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PALESTINIAN STATE
NO MORE
"A Palestinian state can just as easily be a prison
as a legitimate state that addresses the national
aspirations of its people."
"Prime Minister Ariel Sharon - in spectacular fashion and with
both overt and tacit support from Washington - is fast imposing
a blueprint for Israel's permanent borders... Sharon's go-it-alone
approach - imposing realities on the ground even before negotiations
begin - is likely to hurt peace prospects, torpedo hopes for a
contiguous Palestinian state and undermine efforts by the new
Palestinian leadership to show their people that moderation pays."
MIDDLEEAST.ORG - MER - Washington - 31 March: So many delusions, so many distortions, so much refusal to face realities...and from so many. Why, ask yourself, in recent years has it become those most antagonistic toward the Palestinians, including Ariel Sharon and George Bush, who have so publicly become such rhetorical advocates of a 'Palestinian State' after all these years? And why have so many others who have long struggled for a 'Palestinian State' become such opponents of the 'roadmap' and the 'peace process' that is supposed to bring this 'Palestinian State' into being?
Actually the realities both on the ground and historically are considerably more complicated than this, though for current public opinion and daily journalism things may appear this way.
The actual realities include that way back in the Carter Administration, back at the time of the first extraordinary Camp David summit in 1978, the American President and much of the world were promising an independence 'Palestinian homeland' according to U.N. Resolution 242. Before that a Palestinian State was enshrined in the original 1947 U.N. 'partition resolution', and so many thereafter. Before that the Arabs of Palestine had been repeatedly promised, ad nauseum in fact, that nothing would be done to compromise their rights and that in fact no 'Jewish State' would be allowed to replace what the whole world until 1948 knew as 'Palestine'.
Back in 1978 many of the key parties -- including Egypt under President Anwar Sadat, many leading statesmen at the time, as well as the American President -- were all claiming to be pushing hard a Palestinian State. The political poison which is now finally publicly spoken of by Tony Blair, et. al., was already well-known and having its effects. But the Israelis always had Jewish colonization, Palestinian dispossession, settlements 'on-the-ground', and political deception in mind. And all the while it was Ariel Sharon and his many colleagues and friends, including Yitzhak Rabin who held a private secret meeting with Sharon throughout his own time as Prime Minister, who were in the forefront of Israeli expansion and Palestinian misery.
For the Americans though, that first Middle East Camp David summit and everything since was really about geostrategic concerns, with the Palestinians then as now but a small pawn on the world chessboard. Back then it was the aftermath of the 1973 war, the midst of the Cold War, and one of the major goals was to shift Egypt to the American orbit from the Russian, and to contain the situation through 'step-by-step' diplomacy a la Henry Kissinger. In the end the lies and deceptions of 'step-by-step' on top of past failed U.S. and British policies led to mounting destruction and bloodshed, then in a convoluted way to 9/11, and now to the Clash of Civilizations with no end in sight.
Back then, at the time of Camp David I, a real Palestinian State was still possible. The Jordanian Hashemite Throne was finally being forced to give up its own designs on the West Bank, Palestinian nationalism was advancing more than ever, only 40,000 Israeli settlers were in place in the 'occupied territories', and the crucial Jerusalem area was not nearly as Judaized and sealed-off from Palestinians as is now the case.
Now to the present. Those who have been promoting the 'road map' have been from the start either purposefully disingenuous or guilty of extraordinary naivety and gullibility. Furthermore, it's not because of what is happening at Maale Adunim, "E-1" in the news again this month, that a real Palestinian State can no longer be. Recent events may be like the final nail in the coffin, but the coffin itself has been ready and waiting for some time already. And the lid has already been firmly placed on the coffin thanks not only to Ariel Sharon's policies but to those of Rabin, Peres, and Barak before him when in fact settlements were more than doubled and Jewish Jerusalem greatly expanded.
All these realities by the way help explain why deceitful Israeli front-groups like Brit Tzedek v'Shalom and American for Peace Now, as well as quisling Palestinian front-groups like The American Task Force on Palestine, have to try so hard these days to make people think the 'peace process' is other than a facade and a 'Palestinian State' still about to be born if only this and if only that. As we said at the top: 'So many delusions, so many distortions, so much refusal to face realities...and from so many.'
The following articles, one from a committed Israeli activist, the other from the AP, help explain the situation even if without the sufficient bluntness that is now necessary for people to really understand and appreciate what has happened and what is happening. Furthermore, there is so much culpability to be shared -- including terrible Arab and Palestinian weakness, incompetence, corruption, and co-optation -- all tragically leading to the basic result that the so long discussed and repeatedly promised 'Palestinian State' is in reality no more.
E-1: THE END OF A VIABLE PALESTINIAN STATE
The fatal flaw in most analyses of the Israel-Palestine conflict is the assumption that if the Palestinians can just get a state of their own, then all will be fine. A state on all the Occupied Territories (UN Resolution 242), on most of the Occupied Territories (Oslo and the Road Map to the Geneva Initiative), on even on half the Occupied Territories (Sharon's notion) - it doesn't matter. Once there's a Palestinian state the conflict is over and we can all move on to the next item on the agenda.
