For many years, the peace camp in Israel has been divided over the
concept of "separation". There are those who have spoken about
separation as a concept to describe the process of establishing a
Palestinian state alongside Israel, and in this context the meaning
of "separation" was political. Political separation refers to the
end of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and
Palestinian Jerusalem and the creation of an independent sovereign
Palestinian state. There are others, even from the "peace camp" in
Israel, who have referred to "separation" not only in political
terms, but also in demographic and economic terms: separation for
them means the removal of Palestinians from Israel by creating a
Palestinian state alongside Israel and constructing a "hard"
boundary that would end Palestinian physical presence within the
State of Israel.
According to Dan Scheuftan in his book on Separation1, Yitzhak
Rabin and Ehud Barak are the primary proponents of the concept of
"hard separation" (minimizing Palestinian presence in Israel to the
lowest possible levels) while Shimon Peres would be considered the
primary proponent of the first viewpoint - political separation
with wide ranging cooperation, particularly in economic relations
and economic development. Ehud Barak's 1999 campaign slogan
summarized the point of view of the line of hard separation: "We
are here and they are there".
Ehud Barak's Vision
Before the elections of 1999, I spoke with Barak about his vision
of peace. He told me the following. With the establishment of a
Palestinian state, over a period of up to three years, all
Palestinian labor presently employed in Israel would be employed
within the Palestinian state. Barak's view was not based solely on
the security concerns that have become the primary impetus for the
establishment of the dividing wall today, rather it was based on
his overall view of the State of Israel as the state of the Jewish
people, deeply rooted in classical Labor Zionist ideology. Through
their advocacy of "normalizing" the Jewish people by transforming
them into workers of the land, second aliyah (second immigration
wave) ideologues preached the philosophy of "Jewish Labor Only" and
fought against the land owners of the first aliyah (first
immigration wave) who relied heavily on local Arab labor in their
farms. This slogan became an inherent part of the Zionist ethos and
has been echoed throughout the history of Israel and Zionism. Most
of those who advocate this position or have internalized this
ideology, do so without assuming that it contains any elements of
racism or racist ideology.
Necessity of Disengagement
Dan Scheuftan contends that Israel cannot allow itself to be part
of the Middle East because the region is one of the most corrupt,
anti-democratic and backward parts of the world. Scheuftan strongly
links the deep religious Islamic ties of Arab and Muslim countries
in the region to the lack of democracy and western liberalism. He
speaks about the economic failures of this region due to corruption
and lack of democracy, about the backward attitudes of these
societies towards women and maintains that in most of these
countries there is little productive work. Scheuftan contends that
the Palestinians and the state they will establish, will most
probably be just like all the others in the region.
Scheuftan also bases his arguments on what he terms the irridentist
tendencies of the Palestinians and their demand for the "right of
return" for Palestinian refugees. He says that as long as the
demand for the return of the refugees exists, there will always be
an existential threat to Israel from the Palestinians. He adds that
as long as there is an open border that allows Palestinians to
enter Israel, the demand for the right of return will exist. The
appeal of Israel, both for Palestinian nationalistic reasons, as
well as the economic realities and the greater freedom there, will
always serve as a magnet for demands for return and an impetus for
those who seek to implement that right. Scheuftan speaks about the
"creeping" implementation of the right of return through family
reunifications and marriages between Israeli Arab women and
Palestinian men from the West Bank, Gaza and the Palestinian
Diaspora. He claims that the Israeli Ministry of Interior has
records of more than 100,000 Palestinians who have "implemented"
the right of return since 1994 as a result of the open borders
facilitated by the Oslo agreements.
Scheuftan employs economic data and theory to justify the necessity
of full and permanent separation. Economic life and quality of
life, he states, will always be much higher on the Israeli side of
the wall. Israel does not need the burden of having to worry about
the needs of the Palestinians. He adds that the relative strength
of the Israeli economy makes it a desirable country to immigrate to
from the neighboring countries. Thus, in his view, if Palestinians
are allowed to enter Israel, they will always be planning where
they would like to reside, and will make operative plans to bring
about their own "return".
