WI: Israel annexes Bethlehem and Ramallah after 1967

[Jackson Lennock]

Moshe Dayan wanted to annex Bethlehem and Ramallah after 1967 along with East Jerusalem, extend citizenship to all people there, and have a single Greater Jerusalem urban zone. What if Israel had done that?



I think it's noteworthy that this wouldn't prevent Israel from continuing its settlement enterprise elsewhere. But the mental geography would be different. Suddenly settlements like Beit El, Ofra, and Tekoa are just over the Israeli-asserted border, rather than somewhat deep into the West Bank.


This would be about 350,000 to 400,000 more people, plus 200,000 OTL Permanent Residents are Citizens instead. They would be perhaps a third larger share of the electorate, which could make a difference in margin.

Ramallah and Bethlehem were very Christian towns at the time, which meant leftist politics but also lots of professionals and and highly educated people. They would be an organized force in Israeli politics if they chose to participate. It is also possible people would simply choose not to participate on principle.

How would the rest of the West Bank be organized? I am unsure. Dayan was interested in a Nablus-Jenin urban zone being treated as one self-governing unit and Hebron being another.

In the long-term, what is annexed may not stay annexed of course. Israel was willing to give up East Jerusalem in peace talks after all. But in the interim period, Israeli politics would be a couple notches to the left. And an influx of Christians and educated people generally into Israeli politics could lead to other Israeli Arabs/Israeli Palestinians being politically organized and engaged sooner.

 

[Wendell]

Was Ramallah a very Christian town at the time, or was Ramleh?

 

[Ricardolindo]

Was Ramallah a very Christian town at the time, or was Ramleh?

Ramallah was still predominantly Christian, read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramallah#Demographic_evolution.

 

[Wendell]

What does it mean for Palestinian statecraft if its base population is considerably less Christian, and does a larger Christian Arab minority in Israel impact its relations with the United States?

 

[Jackson Lennock]

The "Islamization" of Nazareth had a lot to do with simple urbanization, so I suspect Ramallah and Bethlehem would become muslim-majority over time for similar reasons.

Much of the OTL Palestinian Christian emigration that occurred after Oslo due to the unpleasantness of being squeezed between Israel and the increasingly-islamist-inclined Palestinian forces would not occur though.


I don't think PLO leadership would be affected by this very much. The PLO before Oslo had its political ranks plucked from diaspora communities in the Gulf and Lebanon. I don't think that would be impacted by Israel absorbing two Christian-majority cities.

Menachem Begin in 1978 said to the Knesset that Israel should accept back all of the Palestinian Christians in Lebanon as Israel doing its share to absorb refugees once the Lebanese government expelled most from the country. I wonder if there would be greater urging for that if the Israeli Arab left is bigger.

I am unsure if a larger Palestinian Christian population in Israel would impact its US relations. After all, it would mean those Christians who were occupied OTL and citizens TTL. Maybe there would be more ties between American religious groups and Palestinian Christians.

Palestinians Christians OTL are like the "Jews" of Israel - in the sense of being a small overly-successful "model minority" that is well educated, very big in professions, and gets better test scores than the Jewish majority. They also have concerns about assimilation - which is ironic given the Jewish concern. Palestinian Christians care about the Palestinian cause, but ideas of one-state are more popular to them because they're a minority either way.

Israeli politics would be a bit to the left if Israel had a bigger Arab minority and a bigger Christian minority in particular. This would probably smoothen relations with the USA. Israel's settlement enterprise would probably be more restrained too. The Sharon plan (more security-focused) might win out over the Drobles Plan (more ideologically-oriented). Before Begin's Second Government after the 1981 legislative election, the settlement enterprise looked a lot more like the Sharon plan than Drobles Plan.

Left: Sharon Plan. Right: Drobles Plan.​

Israel's 18th Government after the 1977 election was Center-Right

• Likud (Right) - 45 Seats​
  • Likud got 43 Seats in the election, but Ariel Sharon's Center-Right Shlomtzion party which got 2 seats merged into Likud right after​
• Dash (Liberal/Center) - 15 Seats​
• National Religious (Right) - 12 Seats​
• Agudat Yisrael (Haredi) - 4 Seats​
• Development and Peace (Right-Populist) - 1 Seat​
• Independent (Dayan) - 1 Seat​
• TOTAL: 78 / 120 Seats.​
  • Right = 62 / 120 Seats.​
  • Center = 16 / 120 Seats.​

Begin OTL had to rely on the opposition in part to get things like the Egypt Peace Deal through. When Begin first formed his government, it did not include the Dash party, and so he had a 63-seat majority. If the Arab-Left secures a bigger share of the vote in 1977, Begin may not be able to form a right wing coalition to begin with and so would depend immediately on the Dash Party for a majority. So much of the settlements of OTL under Begin might not happen or would be more restrained.

