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Seminar on youth and conflicts – Strasbourg, 31 March – 2 April 2003
 The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Emergence of Jewish and Arab nationalism
II The origins of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Partition of Palestine III Outstanding issues of the conflict At the beginning of the twentieth century, the land that came to be known as the Mandate of Palestine was part of the Ottoman Empire, which had ruled Western Asia since 1516. The people who lived in the area referred to it as Filastin, or by the Arabic phrase al-Ard al-Muqadassa (the Holy Land), reflecting its great importance to Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. Palestine was an area filled with hundreds of small villages and a few large towns. The population was spread across the hilly interior, which includes the Galilee region, Nablus, Hebron, Bethlehem, and Jerusalem; the fertile coastal plain, with Jaffa, Haifa, and Gaza; the Jordan Valley / Dead Sea region, where Jericho is located; and the Negev Desert, populated mostly by Bedouin tribes. The population was ethnically diverse, the legacy of migrations by Greeks, Romans, Turks, Persians, and Jews during the previous millenniums. As each group passed through, members were assimilated into the existing community, adding to its diversity but never displacing the Arabs who had settled there in the 600s. From the seventh century through the mid-twentieth century, Palestine was predominantly a Muslim area, although Christian Arab and Jewish communities also shared this small region. It is impossible to say for certain how many people lived in Palestine during the first decades of the twentieth century. A Turkish census of 1914 counted 690,000 people, and the British census of 1922 identified more than three-quarters of a million inhabitants, but both numbers are now considered to understate the true population. Of those counted by the 1922 British census, 78 percent were Arab Muslims, 11 percent were identified as Jewish, and nearly 10 percent were Christians. Virtually all the Christians and Muslims had been born in Palestine. Of the Jews, perhaps two-thirds were immigrants who had come to Palestine in the previous forty years; the remainder were part of a long-standing, culturally and linguistically assimilated community of primarily Orthodox Jews who saw their presence in the Holy Land as fulfilling a religious obligation rather than expressing a national political aim. Emergence of Jewish and Arab nationalism The transformation of the Levant – Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Israel, and the Palestine West Bank and Gaza Strip – from part of the Ottoman Empire to a group of modern states was swift, occurring over a period of less than thirty years. Although the process of building a sense of national identity was more difficult, it too was accomplished relatively rapidly. In 1850 neither Jews nor Arabs viewed themselves as members of an ethnically, culturally, linguistically homogeneous, territorially based nation in the modern sense of the word. Less than a century later, both had developed such identities. In the history of how this occurred are found the modern roots of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The first modern wave of Jewish immigrants to Palestine (1882-1903) was composed almost entirely of Russian and Polish Jews. Many come from Orthodox religious backgrounds and were attracted to Palestine, which they called Eretz Yisrael, as the biblical homeland, but a significant number of them were secular Jews. The majority of people settled in towns – Jaffa, Hebron, Haifa, Jerusalem – while a much more limited number set up agricultural communities supported by Jewish philanthropists like Baron Edmond de Rothschild. Most of these early settlers had few political ambitions. Distinctly political Zionism – Jewish nationalism – dates its beginning from the efforts of a secular, Viennese Jew named Theodor Herzl, an author and journalist. In his book The State of the Jews: An attempt at a Modern Solution to the Jewish Question, published in 1896, he presented the argument that Jews “are a people-one people,” and as such entitled to a separate state. Herzl intended to bring about Jewish migration and the creation of the Jewish state through Jewish philanthropic activities and with the assistance and involvement of the major European powers. An initial step was the First Zionist Congress, held in late August 1897 in Basel (Switzerland) and attended by some 200 delegates. Among the statements to come out of the congress was a resolution that began: “Zionism aims at the creation of a home for the Jewish people in Palestine to be secured by public law.” After the congress had ended, Herzl noticed that this major event marked the creation of the Jewish state. At the same time, the World Zionist Organization was established to facilitate the spread of Zionist ideas and the migration of Jews to Palestine. The political environment that made the idea of establishing a Jewish home in Palestine acceptable to large numbers of people has several foundations. First, the concept of Jewish return to the Promised