He states that even with open borders, the Palestinians will never
catch up with Israel in terms of economic growth. Linking the
Palestinian economy to Israel will have a negative impact on the
Israeli economy. The continued failure of the Palestinian economy,
according to Scheuftan, is endemic and mirrors other economies of
the Arab world. The lack of an open, modern western economy in
Palestine is a reflection of the lack of democracy there. In this
context, according to the holders of this viewpoint, the gaps
between Israel and Palestine will continue to grow and embroil the
two parties in a pattern of constant conflict.
He concludes that Israel has nothing to gain and everything to lose
by trying to integrate into the region. Therefore, Israel should
completely close off its borders to the Palestinians (and to the
region as a whole). There should be no Palestinian trans-boundary
labor, movement of people or even of goods. Only when the
Palestinians can prove that they are worthy of joining the
community of nations, should Israel open its borders to the East,
but only for the purpose of trade - not for labor
importation.
Total, Unilateral Separation
Professor Shlomo Avineri, a former director general of the Foreign
Ministry, argues that Israel should withdraw from 95 percent of the
West Bank, giving the Palestinians contiguous territory. Israel
would need to dismantle 20-30 isolated settlements, keeping the
clusters of settlements near the Green Line, he says, but Jerusalem
would remain in Israeli hands. The untenable settlements in Gaza
would also be dismantled. The new Israel-Palestine border would
become like the one with Syria, an internationally unrecognized
line, where no one is killed. This should be done unilaterally
because, "there is no point in negotiation," says Avineri.
Avineri believes that the border would be relatively quiet because
the two peoples would not interact. Identifying the checkpoints,
where the two peoples continually interact in a confrontational
manner, as the main contributor to violence, Avineri argues that
eliminating them, and thus the daily mistreatment of the
Palestinians, would decrease the hate and violence. "You have to
disengage the populations," he says. To preserve the separation of
the two peoples, Avineri argues against a crossing between Gaza and
the West Bank.
The new separation, he maintains, should not include any kind of
economic cooperation. Making the Palestinians economically
independent would, in his view, accomplish two things. First, it
would remove the need for border checkpoints. Second, it would
remove reliance on Israel and give the Palestinians responsibility.
"I want to force Arafat to be President of Palestine. When someone
is given authority over people, they usually behave more
responsibly."
Oslo and the Politics of Separation
The Oslo peace process was based on the concept of cooperation and
economic integration. Proponents of this view believed that through
cooperation, mainly economic cooperation, prosperity would bring
about the decline of the extremists and the spoilers of peace. The
advocates of Oslo hoped that Israel's technological know-how and
its access to global markets would enable the Palestinians to
exploit Israel's relative advantages, to achieve rapid economic
growth and prosperity for their people. This, of course, did not
happen. (Scheuftan believes that it could not happen, as mentioned
above.)
Between 1993 and 1996, there were a total of 342 days of closure in
the Gaza Strip and 291 days in the West Bank. In 1996 alone,
closures increased by 57 percent in the West Bank and 35 percent in
the Gaza Strip. The Palestinian Center for Economic Research, MAS,
points out that the 1996 closures differed from those in preceding
years as they were in effect during most of the year - in
actuality, a policy of full separation. This had a significant
effect on production, marketing and income generation, and
exacerbated the confusion and distortion that affected Palestinian
economic activities in general.
* From 1992-1996 per capita GDP declined by about 24 percent, while
per capita GNP declined by about 39 percent.
* Unemployment, which before 1993 hovered at 5 percent, soared to
over 28.4 percent in the Occupied Territories in May, 1996.
* Estimated total cost of closures between 1993-1996 is $2.8
billion. This represents 70 percent of a year's GDP and double the
amount of aid disbursed in the area over that period.
