Promoted by Steven D. I know the Israeli-Palestinian problem is contentious, but the fact is that resolution of this problem lies at the heart of any possible stabilization of the Middle East. However, the Bush administration has shown in its actions that it doesn’t give a damn about promoting a dialogue that might lead to a peaceful and just resolution. Which begs the question: what do the Democratic candidates propose to do?
The set of maps above is called Alternatives for the Palestinian Bantustan. They show Palestine in situations where 49%, 58%, and 85% of the West Bank, respectively, come to be considered Palestine using the Road Map as a guide or some other framework. They are essentially the alternatives for an Israeli-Palestinian peace, which somehow permits Israel to achieve the Greater Israel dream that finally succeeds in taking the whole of original Palestine, while undermining Palestinian aspirations for self-determination. The problem with all of these maps is that the so-called Palestinian Bantustan that would emerge is surrounded by Israeli occupation forces and is nested inside of a presumed annexed West Bank (Judea and Samaria). Furthermore, the Bantustan is encircled by the Wall on the east and it would be expected that a similar Wall or barrier will enclose the Bantustan from the West, coursing through the Jordan Valley in some conceptions. Israel is presently involved in removing Palestinians from towns in the Jordan Valley. Likewise, intermingled within these different Palestines are the 150 or so settlements, the Israeli only villages, towns, and cities, and the roads and highways interconnecting them with Israel, also protected by Israeli occupation forces, that will not be removed.
Not only will Greater Israel be achieved, but Palestine will now serve at Israel’s pleasure, especially as a source of cheap labor, under the rationale of security.
Is this sounding like Apartheid South Africa all over again? Jimmy Carter has spoken loudly to the issue: it will not bring peace.
Jeff Halper is the Coordinator of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions and published this article along with the skeptical maps on Sunday, July 08, 2007. It is entitled,
NOT ONLY TERRITORY, BUT VIABILITY
On paper, the headlines sounded promising, even stirring. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, it was reported, told Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas at their meeting in Jericho that he would push for the establishment of a Palestinian state as “fast as possible” on “the equivalent to 100 percent of the territories conquered in 1967.” The Palestinians, according to the report, would cede just 5% of the West Bank in return for territorial swaps. In other words, Israel would withdraw from 95.6 % of the combined West Bank and Gaza – although that figure does not include East Jerusalem, which Israel does not consider occupied.
It looked like another “generous offer,” one the Palestinians could not possibly refuse. The problem is, it was much too generous for the Israelis to accept. A few hours after the report appeared, the Prime Minister’s Office denied even the existence of the proposal. “We do not know of any plan as described in the [Ha’aretz] article,” the PMO said. “We would like to clarify that such a plan has not been considered, nor is it being raised for discussion in any forum.”
So much for that. But the proposal itself is useful to examine if only because it presents a “best case” scenario. It appears to relinquish almost all the occupied territory to the Palestinians; it appears to be the maximum that Israel could possibly offer the Palestinians. If it can be shown as nothing more than a sophisticated attempt to expand Israeli control to the Jordan River, with no chance of ending the conflict with the Palestinians, it will provide the best illustration of the futility of basing any peace process on the mere transfer of territory rather than viability. The devil, as we all know, is in the details. Let’s see what this 100% plan hides, even if it is not really a plan.
At issue is not a Palestinian state on the equivalent of 100% of the Occupied Territories (that is, we should note, only 22% of historic Palestine). The issue is, as the road map specifies, whether a Palestinian state is truly sovereign and viable, no matter on how much of the territories it arises. I would argue that even the 5% of the West Bank that Israel would retain under the purported plan can prevent the establishment of such a state. What details make the difference between a just and lasting peace and apartheid?
Sovereignty: The basis for negotiations, says Olmert, “will continue to be the road map, which is acceptable to both sides.” This is true in general, but with some major caveats. Phase II of the road map is the Palestinians’ nightmare, and they have constantly pressed to have it removed. This phase calls for the establishment of a “transitional” Palestinian state with “provisional borders.” If all is quiet, Palestinians fear, and Israel can claim that a Palestinian state exists and that the Occupation has ended, who could guarantee that the road map process would continue into Phase III, where the thorny final status details are to be negotiated and a real Palestinian state would emerge? Their fears are justified – and this may be the “catch.” Israel considers its “14 reservations” as integral parts of the road map. Reservation # 5 states: The provisional state will have provisional borders and certain aspects of sovereignty, be fully demilitarized…, be without the authority to undertake defense alliances or military cooperation, and Israeli control over the entry and exit of all persons and cargo, as well as of its air space and electromagnetic spectrum.”
