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Common Sense Principles On The Future Borders Between Israel and Palestine

Frankly, I doubt that many Palestinians have dealt with this matter.  After all, everything is sacred to the Arabs, including places without any historical or religious resonance at all. Alas, Israeli politics are also sufficiently mercurial that the system is all but barred from focusing on the matter as well.

In any case, an Israeli geographer and planner, Elisha Efrat, has written in this morning's Ha'aretz a design in principle for a land settlement of the conflict. It is not a solution to everything. But it establishes the basis for a territorial agreement.

Here is the essence of the piece:

Four broad options exist for marking the future international frontier: the existing Green Line (with the possibility of minor changes ), following the West Bank separation fence, significantly altering the Green Line-based border so that Israel includes the largest West Bank settlement blocs and finally, land swaps that take post-1967 geographic and demographic developments into account.
But there are a few more essential criteria in determining the nature of the future Israel-Palestine border. It must include crossing points for people, goods and agricultural produce. It has to ensure the existence of contiguous land on both sides. Where land swaps are needed, it must be done on a one-to-one basis, unless one party offers the other land with special strategic or economic value that calls for different treatment. What's more, the border needs to include as few Palestinian population centers as possible on Israeli soil, and vice versa. Should Arab communities in Israel be included within the borders of Palestine, the move must be preceded by ballot measures for populations on both sides of the border area in question. Border demarcation must also take into account existing or planned infrastructure, and must allow Palestinians reasonable movement from the West Bank to Gaza and back, but without harming Israeli sovereign territory.