In November 1994, Joseph Alpher, then-director of the Jaffee Center
for Strategic Studies, published a map of proposed final status in
the West Bank and Gaza, backed up by detailed research. The Alpher
Plan, as it soon came to be known, called for Israel to annex about
11 percent of the territories, within the framework of territorial
and/or other trade-offs between the two sides. During the ensuing
two years the Alpher Plan has become widely recognized as a
possible basis for final-status compromise among both Israeli
center-left and moderate right, and between them and the PLO.
Alpher's 1994 study came after the conclusion of peace with Jordan,
and the outlook for an interim agreement in the West Bank, to be
known as Oslo II, was good. The issues to be discussed in
Israeli-Palestinian final-status talks had been clearly delineated
in the Oslo Declaration of Principles more than a year earlier, yet
neither the Rabin government nor the Likud opposition had thought
through, much less presented to the public, its approach to final
status.
What follows is a summary description of the original Alpher Plan,
then an interview with Joseph Alpher, conducted in December
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The Alpher Plan for an Israel-PLO Settlement
Israel's West Bank Minimum
Alpher argues that no Israeli government is likely to survive an
attempt to withdraw from all settlements. He proposes moderate
territorial compromise involving annexation of around 11 percent of
all the territories, in which about 70 percent of the settlers
live. The plan focuses on ensuring Israeli defensive capabilities
in the Jordan Valley and the northwest of the territories,
protecting Israeli water rights, recognizing some Israeli
historical claims and reducing domestic tension on the settler
issue.
This also takes into account the Palestinian need for geographical
contiguity and a common border with the Arab world, and the water,
territory and economic needs of any Palestinian entity.
In the following extracts from his report, there are four primary
considerations in an Israeli withdrawal. These are:
Security can best be guaranteed by Israel's capacity to defend
itself on the Jordan River, and separation of Jewish and Arab
populations. Israeli control of the air over the West Bank, several
electronic early-warning posts on the mountain ridge, and the
effective demilitarization of Palestinian territory with regard to
weaponry and formations with offensive potential, are all amenable
to agreement, application and verification without Israel annexing
territory and without reliance on settlements. However, even
assuming that the Palestinian entity would indeed be completely
demilitarized, the issues of Israel's defense requirements against
threats from further to the east must, nevertheless, be addressed.
Because of the threats posed by Iraq, Iran and possibly Syria,
Israel will still require, for years to come, the capacity to move
defensive forces to the Jordan River in real time, and without
encountering physical or political obstacles. Moreover, it is still
possible (in the event of domestic escalation inside Jordan) that
Israel will have to rely on its own capacity to intercept terrorist
incursions across the Jordan.
Turning to current security, our basic assumption holds that the
mixing of populations - Israeli and Palestinian - is the single
factor that most disrupts attempts (by both sides) to achieve
security. Hence any solution that leaves enclaves of Israeli
settlements in the heart of Palestinian territory is likely to
constitute a source of friction and is a liability for current
security.
Water. Long before the establishment of the State of Israel in
1948, the Jewish community exploited aquifers located underneath
the West Bank, and international law - the Helsinki Rules of 1966 -
recognizes such historic rights of usage. But international law
also recognizes the rights of inhabitants of the land above the
aquifer - in this case, the Arab residents of the
territories.
Wholesale abandonment by Israel of its control over West Bank water
resources could be disastrous for the country's economy,
agriculture and ecology. Israel depends on these sources for a
significant proportion of its water supply. Unmonitored Palestinian
exploitation of them could deprive Israel of a large portion of its
current consumption; irresponsible development and
industrialization could contaminate what is left. Thus a
final-status solution must ensure either long-term Israeli control
over these aquifers, or at least reasonable joint supervision and
development. There can be little doubt that exclusive physical
control over water resources is safer for Israel than a joint
water-sharing regime - even if Israel must inevitably ensure that
the Palestinians, too, enjoy adequate access to fresh water
sources. The principal areas destined for annexation are in the
northwest and the Jerusalem region - areas that have been
relatively heavily settled by Israel since 1967.
Demography. Considering that a very large proportion of Israelis
would oppose a return to the 1967 borders, the scars that would be
left by the physical and emotional outcry must give pause for
thought. This would probably constitute the most traumatic domestic
crisis in modem Israeli history. Thus, there is a legitimate place
in Israel's calculations regarding a negotiated agreement with the
Palestinians, for demographic considerations.