Read that again and try to square that reservation with the notion of Palestinian sovereignty. Tzipi Livni has worked for months on what she is calling “The Israeli Initiative for a Two-State Solution” based precisely on replacing Phase I of the road map (which calls for a freeze on Israeli settlement building) with this problematic Phase II. Rice has said that the Bush Administration will work towards a provisional Palestinian state, leaving “the details” to the next administration.
A state has no sovereignty without borders. In additional to the problem of provisionality, does Olmert intend to grant the Palestinians an unsupervised border with Jordan? If Israel insists on controlling the borders, or if the Jordan River is part of the 5% the Palestinians must cede, there is no Palestinian state even if they receive all the territory.
Viability: Israel may indeed relinquish 95% of the West Bank but still remain in complete control over a Palestinian Bantustan with no viable economy. If it insists on controlling the borders, denying the Palestinians free movement of goods and people, the Palestinian state is not viable. If the 5% the Palestinians must cede includes a corridor across the West Bank, or if Israel insists on keeping the Ma’aleh Adumim settlement with its “E-1” corridor to Jerusalem, thus destroying the territorial continuity of a Palestinians state, it is not viable. If it includes Israeli control of all the water resources, it is not viable. If Jerusalem is not fully integrated into the Palestinian state politically, geographically and economically – and I would bet that the core of East Jerusalem falls outside the 95% – then there is no viable Palestinian state. According to the World Bank Jerusalem accounts for up to 40% of the Palestinian economy because of tourism, their largest potential industry.
The difference between a truly sovereign and viable Palestinian state and a Bantustan is a few percentage points of strategic territory. It’s clear that Israel could relinquish 95% of the West Bank, Gaza and parts of Jerusalem and still maintain complete control. The very conception of a territorial-based “solution” is flawed. It does not meet the Palestinians’ right to a sovereign and viable state, and it merely perpetuates Israeli control. A workable solution requires an approach based upon a commitment to a viable Palestinian state. That requires addressing the issues outlined above.
In the meantime, Israel’s repeated advancement of territorial-based plans, some more “generous” and some less, all have the same aim: to perpetuate the settlements, an Israeli greater” Jerusalem and control of the entire country. Until that matrix of control is broken and a real Palestinian state is allowed to emerge – if that is still possible given the Israeli “facts on the ground” – we will have to carefully monitor each proposal to ascertain if it will truly end the conflict or will merely substitute for the Occupation a sophisticated regime of apartheid. Israel’s ongoing settlement construction and its commitment to retaining strategic parts of the West Bank and “greater” Jerusalem justify that suspicion of Israel’s intentions.
http://www.icahd.org/eng/news.asp?menu=5&submenu=1&item=480
Jeff Halper can be reached at jeff@icahd.org. Reprinted with permission.
Some people quibble with the details in the maps below. But who can deny that they represent the dissolution of the rights of an entire people, the Palestinians. Until there is a fair and just solution of their aspirations, there will be no peace in the Middle East.
Appreciate, Steve.
Jeff Halper is always worth a read. His knowledge of the solutions dilemma, which places causation for intransigence clearly in the lap of Israel and its continuing colonialist project, is probably difficult for an Israeli to express. But his principles supercede his ethnocentricism, as it should with all of us, and he seems incapable of remaining silent in the face of this ongoing human rights injustice.
One of the panelists at the single YearlyKos discussion on the Israel/Palestinian issue was John Mearsheimer, a political science and international security professor at University of Chicago.
