The "Puerto Rico Model" for the West Bank is Nonsense
Deep Dives
Explore related topics with these Wikipedia articles, rewritten for enjoyable reading:
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Bantustan
9 min read
The article directly compares proposed West Bank annexation schemes to South African Bantustans - the pseudo-autonomous regions created during apartheid. Understanding the historical reality of Bantustans provides crucial context for why this comparison is so damning.
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Political status of Puerto Rico
12 min read
The entire article hinges on debunking the 'Puerto Rico model' argument. This Wikipedia article explains the complex legal and political history of Puerto Rico's territorial status, referendums on statehood, and the specific rights Puerto Ricans have - all central to understanding why the comparison fails.
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Israeli-occupied territories
13 min read
The article mentions Israel's 'odd legal limbo' control of the West Bank since 1967 and references Area C. This Wikipedia article provides essential historical and legal context about the occupation, settlement enterprise, and the distinction between different administrative zones.
Israel’s right wing has just endured a major disappointment with the apparent collapse of its hopes of reoccupying the Gaza Strip and settling it with Jews. The two-year war has ended, more or less, and Trump seems to have forgotten about his Gaza Riviera idea. In their despair, Israeli nationalists are turning their attention once more to the West Bank. Their dream, which has wide support in Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, is to annex the territory, which Israel has controlled since 1967 in an odd legal limbo, never claiming it officially despite settling the area with a half million Jews.
The complication is that the territory is also home to three million Palestinians. Many of them, as is known, want to establish a separate state. Others would welcome annexation and would be happy to become Israeli citizens in a “one-state solution.” As Israel already has 2 million Arab citizens, Arabs would then account for 40 percent of the citizens — and a majority if Gaza were part of the equation. Not much of a Jewish state. A little Jewish emigration might enable the Arabs to change the country’s name to Palestine, bringing peace to the fevered minds of campus protestors in America.
In their efforts to square this circle, Israel’s right wingers have discovered Puerto Rico as an inspiration. The idea is that Puerto Rico is a US territory without voting rights — so if that’s good enough for America, why should Israel be forced to allow Palestinians to vote? One high-profile proponent is Trump’s former ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, a staunch supporters of the Israeli right.
In a debate with me last week, Pesach Wolicki, a Jewish settler leader, makes this point below at 1:50 — arguing that there is more than one model for democracy, so Israel can simply annex the West Bank and everything will be fine.
And a weeks before, this. “Even the United States has Puerto Rico, in which the people have some representation, they certainly have civil rights, but they are not considered equal citizens,” Malkah Fleisher, a leading settler, asserted in another debate (10:25 in the below video). She projected an air of expertise.
It is tempting, this notion that the impossible might be possible. So let’s examine the Puerto Rico “model” — a very strange situation which I got to know quite well, having lived three years on the island as the
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