Land had been embedded in the religious expressions of Jews – their liturgy and their traditions – ever since the Romans’ destruction of the Jewish synagogue in Jerusalem in 70 A.C. and the expulsion of the Jews from Jerusalem in the second century of our era. The subsequent persecution Jews experienced reinforced the idea that only with a return to the Promised Land would life again be good for the Jewish people. The spiritual importance of Jerusalem to Judaism was recognized by European and U.S. Christian religious and political leaders, many of whom believed they would be participating in a religiously significant task by helping the Jewish people settle in Palestine. It was a form of debt repayment to the people whose heritage was the historical basis of Christianity. At the same time, these European Jews could be expected to remain favourably inclined toward the policies of the European states. A Jewish homeland would therefore serve to protect Western interests in the region by adopting foreign policies similar to those of Europe and the United States. Jewish immigration to Palestine Prior to the First Zionist Congress, the numbers of people moving to Palestine were not great – about 25,000 between 1881 and 1900 – and their impact was limited. There was however a shift in ideology from the cultural and spiritual Zionism of the 1800s to the political, state building Zionism of the twentieth century. Whereas between 1919 and 1924 a total of only 35,000 Jews had moved to Palestine, between 1924 and 1939 an average of about 16,000 Jews immigrated each year. Immigration peaked in 1935. This massive influx was one of the main factors that triggered the 1936-1939 Arab Revolt in Palestine. By 1939, Jews made up 31 percent of the population of Palestine, a strong increase from 17 percent in 1931 and less than 10 percent in 1919. Arab and Palestinian nationalism At the same time that some Jews in Europe were dreaming of and planning for a Zionist state to serve as an expression of their national identity, throughout the Arab world the seeds of nationalism had been scattered. In the Levant (the eastern Mediterranean region), these ideas found a fertile ground and took root. In many ways, the development of Arab nationalism was more straightforward than that experienced by the early Zionist movement. The Arabs already had a shared language, culture, and history; they were in place, on the land, as they had been for hundreds of years. There was no need to create a sense e of community which to a large extent already existed. Initially, Arab nationalism was expressed primarily as a desire to replace Turkish Ottoman rule with local Arab political control. If the growth was slow especially in the 1800s, the initial lack of explicit Palestinian nationalism did not mean, however, that Palestinians simply acquiesced to European Jewish immigration. At first their actions took the form of unorganised and spontaneous resistance to their eviction, after its sale by absentee landowners, from the land on which they had lived and worked for generations. After the overthrow of the Ottoman sultan in 1908, anti-Zionist sentiments were more widely expressed and began to be explicitly linked with Arab and Palestinian nationalism. Palestinian Political Expression In the period immediately following the end of World War I, Palestinians were faced with an unclear political future. Ottoman rule had been replaced by British control, and independence seemed no closer than it had been under the Turks. If anything, the prospects appeared worse, for Britain pro-Zionist policy threatened Palestinian nationalist aspirations. Palestinians focused attention on appealing for independence from British control, resisting the implications of the Balfour Declaration (a letter by British Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour and endorsed by the British government that called for the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine), and demanding an end to Jewish immigration until the status of Palestine was clarified. They quickly recognized that Zionism would be detrimental to nascent Palestinian nationalist aspirations. In 1920s, Zionism and Palestinian nationalism were on a collision course, and the question was when the first major confrontation between these two communities would occur. In 1936 the Palestinian population took matters into its own hands. This revolt was the longest sustained protest against Jewish national aspirations in Palestine prior to Israel’s establishment as a state. The first stage of the revolt was a six-month period of strikes, non-payment of taxes, and other form of civil disobedience. The second stage began in the fall of 1937. It was sparked by the announcement of the Peel Commission report proposing to partition Palestine into two states (one Jewish and one Palestinian area to be merged with Jordan) in recognition of the competing claims of the two national groups. This plan was rejected by both the Palestinians and the Zionist Congress meeting which argued that this proposed state was too small, that Jews had an inalienable right to settle anywhere in Palestine, and that Britain should pay for the transfer of all Palestinians from