The Heritage Dimension. With regard to the pre-1948 settlements,
such as Gush Etzion, that were overrun by the Palestinian fedayeen
and the Jordanian army, it would be unwise to belittle the
importance of such symbols for the viability of a people and a
country.
Gush Etzion constitutes an example of a potentially logical
annexation that offers Israel advantages in most of the issues
surveyed above: it holds more Jewish than Arab population (15,000
and 6,000, respectively), enhances the security of the Jerusalem
Corridor, and borders the Green Line.
Implementing the Plan
Implementation of the plan involves the following:
• Annexation of parts of the northwest of the territories
that are heavily populated by Israelis, with the border moved
eastward some five to eight kilometers - for reasons related to
water security - along most of the line. An effort would be made to
avoid annexing Arab demographic concentrations, and particularly
Tulkarem and Qalqilya, whose combined population is around 50,000.
This is done by leaving these towns, possibly with surrounding Arab
villages, at the extremity of land corridors.
• Annexation of the Latrun salient, the Giv'at Ze'ev area
north of the Jerusalem Corridor, and Gush Etzion south of the
Corridor.
• Annexation of the Ma'aleh Adumim area, preferably as part
of Jerusalem. The Ma'aleh Adumim area would be the deployment zone
for a rapid intervention force designated to assist in closing the
Jordan River crossings and defending the Jordan River security
border in times of emergency.
• Annexation of a small area (Mutsavei Ha-Berech) south of
Beit She' an. A second rapid intervention force would be deployed
here.
In addition to security arrangements designed to ensure adequate
intelligence collection (early warning stations on the mountain
ridge) and Israeli control over the airspace above the West Bank,
an Israeli military force - mobile and/or fixed in nature - would
be deployed in the Jordan Valley and on the eastern slopes of the
mountain ridge, on Palestinian territory. This would complete the
security arrangements along the Jordan River security border.
Israel and the Palestinians would agree in advance on the duration
- 15 years at least - of this arrangement. The precondition for
ending it would be the emergence of a stable regional peace and
vastly improved security conditions.
• The Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron would enjoy a special
status that ensured Israeli and Palestinian access and usage.
• All remaining territory in the West Bank and Gaza Strip
would be turned over to the Palestinian entity. Settlers wishing to
remain would, at the end of a transition period, be subject to
Palestinian authority.
Will the Palestinians Agree?
On what premises could one base an assumption that the PLO would
ultimately acquiesce in territorial concessions? Israel could
presumably cite to the Palestinians a number of justifications for
accepting Israeli annexation.
• The Palestinians' requirement for an extra-territorial land
corridor connecting the Gaza Strip to the West Bank. Israel could
offer the Palestinians additional special privileges in its air and
sea ports, which are well located for their use. These arrangements
would not only enhance the economic interaction between
Palestinians and Israelis, but would also constitute an Israeli
sovereign concession - one requiring a Palestinian quid pro quo,
presumably involving territory.
• UN Security Council Resolution 242, upon which the
negotiating framework rests, allows for border modifications, and
Israel's right to secure boundaries.
• Israel can make a strong case for its right to continue to
exploit traditional water resources, particularly in the northwest
of the territories, and to prevent their contamination by
industrial and agricultural waste. These rights could be cited as
partial justification for an Israeli demand to annex at least some
of the land above the aquifers.
• Israel can point to the demographic balance in the
northwest of the territories, along the Jerusalem Corridor and
around Jerusalem, and argue that the Jewish majority created by
settlement in these areas must be considered.
Another option would be to consider transferring Israeli territory
to the Palestinians. Certainly it is possible that the offer of
compensation to the PLO, like part of the triangle of Arab towns or
villages or of Arab-populated Wadi Ara, or land adjacent to the
Gaza Strip, could be seen as a politically important face-saving
device that would balance more expansive Palestinian territorial
concessions in the West Bank - precisely because it involves land
from pre-1948 Palestine.
It may be cautiously assessed that there is a possibility that,
ultimately, the Palestinians would accept a moderate territorial
compromise - one that annexed territory to Israel where considered
vital, dealt with Israel's important requirements through
alternative means where possible, and held the scope of annexation
to about 11 percent.
