POLITICS-ISRAEL: Quick March Away from Peace

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Analysis by Ferry Biedermann

JERUSALEM, Mar 3 2003 (IPS) - Israel’s new cabinet had hardly been sworn in before it became clear that the new government will pursue a relentlessly right-wing agenda.

Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz announced on a visit to the sprawling, fortress-like settlement of Ma’ale Adumim that the open space between the settlement and Jerusalem would be filled new Jewish construction.

The announcement illustrates the intent of the government to forestall the emergence of a Palestinian state in these occupied areas. New construction in the occupied West Bank on top of the earlier settlements will end hopes of a negotiated solution between Israel and the Palestinians.

Take a quick look at the land situation. Israel borders the Mediterranean to the West. The eastern boundary follows the Jordan River, the Dead Sea and the Jordan Valley, from north to south. A part of this eastern border is actually the West Bank, which is the West Bank of the Jordan River. This is the territory Israel occupied in 1967.

Gaza, also occupied in 1967, is separated from the West Bank by Israel proper. It lies on the Mediterranean in the south, with Egypt on its southern border.

Jerusalem juts into the West Bank and belongs partly to Israel proper. East Jerusalem is Palestinian (Jordanian before 1967) but is now annexed by Israel. New construction is continuing in and around Jerusalem in what Israel claims to be its own territory but is in fact occupied.

The building and expansion of what are usually called ‘settlements’ takes place in parts of the West Bank on territory that is not annexed but which Israel often calls ‘disputed’ rather than occupied.

The new construction means that the Israeli ‘facts on the ground’ will be so extensive that only sustained and severe international pressure may be able to dislodge them. Israel could be heading the way of South Africa under apartheid, a pariah state shunned by most of the democratic world.

International investment has tapered off visibly after Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s re-election, top businessmen say. It had held up moderately well during the first years of the intifada.

The significance of the announcement over Ma’ale Adumim is the grand plan behind it. The settlement juts into the West Bank just a few kilometres from Jerusalem. It had been earmarked as one of several settlements that Israel would retain even under a peace plan proposed by President Bill Clinton in 2000.

Such blocs are now to be expanded. More roads are being blasted through the hills to connect the settlements with Israel and with each other. More Palestinian land is being expropriated. Individual settlements are creating ‘buffer zones’ around them in the name of security, and this is eating further into Palestinian land.

The expansion of settlements and the so-called bypass roads accompanies two other developments: the construction of a ‘separation wall’ between Israel and the occupied territories, and the dismantling of Palestinian institutions.

Sharon had seemed reluctant a year ago to approve ‘security separation’ in the form of a wall (or at places a fence) between pre-1967 Israel and the occupied territories. It was seen in right-wing circles as admission of a border between the two that could lead to a political separation in the future. The wall would also leaves many settlements ‘on the wrong side’.

The government has now turned the wall into an instrument of right-wing policy. Most of a new separation barrier will come up well inside the occupied territories, incorporating large tracts of land and several settlements on the ‘Israeli’ side.

Some of the land has been expropriated outright. Other stretches will, in theory, remain open to farming by Palestinians. Considering the continuing ban on Palestinians entering Israel, most Palestinians consider these areas lost as well.

The Yesha Council of Jewish settlers is campaigning to get more settlements included on the Israeli side of the wall. It has had several successes in the past. But the inclusion of new settlements would be a zigzagging fence or wall that would serve Israel’s security interest less and less, but the right-wing political agenda more and more.

Israeli policy has also pursued destruction of Palestinian infrastructure and the dismantling of Palestinian institutions. Palestinian security services have been hit by both. Their equipment, offices, barracks, vehicles, prisons and weapons have been destroyed or impounded. The Israelis have made Palestinian security useless even where it has been working to help the Israelis.

Palestinians have brought much of this on themselves with their particular brand of ‘resistance’ in the form of suicide attacks and other actions aimed at civilians. On the other hand, Palestinian political institutions have been prevented from functioning, their leaders cannot meet, educational services are being eroded, and economically the territories have been ground into the dust.

None of this inspires any trust in Ariel Sharon’s repeated statements that he is willing to make ‘painful concessions’ for peace. He is not shaping up as some Charles De Gaulle, the French president who led the French out of Algeria. He is turning more into a Slobodan Milosevic, the Yugoslav leader who sought to dominate other people’s territories by force.

Israeli strategic analyst Yossi Alpher wrote last month on the Internet forum Bitterlemons that "unless this situation is dealt with in creative ways, we may find that we have returned to being the hostages of Israeli rightist positions – not for years to come, but for perhaps decades."

Settlement construction had continued even under centre-left Labour governments. It continued while former Prime Minister Ehud Barak was trying to reach a final deal with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat at Camp David in May 2000. But Labour governments also signed the Oslo accords in 1993, and seemed to move steadily in the direction of giving up most of the West Bank and the whole of Gaza.

Such moves will be much harder for the next Labour government. The setting up of so much more infrastructure and the presence of so many more people in the occupied territories will make an Israeli consensus on dismantling settlements and evacuating people less likely.

This, at least, seems to be what Sharon and his right-wing allies in the new government are betting on.