A valid education about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is hard to come by considering the years of propaganda Americans have been subjected to, which has blamed lack of peace entirely on the Palestinians, of late invoking terrorism as the main cause or excuse. There is no need to haggle over what is to blame: the facts on the ground in the West Bank make clear the obstacle.
In a word, settlements.
What is an Israeli settlement?
For the average American, the notion of a settlement probably invokes an image of pioneers, settlers arriving in wagons and building homes and small even isolated communities on the western frontier. If this image of a settlement seems off base, look up the term, settlement, in the dictionary. The term has certainly helped Israeli propaganda to downplay the significance of its colonialism in the West Bank.
In fact, if this picture of a settlement were ever applicable to the typical Israeli settlement in the West Bank, there would hardly be any difficulties in attaining something close to a permanent peace between Israelis and Palestinians, a real two state resolution of the conflict. The removal of these settlements would likely be inconsequential.
The problem here is that the term, “Israeli settlement,” is a thoroughly misleading one, a deceiving understatement for what it is that actually confronts the peace process. By the above definition, none of the more than 150 “Israeli settlements” in the West Bank is a settlement by any definition of the term. The typical Israeli settlement in the West Bank is instead a village, town, or small city, some over 30,000 in size, supported by many industries and agribusinesses, and interconnected with Israel by a network of Israeli only roads and highways, which are scattered throughout this small piece of Palestinian real estate. This map, courtesy of Anna Baltzer, shows the layout.
To obtain a better idea of what an Israeli settlement is and what an impediment to peace they are, watch the documentary, The Iron Wall, accessed below, where the problem caused by the presence of settlements becomes evident.
It is these “settlements” that is presently the major obstacle to peace, was the major un-removable obstacle in 2000 during the Camp David/Taba negotiations, and is probably the principle reason why Israel rebuffed later peace plans and offers from the Arab League (2002, 2006) and Iran (2003) among others, and has permitted Oslo and the current Road Map to die a slow death. Aside of the other unsettled issues like the right of return and East Jerusalem, a Palestinian state cannot exist if a sovereign entity in the midst of alien villages, towns, and cities, all interconnected with Israel by a network of Israeli-only roads and highways, which wind through the West Bank.
View the Iron Wall by clicking below. It has been on Google Video since Sep 15, 2006. Its length is 57 min 19 sec. You will be so much the wiser about the impenetrable obstacle, settlements, to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict if you do.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8598031591119784930&hl=en
Let’s consider what follows from shergald’s supposition that the existence of Israeli settlements in the West Banks means there will never be a sovereign Palestinian state.
Should people concerned about the current situation passively accept the status quo or try to change it? shergald’s (at least verbal) activism suggests that he nevertheless wants to try to change the status quo.
Whould people who want to change the status quo support something less than “a sovereign Palestinian state” or not? The answer to this question depends, on the one hand, on what “less than ‘a sovereign Palestinian state'” one thinks can be achieved and, on the other hand, what other improvement over the status quo, if any, one thinks achievable.
Assuming that any significant improvement over the status quo would be preferable to its indefinite continuation, this question then becomes what other improvement of the status quo is achievable? Subject to shergald’s correction, I take it that the kind of improvement he has in mind involves a withdrawal of Israeli sovereignty from at least the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and the Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem.
Such a withdrawal can take two forms: (1) replacing Israeli sovereignty with some other sovereignty, e.g., Jordan or an international trusteeship; or (2) transforming the meaning of Israeli sovereignty by replacing the current Israeli state system with either a binational or single state whose Jewish and Arab citizens both partake in the state’s sovereignty. I’m going to ignore the first alternative because it continues to deny Palestinians, apart from Arab Israelis, any share in sovereignty.
But anyone who advocates transforming Israel into a binational or single state must answer the question, how is this goal to be accomplished? If the existence of Israeli settlements is supposed to make achieving “a sovereign Palestinian state” impossible, what grounds do we have for believing that the existence of the settlements permit a transformation of current Israeli sovereignty?
Presumably, shergald rules out noncoercive persuation because otherwise he could not reject the possibility of Israel agreeing to the creation of “a sovereign Palestinian state,” a much less radical alteration of the status quo. So, then, shergald is driven to coercing Israel to agree to change the status quo. Fine. But why then should we suppose that it would be more difficult to coerce Israel into accepting “a sovereign Palestinian state,” e.g., along the lines already accepted by Israel in the form of the Clinton Parameters or as elaborated in the unofficial Israeli-Palestinian Geneva Accord, than to coerce Israel into accepting a radical transformation of the current Zionist state?
If shergald really believes that the existence of the settlements somehow prevents Israelis from agreeing to their substantial removal (and the cession of territory within the Green Line to a Palestinian state by way of 1:1 compensation for any settlement blocs annexed to Israel), then the rational response, at least by outsiders, would seem to be to devote their energies to other, more tractable human problems.
One, therefore, suspects that shergald’s problem with a two-state peace settlement is not the difficulty of achieving it but its desirability. I can imagine at least two reasons why someone might not desire a two-state peace settlement —
It leaves Palestinian refugees without an unrestricted right of entry to Israel.
It leaves Israel in existence as a Zionist state.
I am interested in substantive, responsive comments to this analysis, especially from shergald.
So now we have Israelophiles using the two state solution as a distraction from the reality today, which is little more than what Jeff Halper called “managed conflict.” Hamas came up not as a natural opponent, but one made such by the joint efforts of Israel and the US in order to provide Israel with yet another tact to avoid peace initiatives, something which it has become quite skilled at over the years. Camp David/Taba was only the exemplary case: the generous offer hoax.
Never has Israel ever pushed for peace while its ultimate goal is unattained, the greater Israel dream of a Davidic Empire from the Jordan River to the sea. Which is just to say, it never has. Those goddamned Palestinians are the problem. Now the antiSemite Carter has let the word out about bantustans, and everyone heard it, and Olmert is stalemated. Does anyone, however, wish that Sharon would wake up? Does anyone wish Olmert would resign? For what reason? Netanyahu is leading in the polls. And the spiral goes down and down.
So what does this all say about the future? Life will continue to be good for coffin makers in the West Bank.
My analysis begins by assuming the correctness of your opinion that “a sovereign Palestinian state” is not possible. Your lack of a substantive response speaks volumes.
The correctness of my opinion that “a sovereign Palestinian state” is not possible, is also the position of the major Israeli political parties, which I assume is correct. So you need to ask those parties what it is they have in mind, given that
the world will not tolerate another South African aparthied system (a bantustan state)
and that all of these parties support a Zionist concept for Israel.
Is connundrum the proper word to use here?
Otherwise, as I have said before, what you think and what I think matters not a wit. As for two states, Israel’s actions in the West Bank are not those of a country preparing to share the land.