the territory of the new Jewish state to the Jordan Valley. By 1938 the region was in complete turmoil, with Zionist, Palestinian, and British forces fighting for control. The cost in lives was enormous: 101 British soldiers, 463 Jews, and at least 3,073 (and probably closer to 5,000) Palestinians had been killed. At the same time, the Palestinian revolt had achieved one of its main objectives, although only for the short run: Britain scrapped the 1937 partition plan. By the late 1940s, and in the absence of a strong counterweight to Britain’s pro-Zionist sentiments, the rest of the world went along with Britain’s interpretation of the situation in Palestine and did not support Palestinian desires to self-determination. The near destruction of the Jewish people of Europe gained a tremendous measure of support for the Zionist movement and ideas, specially in the United States which contained the largest Jewish community in the world.
II The origins of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Partition of Palestine On 29 November 1947, the General Assembly voted in favour of the U.N. Resolution 181 on “the Future Government of Palestine” (also known as the “Partition Resolution”) called for the creation of two newly independent states – one Palestinian Arab and one Jewish to be closely linked economically. The British mandate was to end 15 May 1948, and the two states were to be established by 1 July 1948. Jews, who were less than one-third of the population and owned only 8% of the land, were given 56% of the territory of Palestine. The resolution was accepted by the Jews in Palestine (although Zionist leaders continued to state their belief that all of Palestine should eventually come under Jewish control), yet rejected by the Arabs in Palestine and the Arab states. The partition plan was seen by the Arabs as a grave injustice, especially since most Jews in Palestine were recent arrivals. Fighting then broke out between Jewish forces and local Palestinian militias. On 14 May 1948, the British evacuated Palestine, and Israel declared its independence. Several adjacent Arab countries declared war against the new state (on 15 May). During the war, Israeli forces destroyed over 500 Palestinian villages and captured 78% of historic Palestine including significant portions not originally allocated to it. The Gaza region was occupied by Egypt, and Jordan had taken control of the central hills that became known as the West Bank. By the war’s end, 70% of all Palestinians had been made refugees. The name “Palestine” was wiped off the political map of the world. On 11 December 1948, U.N. Security Council Resolution 194 stated that “the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date… compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return”. This resolution has never been implemented. During the first nineteen years of Israel’s existence, Palestinian nationalism was muted and resistance to Israel was expressed almost entirely by the surrounding Arab states. This changed dramatically in June 1967. Following a six-days war with Egypt, Syria and Jordan, Israel occupied the West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem, Sinai and the Golan Heights. It was then in possession of the remaining 22% of historic Palestine. The construction of settlements began in summer 1967. At this point, the conflict again took on elements of a Palestinian-Israeli nationalist clash. On 22 November 1967, U.N. Security Council Resolution 242 required Israel to withdraw to its borders prior to the recent conflict. This resolution has not been implemented yet. On 6 October 1973, start of the Yom Kippur war when Egyptian and Syrian armies launched attack to recover the territories occupied by Israel. On 22 October 1973, U.N. Security Council Resolution 338 requested parties involved in the conflict to “cease all firing and terminate all military activity immediately… and to start the implementation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242 (1967)”. Fighting stopped a few days later. In December 1987, Palestinians began a first popular uprising, or Intifada, for self-determination in an independent Palestinian state. This was seen by Palestinians and some Israelis as part of a nationalist war of resistance or liberation by Palestinians against Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip. The conditions under which the Palestinians had to live for more than forty years formed the long-term cause of the uprising. The feeling among them that external actors – the United Nations, the United States, and the Arab League – could not be counted on to create a political solution, also led to this explosion. The Intifada refocused global attention on the basic conflict between Zionists and Palestinians: which nation or nations will control the territory known as both Palestine and Israel, and what civil, political, social, economic, and cultural rights do those who live in the area have under whatever government rules the land? The Camp David Accords, signed on 17 September 1978 between Israel, Egypt and the United States were composed of two main documents. “A framework for peace in the Middle East” dealt with the West Bank and Gaza