In this respect, the policy of economic integration was never given
a fair chance. Most analysts would argue that the policy of
closures had little to do with the need to provide Israel with
security, but was aimed instead at allowing politicians to provide
an appearance of security. In fact, the systematic undermining of
the Palestinian economy through closures greatly contributed to the
circumstances that led to the Al-Aqsa Intifada. Closure meant not
only that Palestinian labor in Israel was phased out in favor of
non-Palestinian foreign workers, but it also prevented normal trade
between Israel and the Palestinians. The movement of goods became
as difficult as the movement of people. Foreign investment, even by
Palestinians abroad, was diverted from Palestine because of, among
other things, the inability to receive guarantees from Israel that
importing raw materials and exportating finished goods could take
place on a normal basis. Special transportation zones, such as the
Karni Transport Zone between Gaza and Israel, were established but
never fully provided free movement of goods. Certain limited
numbers of Palestinian businessmen were given permits for freer
movement, but as a whole, the Palestinian economy was severely
crippled as a result of the closure/forced separation
policies.
As such, the spirit of Oslo was never really implemented and
therefore, it is not possible to rule that economic integration
cannot produce the desired results. Additional limiting factors on
Palestinian economic development were a lack of democracy and the
economic corruption that developed within the PA. Additionally,
Israel never really seemed to show a keen interest in Palestinian
democracy or in an open and free Palestinian economy. From the
narrow vision of Israeli leaders, (at least as perceived from the
results on the ground), a non-democratic PA that is easily
corruptible seemed to be the correct mix necessary for the PA to
serve the policing functions that Israel was mainly interested in.
One can only wonder what circumstances would have developed and how
much Palestinian support for real peace would have emerged if
Palestinians had enjoyed the fruits of peace.
Current Israeli Government Policy - Fences and Walls
After 24 months of violence and terrorism and out of a great sense
of frustration, the Israeli government has now voted in favor of a
fence and has allocated financial resources for its construction.
The main incentive for building a fence is to prevent suicide
attacks against Israeli civilians. The Israeli government is under
considerable public pressure to present a workable solution. The
Israeli security forces could not frustrate all the suicide
attacks, and operation "Defensive Shield" and the subsequent so
called "pinpoint operations" in Palestinian cities managed only
temporarily to reduce the intensity of attacks. Another solution
had to be found2.
It should be stressed that "fence" is a generic term for a physical
barrier that will assume different forms in different locations. In
places where Jewish and Palestinian population centers are close to
each other, it might be a high concrete wall that will not only
prevent terrorists infiltration but also give protection against
light arms fire. In other places, it will be an electronic fence3.
The wall or fence is supposed to be part of a separation system,
aimed at preventing any infiltration into Israel from beyond the
so-called Green Line. This system might cover an area to a depth of
up to five kilometers (in unpopulated areas). It will include
physical obstacles, monitoring systems and military and police
forces kept on high alert, with the aim of preventing any
unauthorized attempt to cross into Israel. Passage into Israel is
supposed to be possible only through supervised entry
points4.
Most of the fences will be built with wire. But in a couple of
locations there will be a wall, like the one on the highway at
Qalqilya. The effective range of the Kalashnikov rifles that many
Palestinian gunmen carry is 500 meters. Where there are Israeli
homes close to Palestinian houses or farmland, concrete walls will
block lines of fire, or the fences will be constructed deeper
inside the West Bank. One such spot is in Kochav Yair, an Israeli
town just next to the Green Line where IDF planners shifted the
line 500 meters. That will force Palestinians from neighboring
Falamah to cross a checkpoint in the fence to reach their
fields.
Demarcating a line in Jerusalem is even more complicated. The very
idea is extremely sensitive politically, given successive
governments' commitment to an undivided Jerusalem as the "eternal
capital of Israel". There are practical problems too. For one
thing, the common notion of East Jerusalem as being all Arab isn't
correct. About 35 percent of the land in East Jerusalem has been
turned into Israeli neighborhoods since Israel conquered the area
in the 1967 war. It's impossible to draw a line through the city
without leaving lots of people on the wrong side. For that reason,
the Israeli government has not yet determined exactly where they
will erect the Jerusalem wall, though work has begun in the south
of the city, separating Gilo from Bethlehem. As a result, parts of
Bethlehem, from the checkpoint to Rachel's Tomb will be physically
annexed to the Jerusalem Municipality. The wall is likely to be
built through the eastern outskirts of the city and probably won't
pass near the heavily disputed Old City, with its Jewish, Christian
and Muslim holy sites.
