The Gaza Confederation

To Be Founded 2024, with temporary Israeli occupation

In order to live in peace with Gaza, Israel will need to defeat Hamas and control Gaza. 

“The war ends when Hamas surrenders”  (or Israel takes full control with non-Gaza Hamas still claiming power)

Then what?  Will Israel annex Gaza and increase the Israeli population by more than 20%, most of whom hate Jews and hate Israel?  That would certainly be a mistake.  But now South Africa has filed a case of genocide against Israel with the United Nations' International Court of Justice, ICJ.

Looking at the Universal Declaration of Human Rights & the USA for inspiration, as well as examples from countries like Switzerland, Hong Kong, Singapore, Costa Rica, Estonia, & India this proposal is for a new country, and a new type of country. 

Israel should create a new country, the Gaza Confederation

This becomes part of the 3 state solution for peace (per Noah Smith): 1) Jewish Israel, 2) Muslim West Bank Palestine, 3) secular Gaza Confederation-with Gaza before West Bank.  To ensure peace, Israel will temporarily occupy it.  Thus, of the 30 Human Rights Articles, #21 of democracy will be temporarily restricted.  Note that Hamas and its Jew hatred government / non-government is in violation of many Articles.  It’s clear that many UN countries do not allow genuine elections.

To create such a country and make it successful, Israel needs to articulate its goals and why it’s good for the Palestinian people, the Israeli people, and why the international community should support such a created country – a PR campaign.

Individual human rights will be based on the US ideal of a government to protect “life, liberty, and property”, with those 30 rights as enumerated by the UN Human Rights while under Israeli Martial Law – in many ways similar to post WW II allied occupation of West Germany.

An important reason to officially adopt these Human Rights is to note that the international country critics fail to give their citizens all of these rights.  Maximum morality should be the ideal.

Proposed 5 Cantons of Gaza

Gaza now has 5 admin areas--each should become a Swiss style canton. 

Who is the president of Switzerland?  Who knows (who cares?) – the Swiss President has little power, changes frequently, yet Switzerland is the most successful multi-million person country in Europe.  With weak central government, and relatively strong local canton governments.  Highly limited central power, many referendums, strong private property yet also local based social safety net.

Hong Kong’s government for 99 years was from the benign UK governors, as a temporary occupier, creating an economic dynamo for China.  Excellent government did not require democracy, nor even a governor of the same ethnic group as the majority of people.

The goal is to create a Human Rights respecting city state, like Singapore, where Muslim Gaza Palestinians and Jews and all religions can live in peace.  With peaceful disagreement, but respect, about different religions and other cultural issues, with strong private property so that owners mostly control what they own. 

The Gaza Confederation should have a written Constitution, as Israel does NOT have. It should use the Swiss constitution as a model, tho with the explicit acceptance of temporary Israeli governance.  Like Costa Rica, no military needs to be created, altho there needs to be a significant police presence. 

Increasing e-government, as Estonia is doing, would include a complete census – giving a maximum e-govt example would be good for most of the world.  A complete database of all the 2.3 million*  people in Gaza may be needed including faces & DNA & a Gaza Confederation ID Israel should create the most transparent government in the world as part of their Gaza occupation.

After 100+ days, it’s time for the Israel government to finish taking control of the North Gaza canton, and begin resettlement, reconstruction, and new construction.  They need to begin answering questions about the people, about 500,000 for N. Gaza, and have a program for those in different categories (draft sample program):

Hamas fighters who are captured.  Who surrendered.  These will be Prisoners of War, in some way.

3 statuses: 1) IDF claimed terrorist, 2) IDF suspected terrorist or Hamas supporter,
3) IDF designated non-Hamas supporting civilian (including some dishonest Hamas supporters)

Then the many non-active terrorists, tho mostly still Jew haters, many different categories:
Wives and older parents of killed Gaza terrorists. 
Wives with kids of killed men suspected of being terrorists;
Wives with kids of killed men who Israel thinks were not terrorists.

Those whose treatment is the same whether or not suspected of being a terrorist, or Hamas.
Old women.  Old men.
Orphans.  Under 2; 5; 12; 16; 18.  Young adults to 21. 
Set full adult freedoms at age 21, like the USA for drinking, tho not voting.
Each group may need different treatment – more like school classes need age appropriate steps.

In whatever way Israel ends the war, there will be complaints about the treatment of the Palestinian people.  The treatment should be explicitly reasoned and publicized, with goals and reasonable paths of progress towards the goals, accepting the reality that the good goals won’t be achieved faster than is possible.  Such goals should include temporary housing, more permanent ownership of land and existing or damaged housing, education, health care, food, water & clothes.  The best PR is the accurate reporting of the material conditions improving according to a plan that shows rapid improvement and is being visibly followed.

One key innovation is the replacement of the usual implicit with an explicit Social Contract: Israel will initiate a Human Rights respecting government, but the Gaza citizen must accept peace with Israel, and borders – and sign their acceptance of peace as part of becoming a free citizen of Gaza (officially the Gaza Confederation), as well as of one of the 5 cantons.  They promise to not use violence in any protest against laws or in favor of new laws or policies.

Those who do not sign for an individual peace with Israel will remain as Prisoners of War – the Gaza-Israel war ends when there are no longer any POWs, tho it may continue due to other conditions. POWs continue to live in camps, which can included voluntary work for additional compensation.

These above ideas are goals with some steps towards the goals.  Israel will achieve such goals, or alternative more politically feasible goals, far sooner with better publicity.  They are fighting with marvelous restraint against an organized crime Hamas organization, which has long been supported by various UN, US, Iranian, and other international organizations.

