PLAN - The PEIS Plan Overview

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This is an overview of the PEIS Plan. For the Plan's details, please go to the Book section.

Synopsis

The PEIS Plan stands for the Palestine-Egypt-Israel-Sinai peace plan. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is deemed the most intractable conflict in modern times because of one reason — territory. Both the Palestinians and the Israelis want the same piece of land. Previous peace initiatives focused on partitioning this land, with failed variations of one-state and two-state solutions. The PEIS Plan takes a different approach: it introduces part of Sinai as a new land for the Palestinians to form their country side by side with Israel. Instead of fighting for the same piece of land, each side will have its separate land to build a nation for its people.

The PEIS Plan proposes that Egyptians sell the insurgent-infected part of the Sinai Peninsula to the Palestinians and use the proceeds for the economic development of the rest of the peninsula and mainland Egypt. The Palestinians sell the West Bank to Israel and use the remittance to pay the Egyptians. They combine the purchased Sinai territory with the Gaza Strip to form a contiguous New Palestinian state. The Israelis buy the West Bank from the Palestinians, and finally fulfill their immemorial yearning for the “Land of Israel.”

Why Would The Egyptians Sell Part Of Sinai?

Under the PEIS Plan, the Egyptians retain the best part of the Sinai Peninsula - the eastern bank of the Suez Canal and Southern Sinai which includes the Red Sea Riviera. They sell the eastern portion abutting Israel. After the sale, Egypt does not share a border with Israel: between them, there is the New Palestinian state.

The northeastern Sinai has been mired in insurgency since 2011. Thousands of Egyptian military and security forces have perished, and ten thousand troops are still posted under constant threat of attacks. Egypt has spent billions developing this area without success - any new project becomes a target of sabotage. Furthermore, the bulk of the allocated billions has gone to the best part of Sinai, causing resentment from the Sinai Bedouins, most of them living in the eastern portion and many of them joining the Islamic insurgency. Northeastern Sinai also abuts the Gaza Strip controlled by Hamas which is known to give sanctuary to the insurgents. With the 2023 Israel–Hamas war in full swing, the Gaza border crossing has become a headache for Egyptians who keep it closed for fear of inviting in two additional problems: Gazan refugees and Hamas militants. This part of Sinai is a lemon; many years ago, there were even some whispers, quickly suppressed by the government, about just walking away. With the PEIS Plan, the Egyptians can make high-priced lemonade instead.

The "lemonade" starts with the saving: Sinai insurgents, resentful Bedouins, Gazan refugees, and Hamas militants will not be Egyptian problems anymore. Egypt can allocate treasury and efforts for the rest of the country where 90% live, with increased investment in security, infrastructure, and social services for the restless population. Secondly, Egypt can make use of the billions it will gain from selling the bad part of Sinai. The current strongman of Egypt has come into power with promises of making the country great again, but he has been constrained by the lack of money: He ceded two small but strategic islands to Saudi Arabia in 2017 to settle debts, and he has to submit to the international monetary funds for new loans. The billions from bad Sinai will bankroll his economic ambitions with no strings attached; the sweetest part is that they will come from Israel, Egypt's historical nemesis.

Why Would The Palestinians Sell The West Bank?

In three words, a viable country. When combining the purchased portion of Sinai with the Gaza Strip, the New Palestinians will have a contiguous country, 50% larger than the new Israel, with two-seas access (the Mediterranean Sea on the North and the Gulf of Aqaba on the South), and an unconstricted airspace. It will also retain the sovereignty of concessionary enclaves inside the West Bank on historical grounds. One such enclave will be the Muslim Quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem, which will become the cultural capital of the New Palestinian state. The new country will be expansive enough to bring home all the dispersed Palestinians - hopeless residents in the landlocked West Bank heavily restricted by Israel, stateless refugees from crowded camps around the Middle East, and yearning expatriates from all over the world. There will be no forced expulsion of West Bank residents to the New Palestinian state. Those who choose to remain will have the New Palestinian citizenship and Israel's new statute of native residency. Native residency, to be enshrined in Israel's Basic Laws, gives the statute's holders all the local rights of an Israeli citizen - including running for local offices and serving in the local police force, but none of the national rights, such as voting in national elections and serving in the national armed forces.

The New Palestinian state is also viable economically. The nation-building economic boom will benefit from the assets returning Palestinians bring to their "new home". The country is across the Mediterranean "pond" from Europe, and the European Union will likely offer tariff and investment incentives for the New Palestinian state to become its low-cost offshore manufacturing hub. New Palestinians will open factories, and Asian countries may also relocate their production plants here to be closer to their European market and take advantage of the European incentives. Interestingly, the country likely to invest heavily in the New Palestinian state will be Israel - it has all the know-how for nation-building from its own experience. Besides nation-building and manufacturing, there will be tourism: the Mediterranean sandy beaches, the Sinai desert, the central mountain, the old Hajj pilgrimage route, the Jerusalem Muslim Quarter, the port cities for cruise ships. The New Palestine state, Egypt, and Israel will offer a new tripartite destination for the hospitality industry. Not to be outdone by geography will be the people of the New Palestine state. With a young workforce and a vibrant network of educational institutions migrated from the West Bank, the new country will have a wide range of white-collar opportunities in its march to a confident future.

