Dear Mr. President:
We would like to acknowledge the great effort you have taken on international relations and domestic issues. We thought we would collectively voice our opinion on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. You may wish to consider this combination of solutions- they may be flawed, they may have issues, but we find that they are, at current, with a little fine-tuning, our best option.
The first issue we would like to address is the Palestinian refugees. We understand that a large Jewish population in Israel were acknowledged as refugees. While this may justify previous actions of immigration, we have to look beyond that. The current problem is that the Palestinian refugees in various places, such as Jordan and Lebanon- the fact that refugees do not get citizenship in those countries, has caused many problems that have been detrimental to a peace solution. We believe that the best course of action would be to give them a citizenship to the country they have been immigrated too. This would provide better education and healthcare for the refugees. This would not only detain the “weapon” of empathy that Israelis have claimed that the Palestinians were using but it would also calm the protest against israel of those claiming it was against human rights.
This problem leads to the issue of housing settlements- who gets them? They are, according to the international law (Geneva Convention IV, Article 49, Paragraph 6), illegal. To allow them to stay under Israeli influence and law would result in severe legal complications, and takes a large chunk of the land promised to Palestine. But forcing Israelis to leave their settlements will be highly disruptive- thousands of dollars will be taken from their rightful owners, a steep rise in homelessness and poverty in Israel will occur, and the entire process will result in thousands of protests and terrorist attacks. So we believe that it would be more logical to give Israelis in housing settlements a choice- leave their homes and return to Israel, or remain under the influence of Palestinian law. Laws concerning Israelis in Palestine will be negotiated publicly, not established by Palestine, as they may become draconian if Palestine attempts to dislodge Israelis from the land.
Security has also been a very controversial problem. Checkpoints walls, surgical bombings and strikes are all very problematic- Israelis are too scared to remove them, in fear of terrorists. Palestine is completely disrupted because of them and execute hundreds of protests against them. So we ask Israel to do something radical: slowly replace Israel counter-terrorism systems with Palestinian ones. Inner checkpoints will be handed over to the Palestinian authorities, allowing them to relax their laws. Then we transfer checkpoints closer to Israel, until eventually the only remaining Israeli-controlled checkpoints are on the Palestine-Israel border. Israeli soldiers in Palestine will slowly pull out as they are replaced with Palestinian counter-terrorist soldiers. Air strikes will be heavily regulated by established laws, then become veto-able by Palestinian authorities, then fully outlawed. Eventually, Palestine will have a fully independent counter-terrorism force. They will be trained as a more defensive force. Acting more as a police force rather than a militaristic force. Funding for the Palestinian Internal Counter-Terrorism Group (PICT) will be the US.
An issue that regards both Israel and Palestine is the ownership of Jerusalem. While most debates on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are more about politics, peace and security, Jerusalem takes a new stance- religious beliefs. Neither Palestine nor Israel are willing to give up Jerusalem, so we cannot give Jerusalem to either. We must make it international territory- similar to the UN headquarters in New York. It will become a semi-independent nation, with logistics, law and order regulated by a single authority established, regulated, and funded by the UN. Jerusalem must not become a fully independent nation- as two neighboring countries has claims on it, it cannot simply leave their care fully. At least two thirds of the government of Jerusalem must be composed of Israeli and Palestinian representatives.
We thank you for taking the time to read through this letter. We understand that we may not see the whole picture, but we hope you are willing to take our idea into some consideration nonetheless. This was an attempt at a neutral and just view on the topic. Thank you for your attention and patience.
Sincerely,
Kimin Kim, Ethan Aoki, and Lukas Daniel-Pedersen
Grade Eight Students at Singapore American School