Despite more restraint than almost any other army, there are thousands of casualties – Israel should be focusing more effort on identifying and confirming causes of death for those who die.

A huge problem is that the majority of Gaza people hate Jews.  They will continue to hate after the war ends.  They need to be treated with human dignity, but there is no sample case of a population full of hatred for the victor conquerors who stay and rule, with UN approved humane treatment.  Unrealistic demands by international Jew haters will continue for years, maybe decades, even after Gaza becomes in a few years a city that is clearly rebuilding in a good way.

It's possible that after a few years the vast majority, 80% or more, of the Gaza citizens will be law abiding and not supporting terrorists.

As most reasonable thinkers note, Israel is in a difficult place with neighbors full of Muslim governments that support Jew Hatred.  Their biggest ally, the USA, has many folk comfortable with Israeli democracy, but not so much the Jewishness of the government.  The creation of a non-Jewish, non-Muslim city-state of Gaza would be welcome, after it is successful.  Tho likely complained about in its early years.

As Israeli politicians from more progressive to more conservative discuss what the policies should be, they need to be making clear, tho admittedly temporary decisions, to help poor civilian Gazans.  Starting with North Gaza.
5 Cantons: North Gaza (Jabalia), Gaza City, Deir al-Balah, Khan Yunis, Rafah
https://ontheworldmap.com/palestine/gaza-strip/map-of-gaza-strip-1000.jpg

All of the above ideas, and especially the next set, need to be explicitly decided upon by Israel, who should set up a Gaza Reconstruction Council to be similar to but the expected successor to the unity War Council.

Speculative issues:

Econ, Jobs, Language, Education, Census, Gaza Peace Corps, Elections/Referendums

Private Property + Economic freedom + taxes + social safety net =~ humanitarian aid

All land in Gaza needs to be part of a publicly accessible cadaster with private land, government controlled park & public lands, government owned with various access regimes.  Other assets need to be noted & recorded with various ownership records.

While humanitarian aid will actually need to be increased for a few months, under Israeli production guidance, there should be enough food & electricity, with construction of new desalination & irrigation processes, as well as more new businesses for making clothes. Plus all the other nice shops available in OECD cities – and likely similar to Tel Aviv, with far fewer significant temples or mosques than Jerusalem.

Job Guarantee

A key reason for problems among refugees is that of restrictions against employment.  In Gaza, everybody who can work should be legally allowed to work – and have better material lives than those who don’t work.  Those who can’t work because of some disability should have decent lives.  Israel should guarantee that all able bodied people will have at least a part time job that pays enough for food. For men, there will be plenty of construction work for the next few years:

Building roads, building temporary and permanent sanitation, installing solar power panels, and wiring for electricity, greenhouse construction and agriculture/ gardening operation & distribution of fresh grown food.

For women, agriculture/ gardening, cooking & mass kitchen work: communal & school & restaurant; nursing, teaching, day care, restaurants.  Looking to Sweden for where women make up 60% or more of the work force, with support for Gazan women in those expected, tho also for other individual ambitions. (Similar to Swedish jobs where 60% or more are men).

Israel should re-open and control the Yasser Arafat International Airport. With signs in English, Arabic, and Hebrew

Language - Education

There needs to be a language chosen (Switzerland has 4): Arabic, Hebrew, English.  Rwanda changed their language to English, along with having a Truth & Reconciliation commission.

All the Jew haters now speak Arabic – they would hate to have to learn Hebrew.  Many, perhaps most, would accept learning English.  The gov’t education, and all information, should be set to English to maximize Economic growth.

All Gazans, and POWs, should be offered one of 9 classes, based on EU English knowledge:  A1, A2, A3; B1, B2, B3; C1, C2, C3.

– Teaching English by aiBot tutor, along with mass testing of alternative aiBot systems might allow Israel to become a world leader in aiBot teaching & testing; along with progress tracking & teacher assistance. 

– once the students learn basic A1 English, they can start Khan Academy video learning of all other subjects, with teachers giving tests & helping students learn what they didn’t know.

India is focusing on Open Source and copyright free computer assets & programs.

Education in English ai.enhanced – pay the students to make progress, spending time on computer screens that monitor progress/ distractions, with time spent on questions & transcripts.  Focus on flipped classes – students do the lesson learning at home and come to school to practice test questions and getting teacher help.

Sports

All young Gaza people should be encouraged to join sports teams, as part of education and learning English.  Especially Gaza boys, who will need activities other than school to occupy their time, and emotions, while they learn more and grow up.  The goal is for them to grow up without the Jew Hate indoctrination that’s been part of Hamas & Islamic education for the past 75 years.

Census Information

Collecting info from international orgs on who they’ve been dealing with, addresses & people.  Israel needs to collect basic information about each person in Gaza – 2.3 million of them.  A huge effort, mostly conducted briefly in Arabic, with computer records that include a document page that becomes an ID for each Gazan.

Gaza Peace Corps

Internally, Israel needs to be more mobilized – especially its Arab Israeli young people who do not usually join the IDF.  All young people, Arab & Jewish & Orthodox who have not served in IDF should be drafted into a temporary Israeli-Gaza Peace Corps which is to coordinate aid and support to the survivors.  Speakers of Arabic should get some bonus for speaking Arabic with the Gaza

Referendums

Some 3 months or so after “peace”, there should be a referendum to choose a name, so perhaps it will be the Gaza Palestine Confederation.  It would be good for there to be many referendums, like every first Thursday of the month (the day before the Islamic holy Friday, before the Jewish holy Saturday). Especially for the Flag, and social responsibilities, and taxes.

Future updates will be noted below.