state of Palestine

Now that the midterm elections have sent a more reactionary House and Senate to Washington, the Israeli right and its US supporters couldn’t wait to resume their dance with the US representatives. They share a loathing of Obama and his administration, mostly because of his early attempts to take his distances from damaging Middle-East policies of previous US governments that they favor, and his later vain efforts to get real negotiations going between Israeli and Palestinian representatives. So, various openings are quickly being made, for instance in the shape of an opinion in last Friday’s NYT by Naftali Bennett, Israel’s minister of the economy and leader of the right-wing Ha-bayt ha-Yehudi, The Jewish Home party. He proposes to do away with the idea of a negotiated settlement between the two peoples. No UN, no resolution, no Oslo agreement, no pursuit of a two-state solution, no Palestinian people.

The urgency has deeper reasons than the occurrence of a new political situation in Washington. Here are three main reasons that, in my opinion, guide the intensity of the right wingers’ agenda regarding Palestine and the fate of Palestinians.

  1. The major reason is that the core of the zionist religious right’s enthusiasm is the continuation of the classic zionism’s national dream on a re-energized religious basis. It creates difficulties because it blurs the separation of religion and state on which the modern state of Israel was based, though it was not formalized by a constitution. It claims ownership of the whole area on the basis of divine will revealed to Abraham and putative successors. It is a messianism and often a temple-centered messianism (witness Feiglin and Yehuda Glick recently). This messianism has been developing in the recent months, according to Vincent Lemire (see links below). It is the mirror image of the Muslim fervor surrounding the Haram esh-sharif, a fervor that Hamas may also have an interest now in exacerbating and turning into a central piece of its religious politics. Not that this will bother conservative US representatives who wish to do the same blurring here in the US and furthermore share at least superficially the messianic beliefs of the Israeli religious right. It remains to be seen whether our house representatives and senators will be willing to push things along these messianic lines or prudently back off. An incorrigible optimist bets on the latter.
  2. Secondly, an international movement of recognition of Palestine is spreading. Sweden has just recognized the state of Palestine and was the 135th country to do so according to today’s Le Monde debate on the topic About twenty countries still refuse to do so, most importantly the remaining superpower, the USA. Various parties in these twenty countries are contemplating a recognition. This international movement of recognition of the state of Palestine is seen as most dangerous by the Israeli right because it moves towards giving the same legal basis to the state of Palestine as the UN gave Israel on 29 November 1947. M. Abbas and the Palestinian authority have long been pursuing a policy of legitimate authority founded on international law. The US refusal to budge on this matter will not remain tenable much longer.
  3. Finally, there is the demographic evolution in Israel and Palestinian territories. See the wiki on the demographics of the Palestinian territories.The case of Jerusalem is paradigmatic. The status of Jerusalem and the return of the refugees are two tightly linked issues that need to be negotiated in future final status negotiations.The population within the municipality of Jerusalem is now at circa 800,000: 500,000 Israeli Jews and 300,000 Palestinian Arab inhabitants in East Jerusalem, including 35,000 in the old city. Since 1967, the Arab population of Jerusalem has grown by a factor of 4, that of the Jewish population by a factor of 2.5 (figures given by Vincent Lemire, historian, see his interview in Libération and the Open Jerusalem Project). The distribution of the population of the old city by religious affiliation is: 26,000 Muslims, 6,000 Christians, and 4,000 Jews. Most religious Israeli Jews don’t live in the old city. But many of them in turn (of various obedience), faced with the demographic resistance of the Palestinian population in Jerusalem, increase the pressure on Arab quarters just outside the old city: Silwan and Sheikh Jarrah. The belt of colonies just beyond the city perimeter of Jerusalem expands and thickens: Maalei Adumim, Har Homa, Pizgat Zeev, etc.

Given these reasons, there is an internal consistency to what a representative of the religious extreme right suggests in his NYT article. It is a logic that has catastrophic consequences. The article rejects the notion of a state of Palestine and replaces it, unsurprisingly, with the logic of a greater Israel.

