The Indian Model Of Coexistence

Context: Israel and Palestine will have to seek a solution through non-violence and could take a leaf out of India’s book.

Need for a peaceful existence for Israel-Palestine conflict: Because of the following factors, a two-state solution is not the best solution to the conflict.

• Religious cohesiveness: The territory in question is The Holy Land to the three religions of Abrahamic monotheism, viz., Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
  • The Islamic claim on Jerusalem comes only through its association with Judaism and Christianity.
  • Thus, one can’t be a Jew or a Christian or a Muslim and deny that it is the Promised Land of the Beni Israel branch of the descendants of Abraham.
• Colonial factor: Britain renounced its Mandate over Palestine in 1948, paving the way for the United Nations to divide Palestine between the Jews and Arabs, giving them about 55% and 45% of the land, respectively.
• Continuance of vicious cycle of violence: In 1967, in the Six­Day War, Israel captured not just more Palestinian land but also Egypt’s the Sinai Peninsula and Syria’s Golan Heights.

Way Forward: A solution based on the common humanity of all stakeholders, one that is not riven by racial and religious schisms, needs to be explored, and secularisation of the discourse is an inescapable prerequisite.

• Adopting the Indian model of democracy: Which accommodates religious, ethnic, linguistic and other diversities, could be a viable model for the peaceful coexistence of formerly antagonistic groups.
  • A modus vivendi has to evolve on the basis of hard realities, the first of which is that neither the Jews nor the Palestinians are going to vanish into thin air.
  • The two-­state solution can be possible only if Israel frees the occupied territories and removes the Jewish settlements from there, an unlikely scenario in the foreseeable future.
  • If the two-­state solution is nowhere in the offing, a single state after the Indian model, i.e., a secular, democratic and pluralistic state, maybe the only feasible option
  • A nation is an imagined community. As imagination expands, the foundations of the nation become deeper. For this, there could be no better model than India.