He basically said that there were four possible outcomes to the current situation: (1) The two-state solution, in which the Palestinians were able to create a viable independent state in the bulk of the occupied territories, which he said current trends make highly unlikely — because of the Israeli settlements, and because Israel was unlikely to ever relinquish control and allow a truly independent, viable sovereign Palestinian state due to fears for their own security. (His definition of “sovereignty” and “viability” was very much the same as discussed by Halper);
(2) A single state, in which Israel totally absorbs all the West Bank and Gaza creating a greater Israel, but allows Palestinians full citizenship rights — he thought this unlikely also, as the Palestinians would form too large a minority population, and Israel is still committed to maintaining their identity as a Jewish state;
(3) Forcibly deporting ALL Palestinians from the currently occupied territories,and creating a greater Israel by absorbing all the occupied territories — very unlikely also, from the sheer numbers of people involved and the strong opposition from the international community (and from within Israel too); or
(4) Exactly what Halper is discussing here in the article — Israel absorbing and controlling huge chunks of the occupied territories, while gradually pushing the Palestinians into smaller, disconnected territories, with tight border controls and highly restricted right of travel between them — creating an apartheid state. This, Mearsheimer said, based on the current situation and trends, was the most likely outcome.
So Halper isn’t the only one on this track of thinking. And Jimmy Carter is absolutely right, this will not bring peace.
It will not make Israel more secure, or prevent terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians. And like the apartheid policies of South Africa, it is not sustainable indefinitely.
I too want to hear what the Democratic candidates have to say on this issue. This — and Iraq — are the real barriers to a more stable, peaceful Middle East… not Iran, regardless of any rhetoric from the White House or those in Congress (from both parties) who are using Bush Administration talking points without considering the credibility of the source.
what do the Democratic candidates propose to do?
I hope you meant that as a joke, Steven. If none of the “serious” candidates are willing to say that a US attack on Iran (in which the US would be acting as Israel’s proxy) would be a bad idea, what are the chances of their calling for some sort of equitable solution to the I/P conflict, something that more directly and obviously would damage Israel’s perceived self-interest?
Don’t you remember the flak that Howard Dean got for merely saying that the US should be “even-handed” in its Middle East policy, even though “it’s unclear how much Dean has strayed from AIPAC orthodoxy“?
When you think that Kusinich is the only presidential(non)candidate to discuss this bind, one has to believe that foreign policy in the Middle East and Palestine will continue to be dictated by DLC/AIPAC directives. That means no Palestinian state or at best a few bantustans in order to get the Palestinians out of the way of the Greater Israel dream.
The Palestinians will not like this conclusion. What will happen, according to Halper in his article, The Problem With Israel, is that Israel will become the Apartheid South Africa of the 80s, and no amount of news censorship or propaganda will keep this issue from entering the American mind, as Palestinians are decimated in the target-shoot that the Palestinian bantustans will become.
For some time now, I have thought that the Palestinians will only get their state once America collapses as an empire—assuming, of course, that Israel will not have ethnically cleansed Palestine of Palestinians before then.
Ironically, what is accelerating the demise of the American empire is America’s “close relationship” with Israel.
For the record, when I speak of America as an “empire”, I am merely using the terminology of our present administration. To repeat Ron Suskind’s quotation of a “high administration official” in his piece Faith, Certainty and the Presidency of George W. Bush: ‘We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality.”
We have always, to some extent, been an empire. All but a tiny portion of the territory of the US was acquired by armed force, much of it involving a successful genocide of the sort Hitler failed to accomplish against the Jews, and which the Israelis are now attempting to accomplish against the Palestinians. (Maybe the Israelis will let the Palestinians operate casinos in their Bantustans once their population has been reduced to neglible levels.)
While we have gotten tantalizingly close on occasion, the history of America is the history of high ideals seldom lived up to.
Very good points. I agree that what the English colonists, and their successor the United States, did to the native American population was the moral equivalent of the Holocaust, so that Americans (or the English for that matter) have no basis whatsoever to claim any moral superiority to the Germans, including the Germans during their Nazi phase. On the other hand, the native Americans did not have organized states of the kind that emerged in Europe after the Thirty Years War at the latest, so that it was kind of inevitable that the (non-native) Americans would take over pretty much the same territory that they now occupy.
The US has used military force to impose its will on Latin America since the Monroe Doctrine. It is reasonable to call such behavior imperialistic. Still, when it came to the rest of the world, with a few exceptions, the US has used soft power rather than hard power. After World War II, it was the Soviet Union that went into countries under its domination with tanks when they got out of line, not the United States. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union however, the US feels increasingly at liberty to adopt the ways of the Soviet Union.
Like the Soviet Union during its terminal, stagnant phase, the United States no longer has anything positive to offer to the rest of the world. It even depends on other countries for its high-tech manufactured products, as the Soviet Union did. Thus, the only way the US has left to influence the rest of the world is brute force.