Many Palestinians and some Israelis argue that cordoning off East
Jerusalem from the rest of the Jerusalem will only radicalize its
residents, who so far have not participated much in the violence of
the uprising. Today, Palestinian Jerusalemites can come and go as
they like in Jerusalem, taking advantage of educational, medical,
recreational and work opportunities in the city. But if they are
closed off in the less developed, eastern part of town, some
Palestinians say they might start importing violence to the
city.
Devastating Impact on the Palestinian Economy
There are three industries in Israel that are dependent, in one way
or another, on non-Israeli labor. Two of them - agriculture and
construction - are gliding down the road of separation. Agriculture
has almost completely separated, and construction has partly done
so. The third industry in trouble is tourism. Beyond that, the
Israeli labor market develops regardless of the solution that
evolves regarding the Palestinians.
As for the Palestinian economy, taking the recorded figures from
1992, prior to the Oslo process; then from 1995-1996, the middle of
the separation process; and then the recovery in 1999, and after
that the effects of separation of the economies of the past two
years, the Palestinian economy is now in deep recession again. In
1992, the Palestinians exported a quarter of a billion dollars
worth of intermediary and finished goods to Israel, and in 1996 the
figure remained the same. Remuneration of Palestinian labor was
$920 million in 1992, but dropped to $405 million by 1996. Between
1997 and 1999 it recovered to about $1 billion. In 1999, Israel
also paid over $1 billion to Romania, China, Thailand and other
economies for imported labor. This is the net transfer - over and
above their cost in Israel itself. Today, the labor market in
Israel is inclined to exclude the Palestinians for reasons of
convenience and prejudice.
The figures from 1992 to 1996 and from 2000 until the present show
that if there is a higher degree of separation, there is a direct
loss of 50 percent of the entire slate of Palestinian exports.
Palestinian economists often speculate about how Palestinians could
penetrate markets outside Israel and how long it would take. But
the answer is, it will take a years - if it ever happens at all.
Exporting is not only a matter of having ports, planes and ships.
It is a matter of creating markets. Palestinians do not have an
established mechanism for creating these markets, neither for goods
and nor labor services. In the short run, exportating labor is
utterly impossible. Exporting other goods and services is possible,
but it will be very slow. When you consider the current account of
the balance of payments of the Palestinian economy, there will be
trouble in the coming years, and the degree of separation will
determine the depths of this trouble.
If the Palestinian economy had free access (not through Israel), to
Egypt or Jordan, it would help significantly. However, the
important future markets for the Palestinian economy are the larger
and wealthier markets - Israel, Europe and the US - not the Arab
world. Firstly, the Arab markets are too small. Secondly, most of
them are in competion. Jordan, for example, wants very limited
Palestinian imports. The Gulf States can buy anywhere in the world
and although they also buy from the Palestinians, neither they nor
Israel produce the luxury goods in high demand there. There is
potential in the Gulf for some Palestinian products, but it will
not solve all the problems of the Palestinian economy.
Differences of Opinion in Israel
There are many arguments amongst the supporters of
Israeli-Palestinian peace on the question of unilateral separation.
On June 18, 2002, Ha'aretz, generally a supporter of the peace
process, published an editorial in support of the walls and fences.
It stated the following:
"It is not difficult to list all the flaws of the separation fence,
which after some hesitation, began going up this week in the
northern part of the West Bank ... the fence's advantages outweigh
its disadvantages. First of all, hopefully, it will reduce the
intolerable price in blood that has been paid with the lives of
peaceful Israelis practically every day... The only efficient
alternative to a fence, say senior security experts, is a perpetual
war of occupation deep inside Palestinian territory.
But beyond the immediate security benefits resulting from the
establishment of a protected seam area, a new, tangible reality of
separation between two national, geographic entities will ensue.
This reality will gradually become part of the consciousness of
both peoples. That is no small matter, especially not for the many
young people for whom separation is only a vague memory or an
imaginary abstraction. The change could be revolutionary: a
physical change that leads to a psychological change, with which it
may be possible to rehabilitate the much longed-for political
change5.