Strip. It called for a Palestinian self-governing authority to be followed by a five-year transition period, with the final status of the West Bank and Gaza Strip to be negotiated. The “Framework for the Conclusion of a Peace Treaty between Egypt and Israel” outlined an understanding for an eventual peace treaty between the two states. Six month later, on 26 March 1979, Sadat and Begin met in Washington D.C. to sign the treaty. On 30 October 1991, following years of armed conflict and official or unofficial bilateral contacts, opening of the Madrid Peace Conference by U.S. and Soviet presidents Bush and Gorbachev. On 3 November, first bilateral negotiations between Israel and its Arab neighbours, with the Palestinians included as part of a joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation. On 9-10 September 1993, mutual recognition by Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (created by the Arab League in May 1964) followed by the signature, on 13 September at the White House, of the Oslo Agreement. These Accords are a set of agreements between Israel and the Palestinians laying down a timetable and rules for the progressive implementation of autonomy on the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip and defining the conditions for the final negotiations and outstanding issues (Jerusalem, settlements, refugees, prisoners and water). Between 1993 (Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government) and 1999 (Sharm el-Sheikh Memorandum) a number of agreements (on economic relations, security arrangements, military redeployment, transfer of civil powers, extension of autonomy…) have been concluded between both parties (none refers to a “Palestinian state”), but in all cases their application has been considerably delayed. 2.3 Second Palestinian uprising On 28 September 2000, Likud leader Ariel Sharon’s visit to the Al-Aqsa precinct in Jerusalem, Islam’s third holiest place, combined with the failure of the peace process ignited a second Palestinian Intifada. Since then the spiral of violence and counter-violence (Palestinian suicide bombings on Israel’s territory and Israeli military operations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip) has not stopped, making the situation worse than during the first Intifada. The level of suspicion and distrust is also greater than at the begin of the 90s. By 24 March 2003, 2,036 Palestinians and 699 Israelis had been killed since the start of the second Intifada according to “Betselem” (the Israeli Information Centre for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, www.betselem.org). On 21 May 2001, Senator Mitchell’s final report calls for a freeze on the expansion of settlements and the imprisonment of Palestinian terrorists, to put an end to eight months of violence. On 27 February 2002, Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Abdullah proposals to restart the peace process, based on Israeli withdrawal from occupied territories in return for the recognition of Israel's right to exist. 12 March 2002, U.N. Security Council Resolution 1397 affirmed a vision of a region where “two States, Israel and Palestine, live side by side within secure and recognized borders” and called upon the Israeli and Palestinian sides “to co-operate in the implementation of the Mitchell Report recommendations with the aim of resuming negotiations on a political settlement”. On 28 March 2002, Beirut Declaration of the Arab summit on Saudi peace initiative called upon Israel to affirm “full Israeli withdrawal from all the territories occupied since 1967, to the June 4, 1967 lines… achievement of a just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem in accordance with U.N. Security Council Resolution 194 (1948)… the acceptance of the establishment of a sovereign independent Palestinian state on the Palestinian territories occupied since June 4, 1967 in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital”. Consequently, the Arab countries affirmed to “consider the Arab-Israeli conflict ended, and enter into a peace agreement with Israel… and establish normal relations with Israel…”. On 23 September 2002, U.N. Security Council Resolution 1435 (following Palestinian suicide bombing campaigns and Israeli re-occupation of main Palestinian cities) its demand for the complete end of all acts of terror, provocation, incitement and destruction. It demanded also that Israeli forces withdraw from Palestinian cities to positions held prior to September 2002 and called on the Palestinian Authority to meet its commitment to ensure that those responsible for terrorist acts are brought to justice.