What of Gaza under Hamas? Bennett asserts that “It cannot be a party to any agreement.” It can remain the biggest open-air prison in the world. The systematic debilitation and sub-human status of 1.6 million people, almost half of whom are under 15 if I believe the statistics, will continue.

For the West Bank, Bennett uses the security and terror rhetoric that is accepted nowadays by so many people (not only Republicans). Notice that he doesn’t use Biblical names in this article directed to a non-religious readership and calls “West Bank” the Palestinian areas that go also under the post-Oslo letters A, B, and C. His letter advocates a land grab under the general claim of security that he knows has a good chance of getting the US house and senate—including many democrats—on his side, at least for a moment. He writes that “for its security, Israel cannot withdraw from more territory and cannot allow for the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank.”

So, he proposes four measures regarding the West Bank that will further demean Palestinians in their aspirations to freedom and self-government and will continue a massive enforcement of the open-air prison characteristics in that area. His suggestions are the following:

  1. “We would work to upgrade Palestinian autonomy in the West Bank in the areas already under Palestinian control.” This refers to areas A and B, as was made explicit in the e-version of the article that reads: “First, we would work to upgrade the Palestinian autonomy in the West Bank, in the areas largely under Palestinian control (known as Areas A and B, according to the Oslo Accords)”. These areas were defined by the Oslo II agreement, a process whose viability according to Bennett has been upended by “the new reality in the Middle East.” He relies upon it as a weapon against Palestinian aspirations. Areas A and B happen to have about 90-95% of the West Bank’s Palestinian population. See the maps and details. In terms of territory, however, area A has about 3% of the West Bank—exclusive of East Jerusalem—and area B has 23-25% of the West Bank, with about 440 villages and no Israeli implantations. Together with the other suggestions by Bennett, this would be left to the “Palestinian entity.” No state. No independence. Hardly any territory, but a reservation where the population would have to make do with whatever the Israel government grants it. A subhuman existence not unlike that of Gaza, given the security measures likely to develop in response to any violence.
  2. A “huge upgrade of roads and infrastructure, as well as the removal of roadblocks and checkpoints throughout the West Bank.” Exactly where? In area C? Will these roads continue to be penetration roads? Will there be strict control of the Palestinian population living in areas A and B, that is, will the roadblocks and checkpoints be moved between area C—annexed by Israel—and areas A-B? I suppose that’s the idea.
  3. “economic bridges of peace between Israelis and Palestinians:” that is, more industrial zones in illegal colonies. This idea presumably would concern area C.
  4. “Lastly, I propose applying Israeli law in the part of the West Bank controlled by Israel under the Oslo Accords. (Palestinian who live there would be offered full Israeli citizenship).” This is Area C, as made explicit, once more, in the electronic version of this opinion piece: “Lastly, I propose applying Israeli law in Area C, which is the part of the West Bank controlled by Israel under the Oslo agreement.” This assertion of “national sovereignty” is illegal land grabbing. What is Area C? It constitutes at least 61% of Palestinian territories East of the 1967 Green Line as of now (disputed question: actually almost 75% of the West Bank). It conveniently has about 5% of the Palestinian West Bank population only at the moment, for all kinds of reasons (previous land occupation especially). See the map and articles on B’tselem.org site.

Bennett concludes by mouthing platitudes on “new realities” that have “brought an end to the viability of the Oslo peace process.” Obama may have been hated by the right and the not-so-right. Imagine, he had the audacity to visit Arab countries at the beginning of his first mandate. Even worse, he and his government mentioned again, after a long hiatus, the language of just, negotiated settlement on the basis of UN Security Council Resolution 242, with swaps. Anathema of course, because it is the only basis for some semblance of just settlement.

Now, with Bennett and other tenors of the religious extreme right, not even a two-state solution is advocated as part of a hypocritical discourse that the present Israeli government has kept up for a while under US pressure. The little pressure there was is gone. Nothing for Palestinians. On the contrary, the measures proposed by Bennett spell a new era of increased repression. The hope of the extreme right wingers: continue the annexation of area C—60-75% of the whole area conquered in June 1967— and “give up” all of areas A and B, while making sure it becomes another Gaza=open air prison.

Do our new representatives and senators want to be part of this injustice and what it spells for the whole area?