About a month earlier, the Palestine Liberation Organization had come close to overthrowing the Hashemite Kingdom in Jordan, where Palestinians are a majority. Jordan (with the behind-the-scenes help of Israel and the US) expelled the defeated PLO leaders to Lebanon.
Maybe King Hussein's close call got her thinking about the resiliency of the Palestinian struggle. Meir told the group that her mind was open. "I am willing to hear if there is a shred of hope of some independent Arab state in Samaria and Judea, and perhaps Gaza." She seemed to have been thinking aloud about the consequences of a semi-sovereign Arab state that could later develop and give the Palestinians full self-determination.
This notional partition of Western Palestine would not necessarily have to be Israeli-initiated. It most certainly would not be along the lines envisioned by the 1947 UN Partition Plan – which the Arabs had rejected. She mused that the new entity might be confederated with Jordan, Israel, or both. It would have to be within the framework of a peace treaty. It could not involve giving up Jerusalem.
She had evidently reflected on the chance that PLO leader Yasser Arafat could have defeated King Hussein and become prime minister of Jordan. Israel would not deal with Arafat in his terrorist capacity, but if he already had a country… she pondered the scenario.
The problem was that Meir was convinced then – and Israelis like me remain persuaded now – that a Palestinian Arab state would sooner or later serve as a staging ground for a final attack on the Jewish state. Meir was trying to figure out how to create a Palestinian state while the Palestinians were engaged in a zero-sum struggle with Israel, while they still did not reconcile themselves to a Jewish national home anywhere in Palestine.
Publicly, Israeli leaders like Meir and Yigal Allon denied that the Palestinian Arabs were a "people" distinct from the surrounding Arab world. Privately, they accepted that "Palestine" and the "Palestinians" would not disappear. They seemed to have reconciled themselves to the concept that the Palestinians saw themselves as holding a unique identity. They also evidently recognized that Israel was ethically culpable in the Palestinian conundrum-- even if overwhelming responsibility lay with the intransigent and self-defeating Palestinian Arab leadership.
"My mind is open to it. It was closed immediately after the Six-Day War, but I'm willing to open and listen, and if there's a shred of hope, some independent Arab state in Samaria and Judea, and maybe Gaza as well, will be confederate ... I don't care what idea it has," she said. [my loose Hebrew translation].
Fast forward to 2023, when there are some 3 million Palestinians in Judea, Samaria, and Jerusalem. Another 2 million in the Gaza Strip. Add in nearly two million Palestinians who are Israeli citizens within the Green Line, and you have 7 million Arabs living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
On the other side of the ledger, there are approximately 7 million Jews in Israel. Seven million and Seven million.
The dilemma Golda Meir faced in 1970 and that we face in 2023 is how to separate our two peoples while ensuring a viable and secure national homeland for the Jewish people. Meir was surveying these matters whilst Israel was riding a crest of military and societal confidence in the heady days after the Six-Day War. (The War of Attrition ended in August 1970.)
And, still, no solution was within Meir's grasp.
Today, under Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel's polity is fragmented, with many of us trying to block his putsch for regime change in the guise of judicial "reform." His government is comprised in no small measure of apocalyptic messianics who believe there is no such thing as a Palestinian.
Meanwhile, even the most moderate Palestinian Arab official can't bring themselves to call Israel a "Jewish State" or acknowledge that the Jewish people also have a right to a national homeland and self-determination.
Golda's dilemma remains ours, only more so.
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I am open to running your criticism if it is not ad hominem. I prefer praise, though.