III Outstanding issues of the conflict In the Declaration of Principles, or Oslo Agreement, signed by Yitzhak Rabin and Yasir Arafat in Washington on 13 September 1993 a number of issues fundamental to the establishment of peace in the region were deferred to the permanent status negotiations. The negotiations were postponed time and again but Israelis and Palestinians agreed a new timetable at the Oslo summit in November 1999. A framework agreement was to be reached by 15 February 2000 at the latest and a final agreement by 13 September 2000. The sensitive issues that still remain to be settled with both sides far apart on most of them are: the future status of Jerusalem, the right of return or adequate compensation for the 3.6 million displaced Palestinian refugees, the delineation of the final borders of Palestine, the water problem, the Jewish settlements and the arrangements for the establishment of a Palestinian state. Jerusalem's uniqueness is essentially political and religious. Geographically and economically, the growth and importance of Jerusalem is not comparable to other main cities in the region. In many senses, therefore, there was not much to favour the growth of a large urban settlement in Jerusalem. The fact that it continued and continues to be the focus of high drama, great passion and political tension requires further explanation. The key element must surely lie in the city's centrality for the three great monotheistic faiths of the Middle East - Judaism, Christianity and Islam. As a holy city it serves as a symbol, vehicle and embodiment of spiritual beliefs and aspirations, and so was given an elevated status which overcame its unpromising environment and location. The political symbol of Jerusalem in the contemporary period has eclipsed all other cities in the region as focus of competing claims. Resolution 181 of the General Assembly of the U.N. on 29 November 1947 in its third section recommended the creation of a separate entity (corpus separatum), demilitarised and neutral. A special “international regime” would be established in the city, to be administered by the Trusteeship Council on behalf of the United Nations. The Council was to draft within five months a detailed proposal for a statute for the city. The leaders on the Jewish side agreed to implement the partition plan, provided the Palestine Arabs did likewise. The latter, rejected the U.N. decision and one day after its adoption launched violent attacks on the Jewish community. The establishment of the State of Israel proclaimed on 14 May 1948 led to the first war between Israel and Arab states (Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Jordan, assisted by Saudi Arabia). It also brought a de facto division of the city into an eastern part, containing the walled Old City and most holy sites, occupied by Jordan, and a western part annexed by Israel which became the capital of the new Jewish state on 13 December 1949. On 5 June 1967 the Six-Day War broke out on the Israeli-Egyptian border. Although Israel had sent a message to Jordan that it had no intention to attack it and that if Jordan did not intervene Israel would not attack, the Jordanian Army began to shell west Jerusalem. Two days later Israeli troops captured East Jerusalem from the Jordanian army. Israeli jurisdiction and borders were extended to the Arab part of the city. The rest of the world never recognized Israel’s annexation. In November 1967 the Security Council adopted Resolution 242, emphasizing “the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war”. The Resolution did not refer explicitly to Jerusalem or state that Israel had to withdraw from the city. However Security Council Resolution 252 on 21 May 1968 declared all the legislative and administrative measures and actions taken by Israel to change Jerusalem’s status invalid and unable to alter the city’s status. The Palestinian inhabitants were issued with Israeli identity cards. They were subject to ordinary Israeli law and enjoyed the same social welfare benefits as Israelis. But discriminatory measures increased and their status as residents was increasingly called into question. Residency status was frequently withdrawn from Palestinians who could not prove that Jerusalem was the “centre of their existence”. On 30 July 1980 the Israeli parliament passed a basic law proclaiming “Jerusalem, complete and united” the capital of Israel. This decision was condemned by the U.N. Two years later, the Arab League summit in Fez adopted the principle of Al Quds (Jerusalem) as the capital of an independent Palestinian state. During the unofficial negotiations in 1996, former Israeli minister Yossi Beilin together with the Palestinian negotiator Abu Mazen proposed a three-point plan that fell short of the demands of the Palestinians, who were claiming East Jerusalem as the future capital of the Palestinian state. The three points were: - extraterritorial status and Palestinian administration of the Al-Aqsa Mosque Temple Mount; - creation of a Palestinian municipal council to manage East Jerusalem, linked with the Jewish municipal council of West Jerusalem through a joint municipal council; - maintenance of Israeli sovereignty to the exclusion of any form of dual sovereignty. A document also signed by Yossi Beilin and Abu Mazen put forward a solution involving a crucial Palestinian concession: East Jerusalem would remain under Israeli sovereignty but the suburb of Abu Dis, currently outside the city limits, would be renamed Al Quds and serve as the capital of the Palestinian state. At a meeting between Prime minister Barak and Yasir Arafat in November 1999, the Israelis rejected any division of the city, which they consider their “eternal and undivided capital”. The Palestinians claim