A policy paper prepared in July of 1967 analyzes seven possible scenarios for the future of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, from annexation to Israel to an independent State of Palestine.
Future of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip
The introduction to the document notes that a policy on the future of the West Bank and Gaza Strip was an urgent necessity. The MFA provided two reasons why this was so urgent as to surpass the issue of the future of the Golan Heights and the Sinai Desert: First, any vagueness with respect to the future of these “densely populated” areas would result in “negative developments” for Israel. Second, “internationally, the impression that Israel maintains colonial rule over these occupied territories may arise in the interim”.
The document lists seven possibilities, two of which are thoroughly analyzed: an independent (though with no military force) Palestinian state whose capital would be at the closest possible location to Jerusalem, and a Palestinian state “connected to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan”, with the Jordanian king as sovereign.
