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Incarceration or Transfer: The Post-Incursion Plan
by Jeff Halper
Like Sharon's 1982 war in Lebanon, which was also minimized as simply an
"operation" (Operation Peace for the Galilee), Operation Defensive Shield
had political goals far beyond that indicated by its modest "defensive"
name. Under the guise of destroying the "infrastructure of terrorism,"
Sharon (and his willing partner Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, the elected head of
the Labor Party) believe they have accomplished two major goals that
fundamentally alter the political situation. In Jenin they destroyed the
Palestinians' ability to resist the ever-expanding Occupation. And in
Ramallah they destroyed the infrastructure of Palestinian civil society,
rendering the Palestinians unable to govern themselves. To be sure,
terrorist "incidents" will still occur occasionally, but the Israeli army is
today engaged in mopping up exercises. It enters Palestinian areas with
absolute impunity, with nary a whiff of opposition from the international
community.
The Israeli government believes it has defeated the Palestinians once and
for all. What is left is mopping up operations what we are witnessing these
days in towns and cities throughout the West Bank and construction of a
type of rule that leaves Israel firmly in control of Jerusalem and the West
Bank (and its settlement network intact), yet relieves it of direct rule
over the Territories' three million Palestinians. It is no coincidence
that Israeli and American insistence on "reforms" within the Palestinian
Authority begin with the security services and that Washington has
"discovered" in Muhammad Dahlan a "leader" it can deal with. So, too, can
the vilification campaign being waged against Arafat be interpreted as
trying to get beyond him to a leader who will sign off on a mini-state that
ensures Israel's continued control.
In order to make this all palatable to the international community, however,
Israel and the US must also offer a sop to the notion of Palestinian
self-determination. The outlines of Sharon's grand scheme are already taking
shape on the ground. Israel's emerging post-incursion strategy has three
main components:
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"Separation." On the surface the notion of "separation" seems to be an
innocent security measure. It involves the construction of a massive "buffer
zone" extending along the "Green Line" some 10-20 kilometers into
Palestinian territory, where Israel is currently erecting a formidable maze
of concrete walls and barricades, trenches, canals, electrified and
barbed-wire fences, bunkers, guard towers, surveillance cameras, security
crossings and platforms. While it has its security side, the policy of
separation is intended to delineate the areas of the West Bank that Israel
wishes to claim. In eliminates forever the possibility that the thick
corridor between the Ariel settlement bloc and Greater Jerusalem will be
relinquished to the Palestinians, as Clinton's plan envisioned. It places
the large settlements in the western part of the West Bank squarely (and
irreversibly) within the de facto border created by the security
installations including East Jerusalem, which is today being "isolated"
from the wider West Bank. "Separation" is, in the end, a mechanism for
annexation of about 15% of the West Bank under the guise of "security,"
effectively removing it as a subject of negotiation. The militarized "buffer
zone" is only one component of a wider system of incorporation that includes
the construction of the Trans-Israel Highway and the "by-pass" highways that
link it to the settlements.
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Cantonization. One of the most dramatic outcomes of the Israeli
incursions is the effective nullification of Areas A, B and C, fundamental
components of the Oslo process. Instead a new, more rational form of control
is emerging, one that institutionalizes the siege on the Palestinian cities
and turns it into a permanent administrative arrangement. The
extra-territorial status of Areas A and B, supposedly under the civil
jurisdiction the Palestinian Authority, has been effectively ended. Areas A
and B will be replaced by an even more constricting system of cantons
(called euphemistically and misleadingly "security zones" in Israeli
parlance). The West Bank, it was announced this week, will be carved into
eight zones organized around the major cities: Jenin, Nablus, Qalqilya, Tul
Karm, Ramallah, Jericho, Bethlehem and Hebron. Gaza will be divided into
three such zones. Besides restrictions on movement of people, Palestinian
cargoes will have to be transferred "back-to-back" to Israeli trucks at
platforms strategically located between Palestinian cities, then
re-transferred back to Palestinian vehicles for transport to their
Palestinian destinations. Cargo travelling between Hebron and Jenin, for
example, will have to be loaded and unloaded some five or six times. Not
only does this policy violate international law guaranteeing freedom of
movement in occupied territories, it also deals a devastating blow to
Palestinian commerce, already virtually moribund.
