In the last few years, more
attention has been given to the idea of transforming the Occupied Palestinian Territories into a Bantustan. Is this the end of the so-called ‘two-state’
solution?
It’s important to
understand Israeli intentions towards the Occupied Territories. First, Israel considers the State of Israel, the West
Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza to be one country. The Occupied Territories make up only 22% of the
country. The other 78% of what was historically Palestine, from the River Jordan to the Mediterranean, is now the State of Israel. The
Palestinians, in their 1988 declaration of independence in Algeria, and again in 1993 during the Oslo process, recognised Israel’s1967
borders. In other words, the two-state solution that we talk about means that
Israel would get 78% of the
country, and Palestine 22%. This 22% is problematic. The
question is not only whether such a small area is viable, but also how the
occupying Israeli presence could be removed – since there are now over 200
Israeli settlements throughout the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza, supported by an
entire infrastructure. In other words, how we could roll back this massive
occupation? This is the real problem, at least from the official Palestinian
point of view. Now, the Israelis look at this completely differently. For the
Israelis, this is one country, there are no occupied territories, there is no
Palestinian area, it is one country, it is the land of Israel, it belongs
exclusively to the Jewish people, and this is the whole thrust of the Zionist
movement that is reflected today in Israeli policy. There was never ever a
genuine intention, in the days of the Oslo peace process, to create a viable
Palestinian state.
Israel has claimed the
entire country, and in fact over the last 35 years of the Occupation, since
1967, it has worked hard to incorporate the West Bank irreversibly into
Israel so that it will be permanent.
So it is impossible to
detach the Occupied Territories from Israel in order to create a Palestinian State?
Within the widespread
Israeli settlements of the Occupied Territories, we have seven major settlement
blocks: the Jordan Valley settlements, the Ariel block settlements right in the
middle of the West Bank, the large settlement block Ma’ale Adummim, the whole
greater Jerusalem area which comprises several smaller blocks, the corridor
running up from the south to Hebron, the settlement of Kiryat Arbà, and the Gaza
block. These are the areas that Israel wants to keep, and you might say that,
over the last 35 years, Israel has actually succeeded in making it one
country, in making it impossible to detach the West Bank from
Israel. The problem is that
Israel wants the country, but doesn’t
want the Palestinians. Because if in fact this were one country today, then with
5.5 million Jews and 4.5 million Palestinians it wouldn’t be a Jewish country
any more - especially if we take into account the 4 million refugees that claim
their right to return. So this is the dilemma, we want the whole country but we
don’t want the Palestinians, and the answer is a Bantustan: the same logic and the same structure as found
in South African apartheid. This means that Israel will keep
its settlement blocks that allow it to keep control of the area, but the
Palestinians will get cantons, or little islands (area A-B on the map). This is
where Palestinians are pretty much confined, in over 200 islands throughout the
West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza; they are unable to move from one island
to another.
If we look at map 1,
what we see is the emergence of these Palestinian islands, surrounded by Israeli
settlements and roads. They are to be found to the north of the West Bank around
the city of Nablus, in the Jordan Valley, next to the Ariel settlement, and beside the
wall of separation that Israel is building all the way down through the
West Bank. This wall, three to four times
longer that the Berlin wall, two metres higher (at eight metres high), and 15
metres wide (that’s half a football field wide), will be tremendously fortified:
it has minefields, snipers, tank positions, and artillery, and it is being built
3-6 kilometres inside the Palestinian territory, which means that the wall will
take between 7-10% of the West Bank, and so 70,000 Palestinians will find
themselves living between the border and the wall. It is a tremendous project of
oppression.
Each Palestinian canton
will be separated from the others by settlements and bypass roads, and will be
integrated into Israel
horizontally, rather than looking at the West
Bank as one unit. We have the northern island to the north of West
Bank, a central canton around the city of Ramallah, the large area of greater
Jerusalem defined in the south by a buffer zone and the wall, then the Jordan
Valley settlements, then a third disconnected island around the city of Hebron
in the south, also isolated from the rest, and a fourth canton will be in Gaza;
finally, it might be that little islands of neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem
will be given to the Palestinians. So this allows Israel to maintain control of the Occupied Territories. In this structure, the
Palestinians might get most of the territory, but they don’t have a viable
sovereign state. Instead, the structure allows Israel total control of the territory, freedom of
movement, the border, the water-rich aquifers under the West Bank, the airspace, and the communications space.
Because the Palestinian mini-state or entity is divided into tiny islands, there
is no possibility of developing a viable economy, so the Palestinians are left
with a little truncated mini-state, totally dependent on, and controlled by,
Israel.
Following your analysis, the issue is more about control
than territory.
Yes, let’s take as an
example the generous offer of Barak, that gives up 95% of the territory to the
Palestinians. First of all this is not true, there was never a 95% offer, but
let’s say it is true, let’s go with the 95%. It sounds wonderful on paper, you’d
never get 100% in negotiations and so obviously if the Palestinians turn down 95
%, that means they are not reasonable, that they don’t want peace. But if we
look at it from the point of view of control, viability and sovereignty, then
when we examine the map we find out that the 5% makes the difference between a
viable state and a Bantustan, because the control of greater Jerusalem, where
most of the Palestinian economy is located, and control of the borders and water
and so on, can all take place within the 5%, the very strategic 5%. To use an
analogy I think helps to understand the relation of territory to control: think
about a plan of a prison. If you just look at the plan of the prison, it looks
like the prisoners own the place, 95% of the territory of the prison belongs to
the prisoners: the visiting areas, the living areas, the cafeteria, the exercise
yard, the work areas, they all belong to the prisoners, all the prison
authorities have is the 5% that’s left. And if it is a minimum-security prison
they might have 1%. It’s not a matter of territory; it’s a matter of
control.
