> The ultimate product of such a unification would be a shake down of the
> unified society into a hierarchy with a fairly small Jewish-Palestinian
> elite, a largely Jewish middle class with a fair to large representation
> of Israeli-Palestinians (about 20% of the Palestinian population), while
> most of the "country cousins" would form a large and mostly unemployable
> poor. While the large Black majority in S Africa has considerable clout in
> contemporary S Africa politics despite their poverty, the 37 to 38 percent
> of the population of the binational state, comprised of poor Palestinians
> would be a minority, easily disenfranchised by a combination of political
> and security supervision of their organized activities. It would, in
> fact, be very much like Lebanon with its 35% Shiah population, but with a
> powerful central government that could effectively prevent the development
> of a Hezbollah-like organization among the disenfranchised poor.
===============================
This is an idle discussion at present since a unified binational state is a
fiction until the state of war which exists between the two peoples becomes
the fading memory of future generations. The best we can hope for in our
generation is a two-state solution rather rather than a further downward
spiral into the mass expulsion of the Palestinians from the West Bank and
Gaza or the mutually assured destruction of the parties in a regional
nuclear conflict or both. An independent Palestine would be accompanied by
economic relations which mirror those you describe above, across rather than
within a single border, but would at least give the Palestinians some levers
which they lack now to improve their conditions.
In theory, the fact that a binational state - which would result from incorporating the territories into a Greater Israel and extending citizenship rights to their Palestinian residents - would be characterized by a large and predominantly Arab underclass is not an argument against it. Wherever the working class won the universal franchise, there was great inequality. In fact, the vote was fought for precisely to address class unequality short of violent revolution. A binational state would similarly see the appearance of a mass reform party uniting Arab and Jewish wage- and salary-earners across national lines.