In return, the Palestinians would enjoy unfettered access to Jordan
and Egypt, full territorial contiguity, a Dead Sea shore and water
resources that would ensure that they and Israel would have to
accept a joint water authority and fair allocation of water.
Moreover, Jordan's readiness - in the framework of the
Jordan-Israel peace agreement of October 1994 - to agree to
territorial swaps and Israeli leasing of Jordanian land may soften
Palestinian objections to making similar final-status arrangements
with Israel.
Interview with Joseph Alpher
Q: Has Oslo II affected the applicability of your plan?
A: Many observers, including myself, advocated during 1995 that the
Israeli government refrain from giving autonomy to Arab villages
that are intertwined with Israeli settlement blocs, in order to
preserve Israel's freedom of maneuverability.
The emerging reality of Area B autonomy for those villages is not
that different from some of the modifications and modalities
examined in the analysis of moderate territorial compromise in the
study. One of the basic premises developed in the study is the
inadvisability of attaching additional Palestinian Arabs to Israel;
Oslo II has now rendered that less likely. Another recognizes the
possibility of developing varieties of shared rule in special¬
status regions, where the two sides are unable to agree on new
borders. Those settlement blocs that contain autonomous Palestinian
villages could conceivably now be stronger candidates for some sort
of shared rule in the final status.
Q: Where does the Beilin/Abu Mazen agreement differ from your
map?
A: They began with my map as a point of departure - but also with
the aforementioned Oslo II compromises. The result was that
settlements like Ariel were annexed to Israel, but as the
extensions of narrow fingers of territory protruding into
Palestine, rather than - as in my plan - within the bounds of
fairly rational and defensible borders. The possible negative
outcome of such an arrangement was very evident in the way isolated
Israeli settlements, like Joseph's Tomb and Kfar Darom, were
besieged by Palestinian civilians in September 1996. The Beilin/Abu
Mazen map appears to have ignored such worst-case contingencies;
the consequence of leaving isolated Israeli settlements defenseless
could be devastating for a stable peace. It also ignored the
territorial ramifications of Israel's legitimate water needs. I had
advocated annexing to Israel a strip five to eight kilometers wide
along the entire Yarkon-Taninim Aquifer in the northwest. It's
interesting to note that the Third Way party's map also makes both
these mistakes. Finally, the territorial compensation (the Halutza
dunes in the Negev) offered the Palestinians under Beilin/Abu Mazen
is not logical, because it's not contiguous with Palestinian
territory and is not habitable. I believe that Israeli readiness to
accord the Palestinians a "unity road" with extraterritorial status
linking Gaza and the West Bank constitutes a much stronger Israeli
bargaining card.
Q: Where does the Netanyahu government stand with regard to your
map?
A: The question really should be: where does it stand with regard
to the reality of Oslo II, and the obligation to negotiate final
status? Even before the May 1996 elections, while some on the right
continued to reject the new reality entirely, others - Netanyahu,
Sharon, the National Religious Party - more or less acknowledged
its permanency, and began floating ideas for final status that
boiled down to a call to render the Oslo II map, with minor changes
and variations, the map of final status.
In many ways, this was to be expected. After all, the Oslo II map
is not very different geographically from the Sharon Plan. But Oslo
II was acceptable to the Palestinians as an interim arrangement;
any concerted attempt to make it permanent will almost certainly
bring about the collapse of the peace process. Hence, since the
elections, we have witnessed further stages in the fascinating
evolution of Netanyahu's thinking away from the
Greater-Land-of-Israel concept and toward separation. To my
understanding, he is currently considering offering the PLO a
highly constrained state in Gaza and the West Bank mountain
heartland - something close to the Third Way plan. As starters, for
negotiations, this is not bad.
But, just like Peres's idea of turning the entire West Bank into a
special¬-status region, Netanyahu's current thinking - to the
extent that it reflects a readiness to negotiate - appears to
ignore the Palestinians' vital needs, as they emerge in the course
of any inquiry or negotiation: their constant and consistent drive
for a sovereign unit that enjoys territorial contiguity and
integrity. In this sense, I continue to believe that some variation
on the principles underlying my plan is the only mutually
acceptable solution for the two sides.