East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state but accept that the city should not be divided by a border. The status of the city is also of concern to the international community, especially the Vatican and the Muslim countries, because of the presence of the holy places. Jerusalem is characterised by huge housing projects that testify to Israel's control and its desire to change the city's character. Israeli governments of the left and right have for years pursued a large scale policy of settling and extending the city by encroaching on West Bank territory in order to ensure its control of Greater Jerusalem. In 1999 the number of settlers in East Jerusalem was 180,000. Despite Israeli attempts to increase the Jewish majority in the whole of the city by pumping massive investment into Jerusalem, the Palestinian population in the east of the city continued to grow at a proportionate rate. One reason was simply the higher Palestinian birth rates, but another was a result of the occupation itself. The repressive rule of the Israeli military in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip made Jerusalem, in comparison, an area of cultural and economic respite for Palestinians in the occupied territories and, indeed, from inside Israel. Today, by Israel’s count, 210.000 Palestinians live in East Jerusalem, constituting nearly a third of the population of the entire city, which Israel puts at 640.000. But the Palestinians claim their true number is 348.000, accusing Israel census takers of consistently short-changing them. Continued Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem and the annexed areas is clearly unacceptable to Palestinians and will always make problematic agreements on other issues. For Palestinians, Jerusalem is the geographical, political and administrative as well as spiritual center of Palestine; there simply can be no state without a part of Jerusalem as its capital. It bisects the West Bank. Many Israelis find it hard to perceive the prospect of Palestinian or Arab sovereignty over the pre-1967 areas as anything other than a threat to the Jewish state's raison d'etre. Internationalization, along the lines envisaged by the UN in 1947, is fiercely opposed by Israelis. A shift in Israel's "non-negotiable" position should happen before serious negotiations on Jerusalem can start. For better or worse, Jerusalem's recent history shows a direct interplay between the relations between states on an international or regional level and the facts on the ground in the city. Future arrangements for sovereignty and administration will again reflect those relations, as well as the demands of both parties for recognition of their claims. Without international pressure there will be no shift in the Israeli position, and in the meantime changes on the ground will continue at the same frenetic pace. In Camp David already in 1978, Israelis and Egyptians already clarified their conflicting positions on this subject. In his letter to U.S. President Carter Egypt’s President Anwar al-Sadat stated: “1. Arab Jerusalem is an integral part of the West Bank. 2. Arab Jerusalem should be under Arab sovereignty. 3. The Palestinian inhabitants of Arab Jerusalem are entitled to exercice their legitimate national rightsn being part of the Palestinian People in the West Bank. 4. Relevant Security Council Resolutions, particularly Resolutions 242 and 267, must be applied with regrad to Jerusalem. All measures taken by Israel to alter the status of the City are null and void and should be rescinded”. The letter of Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin stated that “on 28 June 1967 – Israel’s Parliament (the Knesset) promulgated and adopted a law to the effect: ‘The Government is empowered by a decree to apply the law, the jurisdiction and administration of the State to any part of Eretz Israel (land of Israel – Palestine) as stated in that decree.’ On the basis of this Law, the Government of Israel decreed in July 1967 that Jerusalem is one city, indivisible, the Capital of the State of Israel.” On 30 July the Knesset enacted the Basic Law: Jerusalem, Capital of Israel, of which Article 1states that “Jerusalem, complete and united, is the capital of Israel.” According to Article 2, “Jerusalem is the seat of the President of the State, the Knesset, the Government and the Supreme Court.” This led to a negative reaction by the international community. Security Council adopted Resolution 478 censuring the new legislation and declaring it “a violation of international community law.” The resolution added that “all legislative and administrative measures” taken by Israel “wich have altered, or purport to alter “the city’s status” are null and void and must be rescinded forthwith.” All states having diplomatic missions in Jerusalem were called on to remove them from the city. None of the agreements reached so far between Palestinians and Israelis refers to a “Palestinian state”. For the Palestinian Authority, the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with full sovereignty over the whole territory of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem is the only solution. Israeli Labour party agrees to the existence of a Palestinian