This future will be associated with its green energy potential. Although huge gas fields have been discovered off the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, and an existing gas pipeline runs North to South, the desolate Sinai desert in Northern Sinai, often seen as useless, instead offers the space for the development of stapled renewables such as solar and wind, and future technology energy such as fourth-generation nuclear and hydrogen. The New Palestinian State may be the world's first fully environmentally green country developed from the ground up.

The PEIS Plan recognizes the Palestinian Authority (PA) as the representative for the Palestinians. The PA is headed by an octogenarian autocrat who holds the weakest card ever. The revolutionary fervency of yore has long gone, the corruption and mismanagement of his administration make him unpopular in the West Bank which he controls through a security apparatus funded by Israel, he is powerless to stop the Israelis from encroaching his West Bank with new settlements, and he is losing the support from the Arab world which gradually leans towards Israel for geopolitical and economic reasons. He has no hold on Hamas to prevent its October attack on Israel, and he has no say to Israel in its closing off the West Bank in response to the attack. The PEIS Plan will be his political salvation. He will go into history books as the founder of the New Palestinian state; after this swan song, he can retire on a high note and leave the nation-building to the next generation of Palestinians.

Why Would The Israelis Purchase The West Bank?

The synopsis states that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is territorial. If this were that simple, Israel would have already won. It conquered the West Bank in the 1967 Six-Day War. Then it did not know what to do with the Palestinians living on the conquered land. With a higher birth rate and a lower mortality rate, the 1 million Palestinians of 1967 are now 5 million in 2023, and they are progenerating faster than the Jewish Israelis. This population size precludes any one-state solution to Israelis since the Palestinians will overtake the Jewish population and make Israel an Arab country. This population size also makes any two-state solution unacceptable to Palestinians since the West Bank territory, already small and continued to be encroached by settlements and military camps that Israel insists on keeping for security and political reasons in any peace proposal, will not support the aspiration of a growing West Bank population let alone the return of the 6-million diaspora. To Israel, the New Palestinian state is the solution to this population problem: It provides a place for Palestinians to relocate after selling their homes in the West Bank. Furthermore, by legally purchasing the West Bank, Israel's ownership will be internationally recognized, and Judea and Samaria (as the West Bank is referred to by Israelis) will forever belong to the new Israel without any shadow of controversy.

The price will not be cheap, since it will be about the price that the Palestinians need to purchase their Sinai land which is six times bigger. The status quo is not cheap either. Israel spends over $20 billion in a normal year on defense which includes the costs of its armed forces and security operations in the West Bank. Then there are extraordinary years, such as 2023 when in October Hamas makes a daring attack on Israel which responds by invading Gaza: The war is estimated to already cost Israel $17 billion by December. There is this question: how much is the life of an Israeli civilian or soldier worth? Adding all these costs and values, would it be cheaper to send some billions annually to the Egyptians (via the Palestinians) to resolve the so-called Palestinian issue once and for all?

Another way to look at this huge sum is that it is an investment. An investment confers a return. As mentioned, there is the territorial return of Judea and Samaria to Greater Israel. The next return is peace, first between the Israelis and the Palestinians, then as the PEIS Plan being used as a template, between Israel and Lebanon, and Syria. Israel may get something it has never known since its declaration of independence in 1948: a country at peace with all its neighbors. The peace dividend will even help pay the West Bank mortgage.

There is also a return in prosperity. The nation-building next door will see financial help pouring in from all over the world; the PEIS Plan stipulates that the New Palestinian state gives preferential treatment to Egyptian and Israeli companies. Some of the money Israel pays for the West Bank may be gained back by selling picks and shovels to the New Palestinians. Taking the macroeconomic view, Israel is the dominant economy in the Middle East but has been restricted to trade with its Arab neighbors due to the lingering Palestinian issue. The removal of this issue will open a floodgate of markets for Israeli companies. Besides "military", Israel will add "economic" to its badge of a regional powerhouse. The taxes on the profits of Israeli companies will also help pay the West Bank mortgage.

The West Bank purchase is also a return in national unity. The Zionist settlements in the West Bank are dividing Israelis politically between liberals and ultra-nationalists, while the ultra-orthodox exemption in military service is dividing Israeli society. These will become non-issues once the West Bank is legally owned, and compulsory service will be more lenient since there is a greater need for young men and women to contribute to Israel's economy than to its armed forces. As another point of unity, the state of Israel will create a national peace fund for all Israelis, Jewish descendants, and supporters in the world to contribute to the West Bank purchase.

The current prime minister of Israel has been called many names, but never a peacemaker. By adopting the PEIS Plan, he will join the pantheon of the rare peacemakers in the history of humankind. He will be known as the leader who closes Israeli history's first chapter of wars and struggles, and opens the new chapter of a Greater Israel at peace and in prosperity.

Conclusion

All the known proposals to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are beaten paths, trampled over for almost eight decades, leading to nowhere. The PEIS Plan is a path not taken that will bring the journey to the final destination of permanent peace. This is because it offers the involved parties what they want the most: For the Egyptians, it will be the finance for its ambition to prominence; for the Palestinians, a viable country; and for the Israelis, peace and Greater Israel.

Please visit the Book section for the details of the PEIS Plan.