinet Minister from 1988 to 1992 and from 2003 to 2006, and as Mayor of Jerusalem from 1993 to 2003....
and the Kadima
Kadima
Kadima is a centrist and liberal political party in Israel. It was established on 24 November 2005 by moderates from Likud largely to support the issue of Ariel Sharon's unilateral disengagement plan, and was soon joined by like-minded Labor politicians...
-Labor coalition, which aims to negotiate with the Palestinians with the ultimate goal of establishing a Palestinian state.
The case presented by proponents of the planhttp://www.hayozma.org/Summary.aspx is that Israel, the Palestinians, Jordan and other moderate Arab states would all stand to benefit from such a solution. Ideally, Israel would see a sharp drop in terrorist attacks and the dissipation of the demographic threat; Millions of Palestinians would turn from refugees to citizens and would be given new economical opportunities; and the abolition of the Palestinian state would prevent an extremist threat to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, while international financial support and increased co-operation with Israel would provide financial growth and opportunities (which, to a lesser degree, applies to other Arab states as well). Republican US Senator and former presidential candidate Sam Brownback
Sam Brownback
Samuel Dale "Sam" Brownback is the 46th and current Governor of Kansas. A member of the Republican Party, he served as a U.S. Senator from Kansas from 1996 to 2011, and as a U.S. Representative for Kansas's 2nd congressional district from 1995 to 1996...
has expressed support of the plan.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wl2QC9842Hc
Detractors of the plan claim that Elon doesn't explain how countries would be induced to recognize Jordan as the Palestinian state. In an essay titled "The Yamin Israel Plan", Prof. Paul Eidelberg
Paul Eidelberg
Paul Eidelberg is an American-Israeli political scientist, author and lecturer, and is the founder and president of The Foundation for Constitutional Democracy, with offices in Jerusalem. He is also president of the Yamin Israel Party.-Early career:...
wrote that "Even if [the Palestinians] were made Jordanian citizens, as proposed by the otherwise meritorious Elon Plan, it is wishful thinking to believe they will live in peace with the Jews in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza".http://www.buffalo-israel-link.org/politics10.htm
See also
- Peace process in the Israeli-Palestinian conflictPeace process in the Israeli-Palestinian conflictThe peace process in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict has taken shape over the years, despite the ongoing violence in the Middle East and an "all or nothing" attitude about a lasting peace, "which prevailed for most of the twentieth century"...
- Projects working for peace among Israelis and ArabsProjects working for peace among Israelis and ArabsProjects working for peace among Arabs and Israelis have been operating for years in different fields.- Policy groups:Organizations or institutions which address and analyze policy issues in a wide range of areas...
- List of Middle East peace proposals
- International law and the Arab-Israeli conflictInternational law and the Arab-Israeli conflictThere is a broad international consensus that the actions of the nations involved in the Arab-Israeli conflict violate prohibitions contained in international law. However, this legality is disputed by some of the nations involved...
External links
- The Israeli Initiative - The Right Road to Peace web site
- Full text of the initiative (PDF file)
- Official Site of the Moledet Party of Israel
- Radical New Plan For Mideast Peace, article on wordnetdaily.com
- International Roots of Transfer Concept - Article by Moshe Kohn, published 2001 on The Jerusalem PostThe Jerusalem PostThe Jerusalem Post is an Israeli daily English-language broadsheet newspaper, founded on December 1, 1932 by Gershon Agron as The Palestine Post. The daily readership numbers do not approach those of the major Hebrew newspapers....
- Criticism of Elon's Plan