Israel's 19th Government after the 1981 election was a more right-wing majority. The Liberal party collapsed too between 1977 and 1981.

• Likud (Right) - 48 Seats
• National Religious (Right) - 6 Seats
• Agudat Yisrael (Haredi) - 4 Seats
• Tami (Mizrahi) - 3 Seats
• Tehiyeh (Far Right) - 3 Seats
• Telem (Center) - 2 Seats
• TOTAL: 66 / 120 Seats.
  • Right = 64 / 120 Seats
  • Center = 2 / 120 Seats

As for Palestinian Statecraft, the Constitution of the State of Palestine OTL already says the official religion of Palestine is Islam and that Sharia is part of the legal system.

Article 4​

1. Islam is the official religion in Palestine. Respect for the sanctity of all other divine religions shall be maintained.
2. The principles of Islamic Shari’a shall be a principal source of legislation.
3. Arabic shall be the official language.

This, I assume, was a concession to popular opinion. But the point still stands that despite the diaspora-based Palestinian movement being mainly focused secularism, leftism, and downplaying religion-based identity ... most actual Palestinians sort of expected some kind of official status of Islam. Maybe there strategically would be more playing up of the role of Palestinian Christians in order to pressure Israel to surrender Christian-majority Ramallah and Bethlehem, but there'd be a tension between such rhetoric and Palestinian attitudes generally.

In 2024, I guess there would be 200,000 additional Palestinian Christians with Israeli citizenship. I suppose it would be more like 90,000 in the late 70s/early 80s. The lobby for Christian "return" in Israel may be a stronger thing though if Israel has a big Christian population.

 

[Wendell]

I do wonder if the rise of more radical Islamic religious currents and extremist groups would impact over time how Palestinian Christians identify, even as they then as now would be taking from both ends. Is the Maronite notion of "After Saturday comes Sunday" wholly incredulous here, even if after a generation or two?

Also, Israel is going to get tourism revenue that it might have had to share with the Palestinians if all of Christianity's holy sites west of the Jordan are in the Jewish state.

 

[Jackson Lennock]

I do wonder if the rise of more radical Islamic religious currents and extremist groups would impact over time how Palestinian Christians identify, even as they then as now would be taking from both ends. Is the Maronite notion of "After Saturday comes Sunday" wholly incredulous here, even if after a generation or two?

Also, Israel is going to get tourism revenue that it might have had to share with the Palestinians if all of Christianity's holy sites west of the Jordan are in the Jewish state.

Palestinian Christian identity is quirky. Man do embrace a Maronite-like tendency to say they were "arabized" and not "arab."
Much of Palestinian national narrative - the idea that Palestinians are descended from Canaanites - comes from others taking what is largely true of the Christians and saying that is all Palestinians.

As Hamas has slowly taken the lead as the main force of Palestinian nationalism, they have OTL slowly adjusted themselves to a kind of apathy in much politics.

In 2014, some Israeli Palestinian Christians pushed for an "Aramean" identity option on government identification forms as an alternative to "Arab."

As for "after saturday comes sunday"...
Pan-Arabism at an intellectual and elite level was never antichristian, but the problem is that most people are not the elite. The average person is not necessarily Islamist, but they view being arab/palesitnians as muslim as a pole views themselves as catholic. Christian rights in the middle east have generally depended upon hewing close to the strongman governments.

But also, a lot of antichristian politics was a politics against national identities that were not Arab. Maronites viewed Lebanon as not-Arab, Assyrians/Arameans viewed themselves as not-Arab, etc. It's the problem of authoritarian nationalism demanding public professing of social conformity. This has not been an issue as much for Arabic-speaking Greek Orthodox Christians who "Arabized" themselves more, although other denominations (Catholic and Protestant) get funny looks because of their communal ties to the west.

 

[Wendell]

I'm sure the theological divides among Palestinian Christians only complicates things more.

 

[Francisco Cojuanco]

This has not been an issue as much for Arabic-speaking Greek Orthodox Christians who "Arabized" themselves more, although other denominations (Catholic and Protestant) get funny looks because of their communal ties to the west.

In my experience this is part of the reason Melkites (in the broad sense, both Orthodox and Catholic) often don't get along with non-Melkite Christians as much as you would think. Unlike say, Assyrians/Chaldeans, they're more likely to have no problem saying they have an Arab ethnic identity (heck, a lot of the Arab National Revival was pushed by Melkite intellectuals).