Is
there any chance of a different scenario?
Things are so stalemated
today, everything seems so closed in, there is almost nowhere to go.
Israel is tremendously strong, the
Palestinians are very weak, and cannot throw off the occupation on their own.
Meanwhile the Arab countries are neutralised, Europe is passive, the
USA is behind
Israel, and the UN is neutralised.
There is almost nowhere to turn. In this terrible situation, some people are
thinking beyond the immediate obstacles, trying to map out a possible scenario
for the future, so that then we can begin to work our way back into a solution.
So a number of people are writing and thinking about scenarios for the future,
but the usual scenario is two states, it’s the basis of Oslo, the Palestinian
Authorities programme, and the Israeli peace movement. The problem with that is
that it might be not viable any more. Some now talk about the one-state
solution, and indeed if the PLO were to say, “OK Sharon, you win. One country,
the settlements remain, there will be no Palestinian state here. Now we
Palestinians want equal civil rights.” That would put Israel in a very difficult situation, because if
Israel said no, then it would be
outright apartheid; and of course, if it says yes, then it’s not a Jewish state
any more, so it is never going to say yes. That’s an interesting idea, and
personally I would have no problem whatsoever with a single state, the problem
is that Israelis will never go for it.
So
where do we go from here?
I believe that the
problems facing the area are regional in nature; they are not local. Whether we
have one state or two, this is too small an area to deal with fundamental issues
like security, water and refugees - a Palestinian state would have problems
dealing with refugees, economic development, issues of Israeli hegemony, and so
on. What I’m advocating is a regional approach, what I call a two-stage
approach. First of all, there has to be a Palestinian state, because
Palestinians have to have their own political space, self-determination, a flag,
they have to be part of the international community, they need sovereign
territory in the West Bank, as much as possible of East Jerusalem, and Gaza. But
there’s still the question of viability, so what I’m saying is, let’s look at
Europe: in Europe you have many different
countries, but people can live and work wherever they want to. The EU has
disconnected citizenship from residency, so Italians can go and live in
France, for unlimited periods,
everyone has a European passports. Now, if we adopted that here, I think that
would relieve the pressure on this tiny Palestinian state to address all the
problems of Palestinians, economics, refugees and so on. I propose a Middle
Eastern Union consisting of Israel, Palestine,
Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, which in a sense recreates the historic
union of this region as the greater Syria. I would also add
Egypt. Egypt is so important and it has had a peace
agreement with Israel for 35 years. This would make
a very meaningful geographical and economical unit. It could be one union, like
the European Union, where different states remain, citizenship remains, but you
have the freedom to live and work wherever you want to. This solution would give
the Palestinians a political space, but it does not matter if the occupation
disconnects the territory or not, because you have access in the entire region,
so Palestinians do not have to live within their boundaries, they can live
wherever they want to, especially because Palestinians consider Israel part of
Palestine too, so in a way it tremendously widens the borders, your living the
space is widened, and especially for refugees, this is the only way out, because
Israel will not accept many refugees.
I mean, no country is going to accept 100,000 people who are hostile to
it and who do not have citizenship, it is not going to happen. The fear of
Israel is demographic,
thousands or millions of refugees coming in will destroy Israel as a
Jewish state, but in this scenario the integrity of each state is recognised. If
refugees want to go home to the Galilee they
can do that, but as Palestinian citizens, not as Israeli citizens. This way,
Israel does not have problems
with lots of refugees coming in, there is enough land, there is enough work,
there are already 350,000 foreign workers in Israel, that’s
not a problem, the problem is if these refugees demand citizenship. So as
Palestinians they could live wherever they want, not necessarily within
Palestinian borders, but as Palestinians voting in the Palestinian elections
rather than in the Israeli elections, and from that point of view it does not
threaten the integrity of Israel.
Now, look at it the
other way around: you say to the settlers that if it is so difficult to remove
these settlements, then they will not be removed, but they are in Palestine, and the
settlers can continue to live in the settlements but as Israeli citizens, they
don’t vote in the Palestinian elections. The settlements of course are open to
Palestinians to move in, because it’s in Palestine, but Israelis can continue to live in Palestine and Palestinians
recognise them as Israeli citizens. The problem for the Palestinians is not that
there are Israelis living in West Bank, it is
that Israelis are living there exclusively, claiming exclusive rights and
control. If you neutralise that, and say, fine, you can continue to live here
but you are not controlling anything, you are living in Palestine, then I think
there will be no real problem. In this way, it is possible to start to
democratise and develop the entire region, because even if we have a separate
Israel and Palestine emerging, if
they emerge in a region that is poor and undemocratic, it’s going to be a very
unstable region, and it’s not going a work. Actually, the two united together
are very strong, because the Israeli economy and society are strong and the
Palestinians have a strong, rich and educated diaspora, which is a big resource.
Together these two will dominate the region anyway, so by creating the Middle
East Union we could create conditions in which the entire region develops.
That’s my ideal scenario for the future.
Interview
by Sandi Hilal and Alssandro Petti.