Cantonization also requires restrictions on Palestinian movement reminiscent
of South Africa's notorious "pass laws." Palestinian residents will need
permits issued by the Civil Administration, Israel's military government,
for travel between cities and cantons within the West Bank and Gaza. These
permits will be valid for specified hours only (5 AM-7 PM), and will have to
be renewed each month. Like the South African "passbooks," these internal
permits imprison Palestinian residents within their tiny cantons. The Civil
Administration has also announced that West Bank residents of Areas A and B
will be denied all entry to Israel (including East Jerusalem), thus
tightening the already strangling "closure."
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Settlement and Israel-Only Highway Expansion. Besides military and
administrative measures, Israel has always relied on "creating facts on the
ground" to make its presence in the Occupied Territories irreversible and
neutralize any attempt to wrest control from it. Simultaneous to presenting
its cantonization plan, the government publicly announced its intention to
build 957 housing units in the West Bank settlements, most in the "Greater
Jerusalem" area. Both its timing and the casual, almost contemptuous way it
was announced at a time when the international community is working to
freeze settlement construction under the US Tenet Plan indicates the degree
to which Israel feels its activities are beyond international control. And
the construction of the 480 kilometer system of "by-pass" highways that link
the settlements into Israel while creating additional barriers to
Palestinian movement continues unabated.
Since the Palestinians have been roundly and, in Sharon's view, permanently
defeated, there is no longer any need to give even lip-service to the
limited independence envisioned for the Palestinians in the Oslo "peace
process." The ongoing incursions begun in late March have destroyed Oslo
once and for all a key goal of Sharon and his predecessor/successor
Netanyahu. We have returned to the notion of "autonomy" formulated by
Sharon's mentor Menachem Begin, and for which the Civil Administration was
established in 1981 and for which the war in Lebanon was fought in 1982. The
Palestinians' choice, to put it starkly but precisely, is between
incarceration and transfer.
Sharon's grand scheme (until such a time that transfer is made possible,
i.e. when a Palestinian state emerges in Jordan) is today emerging "on the
ground" as follows:
The West Bank will be divided into three or four separate cantons according
to settlement blocs and Israeli highways already in place. A northern canton
would be created around the city of Nablus, a central one around Ramallah
and a southern one in the area of Hebron, with a possible separation of
Qalkilya and Tul Karm from the rest. Each would be disconnected from the
other and connected independently to Israel. A road or two might connect the
different cantons, but checkpoints and cargo docks would ensure completely
Israeli control. Each canton would be granted local autonomy under the
supervision of the Civil Authority.
Since the international community would demand a sop (no more) to
Palestinian self-determination, Gaza will become the Palestinian state,
probably when Arafat leaves the scene and a more compliant leader can be
found to sign off on such an arrangement. If Israel was hard-pressed to
concede more, it could upgrade the status of the Palestinians in the West
Bank from "residents of autonomous cantons" to Palestinian "citizens without
endangering its control.
Does Israel really believe this scenario is possible, that the Palestinians
will submit to a truncated set of autonomous islands instead of a viable and
truly sovereign state? The answer is "yes." Given the state of international
response for the foreseeable future, Israel sees little effective opposition
to this arrangement provided that it can maintain a kind of "industrial
quiet" that will allow the US, Europe and the Arab states to get on with
their particular agendas. Besides some discordant noises coming from NGOs
and some churches (as well as the Muslim community abroad, whose influence
has been largely neutralized since 9-11), the international community has
proven extremely compliant. Incarceration, and eventually transfer, seems
eminently plausible to Sharon and his colleagues. Despite protestations by
Sharon, the May 12th vote by acclamation of the Likud Central Committee
against the establishment of any Palestinian state flowed logically and
smoothly from "Operation Defensive Shield."
Jeff Halper (53) is the Coordinator of the Israeli Committee Against House
Demolitions (ICAHD) and a Professor of Anthropology at Ben Gurion
University. He has lived in Israel since 1973.
Source:
by courtesy & © 2003
Jeff Halper & ICAHD
by the same author:
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