state. Negotiations in Camp David and the Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, also called Taba Agreement or Oslo II Agreement, concluded on 26 September 1995, came close to provide the Palestinians with a state along more or less with the lines of official demands. The current Israeli government despite the fact that it supports the existence of a Palestinian state, falls very short of Palestinian aspirations. In terms of the representation of Palestinians living inside and outside the territory of mandatory Palestine, a great deal has changed since the creation of the Palestine Liberation Organisation in 1964. The Palestinian Authority was established in 1994 and Yasir Arafat returned to the occupied territories. In January 1996 the first elections to the Palestinian interim institutions were held: the Palestinians of the inside elected a Legislative Council and a president, Yasir Arafat, by universal suffrage (both institutions constitute the Palestinian Interim Self-Government Authority). This was an interim arrangement due to end on 4 May 1999. The president is elected by universal suffrage and heads the executive body, the Authority, which is answerable to the Legislative Council. He may appoint one fifth of the members of the Authority from outside the Council. He has the right to convene sessions or not, to sign or not to sign the laws voted, and to take account, or not, of the Council's wishes in negotiations with Israel. But he has no power to dissolve the Council. The Legislative Council deals with civil matters and acts as an institutional counterweight to the executive. It has the right to question and criticise the President and to reject bills tabled by the Authority. It can pass votes of no confidence in ministers of the Authority but not in the President. The Israeli Labour party agrees to the existence of a Palestinian state. During the Camp David (July 2000) and Taba (January 2001) negotiations, Israelis came close to provide the Palestinians with a state along more or less with the lines of official demands. Current Israeli government despite the fact that it supports the existence of a Palestinian state, falls very short of Palestinian aspiration. These two issues are closely connected. Israel began a settlement policy in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem for reasons of security, defence and, above all, territorial expansion after its victory in June 1967. The settlements, contravening international law banning the movement of settlers into land taken during war (Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention), proliferated and were speeded up when the right came to power in 1977 and by the housing shortage. The settlers (describing themselves as “pioneers” claiming the biblical heartland of Judea and Samaria) were given many incentives, including housing subsidies, tax benefits and low mortgage rates. Invoking, according to circumstances, security considerations and laws dating back to the British mandate or the Ottoman empire, the Israelis control over two thirds of the available land in the West Bank and more than 40 % of the Gaza Strip. While no land except Jerusalem has been annexed officially, annexation has taken place de facto. The civil and military authorities have passed laws, regulations and orders concerning the settlers and giving them the same rights as people living in Israel. The Washington-based Foundation for Middle East Peace (www.fmep.org) estimates the number of Jewish settlers in the 200 settlements established on Palestinian territory at approximately 400,000. The breakdown is the following: 200,000 settlers in the West Bank, 6,500 in Gaza Strip, 17,000 in the Goal Heights and 180,000 in East Jerusalem (one third of the area of East Jerusalem has been expropriated for this purpose). The settlement policy calls into question one of the basic principles of the peace negotiations, namely “land for peace”, as well as the viability of a Palestinian state. It also has a direct impact on the final status of the future Palestinian state borders. Israel wishes to annex the territories on which the great majority of the settlers are living. The Palestinian Authority is willing for the settlers to remain in the West Bank and Gaza on condition that they recognise Palestinian sovereignty. During the negotiations held at Camp David (July 2000) and Taba (January 2001), an overall agreement was almost reached following which Israel would annex 4 to 6% of the West Bank where a majority of settlers were living in return for a land swap particularly in the area of Gaza. To date, Palestinian territorial claims remain unaltered and the current Israeli government seems only willing to concede some 40% of the West Bank to a Palestinian state. Highly symbolic on the Palestinian side, the right of return is completely rejected by all the Israelis. Of the total Palestinian population of approximately 900,000 people, only 150,000 remained in what became Israel after the 1948 war. These Palestinians, who lived mostly in the Galilee and the Negev, were viewed by Zionist leaders as a threat to the internal security of Israel and as an hindrance to their achievement of a fully Jewish