Wrong. A Palestinian state can just as easily be a prison as a legitimate state that addresses the national aspirations of its people. The crucial issue is viability. Israel is a small country, but it is three times larger than the Palestinian areas. The entire Occupied Areas - the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza - make up only 22% of Israel/Palestine. That means that even if all of the territories Israel conquered in 1967 were relinquished, it would still comprise a full 78% of the country. Would the Palestinian areas constitute a viable state? Barely. Just the size of the American state of Delaware (but with three times the population before refugees return), it would at least have a coherent territory, borders with Israel, Jordan, Syria and Egypt, a capital in Jerusalem, a port on the Mediterranean, an airport in Gaza, a viable economy (based on Holy Land tourism, agriculture and hi-tech) and access to the water of the Jordan River. An accepted member of the international community enjoying trade with its neighbors - and enjoying as well the support of a far-flung, highly educated and affluent diaspora - a small Palestinian state would have a shot at viability.
This is what Israel seeks to prevent. Ever since becoming the head of the Ministerial Committee on Settlements in the Begin government back in 1977, Ariel Sharon has been completely up-front about his intention of securing the entire Land of Israel for the Jewish people. “Security” has nothing to do with Israel's expansionist policies. Successive Israeli governments did not establish 200 settlements because of security. Nor did they build a massive infrastructure of Israeli-only highways that link the settlement blocs irreversibly into Israel for security reasons. Nor can the route of the Separation Barrier, nor the policy of expropriating Palestinian land and systematically demolishing Palestinian homes be explained by “security.” They all derive from one central goal: to claim the entire country for Israel. Period.
Still, Israel cannot “digest” the 3.6 million Palestinians living in the Occupied Territories. Giving them citizenship would nullify Israel as a Jewish state; not giving them citizenship yet keeping them forever under occupation would constitute outright apartheid. What to do? The answer is clear: establish a tiny Palestinian state of, say, five or six cantons (Sharon's term) on 40-70% of the Occupied Territories, completely surrounded and controlled by Israel. Such a Palestinian state would cover only 10-15% of the entire country and would have no meaningful sovereignty and viability: no coherent territory, no freedom of movement, no control of borders, no capital in Jerusalem, no economic viability, no control of water, no control of airspace or communications, no military - not even the right as a sovereign state to enter into alliances without Israeli permission.
And since the Palestinians will never agree to this, Israel must “create facts on the ground” that prejudice negotiations even before they begin. Last week's announcement that Israel is constructing 3500 housing units in E-1, a corridor connecting Jerusalem to the West Bank settlement of Ma'aleh Adumim, seals the fate of the Palestinian state. As a key element of an Israeli “Greater Jerusalem,” the E-1 plan removes any viability from a Palestinian state. It cuts the West Bank in half, allowing Israel to control Palestinian movement from one part of their country to another, while isolating East Jerusalem from the rest of Palestinian territory. Since 40% of the Palestinian economy revolves around Jerusalem and its tourist-based economy, the E-1 plan effectively cuts the economic heart out of any Palestinian state, rendering it nothing more than a set of non-viable Indian reservations.
If there is any silver lining in the E-1 plan, it is that it has highlighted American complicity in Israel's settlement expansion. The Bush Administration, while calling the E-1 plan “unhelpful,” nevertheless formally recognized the Ma'aleh Adumim settlement bloc, together with E-1, in last year's agreement between Bush and Sharon - a fundamental American policy change that was ratified almost unanimously by Congress. This puts the US in the very uncomfortable position of undermining its own Road Map initiative, which stems from the “Bush vision” of an Israeli-Palestinian peace. It also neutralizes completely America's role as an honest broker, and pits it against the other three members of the Road Map Quartet - Europe, the UN and Russia - who deplore the change in American policy. Most tragically, American support for Sharon's settlement project destroys forever the possibility of a viable Palestinian state, dooming the peoples of Israel-Palestine to perpetual conflict. How this squares with American interests in a stable Middle East is anybody's guess.
* Jeff Halper, Coordinator of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD)
Sharon Plan Looking Like Border Blueprint
By STEVEN GUTKIN
JERUSALEM (AP - 31 March 2005) - Prime Minister Ariel Sharon - in spectacular fashion and with both overt and tacit support from Washington - is fast imposing a blueprint for Israel's permanent borders that would extend beyond the 1967 frontiers the Palestinians say should frame their future state.
Two parliamentary votes this week cleared the final hurdles to Sharon's plan to vacate the Gaza Strip and four West Bank settlements this summer. The government also plans to expand the West Bank's largest Jewish settlement, vowing to encompass it and others on the Israeli side of a massive separation barrier.
Many Israelis hope that Sharon's ``disengagement'' plan - quitting some Palestinian land and building the barrier in the West Bank - will be the beginning of the end of Israel's occupation of land captured in the 1967 Mideast war and possibly pave the way for a two-state solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
But critics say Sharon's go-it-alone approach - imposing realities on the ground even before negotiations begin - is likely to hurt peace prospects, torpedo hopes for a contiguous Palestinian state and undermine efforts by the new Palestinian leadership to show their people that moderation pays.
