Starting The Engines

Matt Yglesias wishes Israel would use the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative as a jumping off point for negotiations. Is it a perfect document? No, of course not: the bit about a "just solution for refugees" is guaranteed to cause trouble. But the plan is within the right orbit of arrangements that Israel should be willing to accept, and that's how negotiations get started.

So what about those refugees? Israel should get ahead of the curve on this: It should submit a plan, listed specifically as occurring under the contours of the Arab Peace Initiative, that proposes something like the following regarding refugees:

I. Palestinian Refugees

(1) All parties which harbored Palestinian refugees and refused to allow them permanent settlement (or, if operating under an international mandate, attempt to facilitate their permanent settlement in the jurisdiction where they were operating), and parties who currently control the territory from which these refugees fled from, including but not limited to Israel, Jordan, Egypt, [other locations to which Palestinian refugees fled] and the UNRWA, shall pay reparations to these refugees in the amount of [whatever dollar figure makes sense].

(2) Palestinian refugees are defined as non-Jewish persons who were forced out of or otherwise fled their homes within the territorial mandate of Palestine due to fighting during the conflict surrounding the 1948 war, or their lineal descendants.

(3) Refugees who currently reside within the borders of the future state of Palestine are citizens of that state.

(4) All other refugees are hereby declared to be citizens of the states in which they currently reside, pursuant to the agreement of those states.

(5) The preceding provisions represent the totality of remedy for said refugees, and parties explicitly disclaim a physical "right of return" for said refugees.

II. Jewish Refugees

(1) All parties which harbored Jewish refugees and refused to allow them permanent settlement, and parties which currently control the territory from which these refugees fled from, including but not limited to the Iran, Iraq, Egypt [other locations from which Jewish refugees fled from], and the United Kingdom, shall pay reparations to these refugees in the amount of [whatever dollar figure makes sense].

(2) Jewish refugees are defined as Jewish persons who were forced out of their homes due to violence or fears of violence during the conflict surrounding the 1948 war, or their lineal descendants.

(3) The preceding provisions represent the totality of remedy for said refugees, and parties explicitly disclaim a physical "right of return" for said refugees.