ABCD: Four possible futures between the river and the sea

Despite the complexity of the history and the many dimensions of the current conflict, the possible futures for Israel-Palestine are few.

Dr Alex Sinclair has boiled them down to four words, conveniently starting with the letters A,B,C and D.

Sinclair, who is Chief Content Officer at Educating for Impact, and an adjunct lecturer at the Melton Centre of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, explained the four possible at Limmud Oz in Melbourne.

Failure to resolve the status of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza would create an apartheid Israel, with different regimes within pre-1967 borders, which has a majority Jewish population, and the West Bank's majority Palestinian areas.

Jews and Arabs would continue to have full equality in pre-1967 Israel. But Palestinians in parts of the West Bank would be subject to Israeli military governance, justice and army control while Jews in the settlements would be governed by Israel’s civil governance, justice and police system. This system currently applies in Area C, which comprises 61% of the West Bank, where most Jewish settlements are situated.

Sinclair acknowledges the inflammatory nature of the term “apartheid” but quotes former Mossad chief Tamir Pardo to justify the term. “In a territory where two people are judged under two legal systems, that is an apartheid state,”  Pardo told the Jerusalem Post in 2023.