Palestinians say that Washington's unwavering support for controversial Israeli policies - all in the name of shoring up Sharon as he tries to push through ``disengagement'' - damages efforts to build confidence just as peace hopes are at their highest level in years following the Nov. 11 death of Yasser Arafat.
``If there is any change to the 1967 borders, it must be within the framework of negotiations and it must be through an equal exchange of land ... and not by enforcing realities on the ground,'' Palestinian Foreign Minister Nasser Al-Qidwa told reporters in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Wednesday.
Sharon will meet with President Bush in Texas next month, and several Israeli officials said they expect the prime minister to seek further U.S. support for Israel's plan to hold on to large tracts of West Bank land near Jerusalem in any future peace deal.
Citing fierce domestic opposition to disengagement, Israel has quietly asked the United States to refrain from criticizing it about settlement expansion or any other issue until after the pullouts are complete this summer, Israeli officials confirmed.
That request - and the apparent U.S. acquiescence to it - highlights the enormous importance both nations are placing on the withdrawal plan.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has sent conflicting signals about Israel's plans to build 3,650 homes around the Maaleh Adumim settlement near Jerusalem, which if completed would effectively cut off West Bank Palestinians from their intended capital in East Jerusalem.
In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Rice said the expansion was ``at odds'' with U.S. policy, her sharpest criticism of Israel since taking office in January. Then she appeared to step back, declining in a subsequent interview with the Washington Post to repeat the assertion.
Later, she reaffirmed Washington's support for Israel to retain major West Bank settlements under an eventual peace deal, telling Israel Radio that ``the changes on the ground, the existing major Israeli population centers will have to be taken into account in any final status negotiation.''
Meanwhile, a joint U.S.-Israeli project to delineate settlement ``building lines'' beyond which no new houses can be constructed has been suspended, ostensibly over technical disagreements. Israeli officials concede, however, that the main reason for the suspension were the U.S. allowances to Sharon in the run-up to disengagement.
Israeli columnist Gershom Gorenberg said the U.S. failure to enforce its official policy opposing Israeli settlement expansion serves as an incentive ``for Sharon to try to draw his map on the hillsides.''
It's also ``a further factor weakening Abu Mazen,'' said Gorenberg, referring to the nickname of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.
In recent days Israeli officials have played down the Maaleh Adumim expansion, saying it's still a long way from implementation and pointing out that Israel is constructing a major junction that would allow Palestinians to access east Jerusalem.
Other officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, acknowledged that Israeli policy is to be deliberately vague about the settlement issue to avoid a domestic or international outcry that could imperil disengagement.
Gideon Meir, an Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman, said the world must understand that Israel is going through ``a painful process'' with its planned evacuation of Jewish settlers this summer.
``The scenes you are going to see on TV are not going to be nice scenes,'' he said. ``Therefore this process has to be dealt with in a delicate way.''
Increasingly virulent opponents on the Israeli right are denouncing Sharon as a traitor and a sellout for his plan to give up land after a lifetime championing Jewish settlements.
Others, however, hail him as the Jewish state's strongest leader since David Ben-Gurion.
Wrote columnist Yoel Marcus in the Haaretz daily: ``With Sharon's bold and single-minded efforts to create permanent borders for Israel, he is imposing on this country its most important national agenda since the (1967) Six-Day War.''
* Steven Gutkin is AP's bureau chief in Jerusalem.
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March 2005
London Mayor Has His Very Public Say About Israel
(March 30, 2005)
"Today the Israeli government continues seizures of Palestinian land for settlements, military incursions into surrounding countries and denial of the right of Palestinians expelled by terror to return. Ariel Sharon, Israel's prime minister, is a war criminal who should be in prison, not in office... Sharon continues to organise terror."
(March 30, 2005)
"Today the Israeli government continues seizures of Palestinian land for settlements, military incursions into surrounding countries and denial of the right of Palestinians expelled by terror to return. Ariel Sharon, Israel's prime minister, is a war criminal who should be in prison, not in office... Sharon continues to organise terror."
Palestinian Defeat on top of 'Death of the Arabs
(March 10, 2005)
As usual the 'Palestinian Authority' along with its quisling groupings and p.r. flaks has done a miserably incompetent job dealing with just about everything over the years, including of late'The Wall' which now defines Palestinian anquish, isolation, and defeat.
Palestine State No More
(March 31, 2005)
So many delusions, so many distortions, so much refusal to face realities...and from so many. Why, ask yourself, in recent years has it become those most antagonistic toward the Palestinians, including Ariel Sharon and George Bush, who have so publicly become such rhetorical advocates of a 'Palestinian State' after all these years? And why have so many others who have long struggled for a 'Palestinian State' become such opponents of the 'roadmap' and the 'peace process' that is supposed to bring this 'Palestinian State' into being?
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