There is an unsubstantiated assumption in the position taken by
Ha'aretz which is prevalent primarily amongst Labor Party
supporters of the separation plans. In his article in the Al Ahram
Weekly on July 11-17, 2002, Dr Ilan Pappe of Haifa University,
reminds us that Binyamin Ben Eliezer and Haim Ramon, two Labor
Party leaders, have each called their separation plan a "Peace
Plan". Pappe writes: "The Labor Party has always sought a peace
which would be based on a dividing line. Indeed, this was their
main slogan in the 1992 general elections: 'We are here and they
are there'. For Labor, the Zionist dream can only be fulfilled
through total separation between Palestinians and Jews. The
question of what exactly may happen on the other (Palestinian) side
of the fence never seems to bother these peace visionaries. They
are not interested in the economic viability of life on the other
side, or in how it will manage its natural and water resources ...
what its sovereignty will amount to ... even how it will achieve
security..."6.
Unanswered Questions
The questions raised by Pappe and the Ha'aretz editorial point to
some of the main issues that need to be discussed by those who
support real Israeli-Palestinian peace with regards to the likely
effects of the construction of the walls and fences.
* Will the benefits to future peace outweigh the hindrances?
* Will the fence create a new political border between Israel and
Palestine?
* Will that border become indelible in the minds and psyches of
Israelis and Palestinians?
* Will the existence of the fence and walls further the process of
de-legitimizing the settlements amongst Israeli citizens?
* If, as is planned now, the settlements remain on the other side
of the line - on the Palestinian side, will they become the main
targets of Palestinian violence against the occupation?
* If the settlements do become the primary targets, will this serve
the development of public opinion amongst Israelis against the
settlements or will it strengthen support and solidarity of the
Israeli public with the settlers?
* Will the fences and walls improve the basic security situation
for Israeli citizens or will suicide bombers still be able to get
through?
Opinions of Security Officials
Israel's security experts are confident that the wall will answer
the question of security positively. "With this fence, we'll be
able to stop 100 percent of terrorist infiltrations," asserts
Brigadier General Israel Yitzchak, head of the Border Police unit
responsible for patrolling the seam line between Israel and the
West Bank. A fence constructed around the entire Gaza Strip in 1994
has proved invaluable. According to Avi Dichter, head of the Shin
Bet, Israel's domestic security agency, not one suicide bomber has
entered Israel from the Gaza Strip since the current uprising
began.
The new barrier, at least initially, won't completely fence off the
West Bank. But it will make it much harder for Palestinians to
cross between the north of the West Bank and Israel's populous
coastal region. Terrorists can't easily go around the barrier,
because travel in the West Bank is monitored by Israeli soldiers at
checkpoints7. It has been reported that aides to former defense
minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said he preferred to build the fence
right along the Green Line. But attempts to preserve the
Likud-Labor coalition government pushed Israeli planners to set the
line of the planned fences inside the West Bank at several points.
The entire barrier network - which includes a ditch, several
roadways, concertina wire and surveillance cameras, as well as a 3
meter high electric fence - will, at sensitive points, be about
40-50 meters wide. That means there would not be enough room to lay
the network along the many parts of the Green Line where it divides
up Arab towns. As a result, the people of Barta'a and Baka
al-Sharqiyeh, for example, will find themselves on the Israeli side
of the fence, while most Israeli settlements in the West Bank will
wind up on the other side of the barrier network. Israeli officials
say they expect to accommodate some of the settlements very close
to the Green Line, like Salit, by maneuvering the fence around
them.
Other Opinions
Geoffrey Aronson8, a Washington-based expert on Israeli settlement
policy, criticizes the policy of unilateral separation:
"Israel is building this fence, not in order to leave these
territories but in order to stay in these territories. Sharon wants
to pacify the security concerns of Israelis while retaining control
over security and continuing settlements. That's a basic feature of
all these many plans that are out there. Now, over time, who knows?
