Myself? I'm very sympathetic to the State of Israel. And I don't blame them for the state of the occupied territories. But even I'll admit that the current situation is unsustainable.
And if it were the subject at hand, I could come up with criticism of Benjamin Netanyahu. But I do agree with him about some things. One of them is the notion that Israel can not possibly pull out of the West Bank, under current conditions, without the West Bank becoming a terrorist 'state'.
But I can think of a 'change of conditions' that sounds possible.
So..........
Consider Jordan. Of all Israel's next door, and near, neighbors, Jordan seems to be the one that shares the least hostility with Israel. True, Jordan joined the wrong side in the lead-up to the Six Day War. But I don't think anyone can doubt that Hussein's arm was being twisted by Nasser. I'm willing to bet that Jordan really would rather have not gotten involved and would have rathered that the whole thing never happened. Setting that one episode aside, Israeli-Jordanian relations seem to have been peaceful. Or, at least, not-actively-hostile. This carries so far that, in their peace treaty, Jordan actually renounced their claim to the West Bank. It strikes me as a huge mistake. With evil consequences for most all concerned. But I don't know what their reasoning might have been.
But I'm going to guess that both sides judged that the West Bank was best administered by Israel for the foreseeable future. (Maybe the 'terrorist state' had something to do with that.)
Let's imagine that the Israelis and Jordanians re-negotiate that and the West Bank is returned to Jordan.
We might imagine the Israelis evacuating the settlers in the West Bank. It would be a difficult, probably even traumatic, thing for the Israelis to do. But it wouldn't be impossible. Also, it might not be strictly necessary. Under the right conditions, perhaps those settlers could stay.
One possibility is that they could be offered Jordanian citizenship. But I doubt if there'd be much interest on the part of the settlers in that. Another possibility is for them to be legal resident aliens. Their endeavors and taxes would need to be for the benefit of their host society. But that can be done, given decent incentives. And they could always withdraw individually to Israel should they wish.
As things stand, such an arrangement sounds very, very uncomfortable. But if you imagine amicable relations between these two nations --and you imagine everyone playing fair and in good faith-- , then an Israeli living in Jordan need not necessarily feel more inconvenienced than, say, a Brit living in France.
Jordan simply could not do this without becoming a power-to-be-reckoned-with in the neighborhood, I would think. The reason is that bad actors from all around will infiltrate Jordan, seeking to cause trouble for Israel. And the Jordanian 'traitors'. As such people would view Jordan.
So for security, I guess we need an Israeli-Jordanian military alliance. It would have to be a good one, too. Not only would they really, really need to cooperate --but they have good reason to, after all-- , they'd need to be really, really strong militarily. So strong that Jordan, maybe, can't afford it.
If that's the case, then we need a sponsor. The United States of America, perhaps?
We have plenty of incentive to see a scheme like this succeed. It might be a bit expensive. But I'd guess that the USA could properly arm Jordan at an acceptable cost.
And if we all three continue to have aligned interests, then this would become an excellent 'base' for operations against trouble-makers nearby. I'm not really thinking of ISIS. I think the Iranians and Turks ought to be fighting them before we do. But it would be useful against ISIS, if need be. I'm thinking more of the Iranians and the Saudis. A couple of trouble-makers if there ever was such a thing.
We wouldn't even need, probably, to be very aggressive from this Israeli-Jordanian-American alliance. It's mere existence would intimidate to some extent. But it would be an excellent beach-head right near enemy territory if it came down to it.
The Jordanians, of course, would be labelled 'traitors' to Islam. Or to the "Arab Nation". They would make some dangerous enemies doing this. But Hussein capitulated to the same sort of people in 1967 and it didn't work out too well for him. I wonder if Abdullah would give the raspberry to the same sort of people today if he had a serious protector?
I suspect that America would be glad to get in on a deal like this. And I suspect that the Israelis would, too, provided that they believe it'll be enforced. The only question is the Jordanian attitude.
I think that they are among the more pragmatic of those nations in that neighborhood. Maybe they could be convinced. We ought to be talking to them about it.
Of course..........the Palestinians will lose their state. I'm more sympathetic to them than my next statement might seem to indicate......But.........
Sorry. They haven't earned their state.