Imagining a Federal Future in Israel / Palestine.

This paper takes as its starting point the proposition, shared by an increasing number of scholars, that envisioning and working towards a single bi-national constitutional democracy in Israel / Palestine is a more promising path to peace and security than the alternatives. The legal specifics of the constitutional design of a single state in Israel / Palestine are worth imagining. How could constitutional law preserve and reconstitute identities, communities and the state in Israel / Palestine? This paper will focus on the possibilities offered by federalism in accommodating the equal rights to self-determination of Jews and Arabs. The classical model of territorial federalism - with local and central governments that are coordinate and autonomous - could make a valuable contribution to the recognition and accommodation of pluralism. However, given that Jewish and Arab communities are territorially intertwined, territorial federalism has limited potential to protect and promote their integrity and vitality. The essential interests of Jewish and Arab communities could be protected through personal (or non-territorial) forms of federalism (giving political power directly to community institutions) and through intra-state federalism (securing representation of community interests in the design of the institutions of the central state). Drawing lessons from the experiences of other federal states, this paper will explore the promise and perils that federalism could make to the constitution of a new political community in Israel / Palestine founded on equal citizenship, regional pluralism and bi-national collective rights. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]