There are many people in the center and the left of the Israel
political sector who say "Ah, they're building a fence, a fence is
a border, what they're doing is acknowledging the failure of the
settlement movement over three decades to actually physically
transform the border in a way which reflects upon the de facto
annexation of large amounts of Palestinian areas. If you want to
see it in those terms, if you want to look on the bright side,
depending on your point of view, you're welcome to. But Gaza has
had a fence around it for quite some time, and this has not
prevented the growth of Israeli settlements in Gaza. So a fence and
a security border are not necessarily inconsistent with settlement
expansion, nor is it inconsistent with Israeli security operations
on the other side of the fence. We're really at the beginning of
this process, and will have to see what happens.
Shlomo Gazit, a former head of military intelligence, made the
point in The Jerusalem Post of August 21, that Israel would be
better served if it negotiates the withdrawal of its settlements
within the context of an overall agreement, rather than by
unilaterally evacuating some settlements. He says that moving
settlers requires careful preparation which cannot be carried out
if there is to be an early "unilateral separation". In the view of
Gazit, separation is nothing but an illusion - the sooner we
separate ourselves from it, the better. Yoel Marcus, writing in
Ha'aretz on the same day, calls the concept unilateral
foolishness:
"In our present situation, there is no unilateral solution. We are
among them, they are among us. And nothing will be solved without
rapprochement, agreements and understandings between two neighbors
who are destined to live side-by-side."
Not a Recipe for Quiet
The notion of "separation" appears initially 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.
It 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 annexing about 15 percent 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 roads that link it to the
settlements.
There is absolutely no reason to believe that Israel should expect
Palestinian acceptance of unilateral measures, or that Palestinians
will surrender their struggle against the Israeli occupation as a
result of the separation. Quite the opposite. The fences and the
walls will increase Palestinian suffering. Poverty will grow and
unemployment will deepen. The sense that the occupation is
permanent will be enhanced by the continued presence of settlements
and the Israeli army and intelligence forces in order to protect
the settlements and settlers. Palestinian militants, frustrated by
the new difficulties in entering Israel to attack civilian
populations, will gain wide Palestinian public support and perhaps
increased international public support when they turn their wrath
against the Israeli settlements. I fear that the Israeli public,
which today has little sympathy for the settlers, will develop a
strong sense of solidarity with them once they become the main
target of Palestinian attacks and international political attacks
against Israel in every international arena.
If Israel were to construct the fences and walls and at the same
time withdraw from all settlements, even leaving a few blocs along
the Green Line in about 2-4 percent of the territories, then we
could perhaps have a basis for the eventual emergence of peace. But
this is not the plan. Israel will continue the occupation and will
continue to construct more settlements. The Palestinians might have
a greater degree of freedom within cordoned-off Palestinian areas,
but these will be little more than sovereign cages. Palestinian
movement between those areas will continue to be limited, while
movement outside of Palestine remain under full Israeli
control.
There is no recipe for quiet here and it is amazing that so many
so-called security experts can be hostages to their conceptions (or
misconceptions). I am sure that some $300 million down the road
(the estimated cost of building the walls and fences) and after
many more casualties on both sides, the sides will come back to the
only real viable solution to the conflict - real political
separation together with economic cooperation and
integration.
1 Dan Schueftan, Korah Hahafrada - Disengagement, Israel and the
Palestinian Entity, Zmora-Bitan, 1999
2 Erecting a Separation Fence. Shlomo Brom & Yiftah S. Shapir.
Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, June 27, 2002
3 Erecting a Separation Fence. Shlomo Brom & Yiftah S. Shapir.
Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, June 27, 2002
4 Erecting a Separation Fence. Shlomo Brom & Yiftah S. Shapir.
Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, June 27, 2002
5 Ha'aretz editorial, June 18, 2002, English Edition
(www.haaretzdaily.com)
6 Ilan Pappe, Al Ahram Weekly, July 11-17, 2002, Issue Number
594
7 Time magazine, "Fencing Off Terrorists", Matt Reyes, September 3,
2002,
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,260701,00.html
8 Foundation for Middle East Peace, Geofrey Aronson, June 19, 2002,
http://www.fmep.org/analysis/aronson_sharons_new_map.html