state. According to the United Nations, the number of registered Palestinian refugees has grown from 957.000 in 1950 to more than 3.7 million and continues to rise because of a high birthrate. A second, much larger group of Palestinians were refugees and exiles in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, in nearby Arab countries (particularly Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq), or in Europe or the United States. Finally, there were a significant number of Palestinians who had been and remained residents in the parts of Palestine not taken over by Israel: the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. About 1.2 million live in recognized refugee camps administered by the U.N. Relief Works Agency (UNRWA) in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank and Gaza. The other two-thirds, still registered, live in towns and cities around those camps where they are still considered “temporary” sojourners. Simple arithmetic suggests that neither Israel’s Arab community nor any fledgling Palestinian state could accommodate 3.7 million Palestinian refugees. Concerning Israel, the demographic change would transform it from a Jewish state into a binational state. If refugees already in the West Bank and Gaza would get citizenship in a new Palestinian state, a few from neighbouring Arab countries would be resettled and a very small number would be allowed into Israel for “family reunification”. But most would have to give up their right of return in exchange for monetary compensation which would not go down well with most refugees who regard the right of return as their birthright. Some others are not at all enthusiastic about getting compensation, saying no amount of money can make up for the land they lost. Palestinian assertions of the right of return for themselves and their descendants are based both on a moral standpoint, claiming the refugees’ rights to return to homes from which they have been displaced, on a number of resolutions issued by the U.N (i.e. the UN Resolution 194, the 1979 Camp David Accord between Israel and Egypt) and on the fact that Israel through this policy is attempting to deny Palestinian nationalist identity and self-determination. In the perspective of a final agreement, the Palestinian side has showed readiness to negotiate this most difficult issue for them but no agreement has been reached so far with Israelis objecting to the term “right to return”. Since the number of refugees and exiles increased, the international community began to pressure Israel to allow their repatriation to their homes. The Israeli argument has always been, first, that a significant Palestinian presence would be harmful to Israel’s internal security; second that with all the Jews coming to Israel there was no room to allow the Palestinians back in; and third, because the Palestinians left “voluntarily”, they had given up any rights they might have had to live in Israel. Although not a final status issue, water, too, is a source of conflict in the Middle East which, like Africa, was one of the first regions to suffer from a water shortage in the 1970s. Its scant resources (the Tigris-Euphrates, Jordan and Nile basins) are under heavy pressure from population growth, changing life patterns, industrialisation, inadequate conservation and unequal distribution among the countries of the region. Most of Israel's water resources are located outside its pre-1967 borders in the tributaries of the Jordan, on the Golan Heights, and in water tables situated wholly or partly in the West Bank. In Israel the security of water supplies has a defence security classification. Since 1967 water in the occupied territories has been placed under military control and Arab residents have been forbidden to dig new wells, whereas Jewish settlements may drill for water without restriction. According to the World Bank statistics 90 % of the water in the West Bank is used for Israel's benefit and the Palestinians have to make do with the remaining 10 %. The level of the Palestinians' water resources is too low for agriculture. While Israel has one of the highest proportions of irrigated agriculture (about 50 % of its arable land), agriculture accounts for less than 2 % of its national economy. The Palestinian agricultural sector, on the other hand, makes up 15 % of Palestinian gross national product and employs one fifth of the active population. But only 6 % of arable land is irrigated, and agriculture consumes 70 % of the available water, much of which is wasted. For that reason the World Bank recommends efforts to save water and a restructuring of the Palestinian economy towards industry (which, together with the building sector, accounts for 25 % of GDP). The total control by Israel on the Palestinian water resources, which is established in the provisional agreements with the Palestinians does not allow the latter’s to have any right of exploitation of these resources. The Israeli’s rejection of a Palestinian state can be partially attributed to the water factor in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The current Israeli government is not ready to give up any control on the water issue to the Palestinians. | ||
