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Ehud Yaari
An Interim Agreement for Israel and Palestine
More than 16 years after the euphoria of the Oslo accords, the Israelis and the Palestinians have still not reached a final-status peace agreement. Indeed, the last decade has been dominated by setbacks--the second intifada, which started in
A further effort to reach a comprehensive settlement is bound to falter, thus increasing the dangers of another major flare-up and undermining the credibility of the Palestinian Authority (PA). The prospects of a deal between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and PA President Mahmoud Abbas are slim, since Abbas already rejected former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's far-reaching proposals--the sort of offer Netanyahu would never make. This diplomatic stalemate discredits moderates and plays into the hands of extremists on both sides who refuse to make the concessions that any viable peace treaty will require.
Since an extended impasse is so dangerous, the best option for both the Israelis and the Palestinians is to seek a less ambitious agreement that transforms the situation on the ground and creates momentum for further negotiations by establishing a Palestinian state within armistice boundaries. In diplomatic terms, this formula would go beyond phase two of George W. Bush's 2002 "road map for peace," which proposed a Palestinian state with provisional boundaries, by striving to reach interim agreements on all the issues but stopping short of actually resolving the final-status issues of Jerusalem, the fate of the Palestinian refugees, and permanent boundaries, which were envisioned as phase three of Bush's road map. Such a gradual, yet comprehensive, approach would be more promising than further attempts at taking daring shortcuts. As the Oslo accords demonstrated, giant steps generally result in deadlock.
Israel urgently needs to reach such a provisional agreement before the Palestinian leadership grows even more skeptical of a two-state solution. Although Abbas and his close associates seem committed to this concept, many others in his party,
A small sovereign state within the pre-1967 boundaries has never been the fundamental goal of Palestinian nationalism; instead, Palestinian national consciousness has historically focused on avenging the loss of Arab lands. As the prominent Palestinian academic Ahmad Khalidi has argued, "Today, the Palestinian state is largely a punitive construct devised by the Palestinians' worst historical enemies." Furthermore, he contends, "The intention behind the state today is to limit and constrain Palestinian aspirations territorially, to force them to give up their moral rights." Indeed, in a private conversation in 2001, then pa President Yasir Arafat told me that he believed statehood could potentially become a "sovereign cage."
Many Palestinians now feel that by denying Israel an "end of conflict, end of claims" deal, they are increasing their chances of gaining a state for which they would not be required to make political concessions. Within a few years, the scant support for the two-state formula that currently exists will likely erode, and new concepts will begin to compete as alternatives. In other words, the Palestinian community will accelerate its collapse into Israel's unwilling arms, in effect accomplishing by stealth the sort of Arab demographic dominance that Israeli leaders have for decades sought to avoid by occupying, rather than annexing, the Palestinian territories. Such an annexation in reverse would leave Israel no choice but to coexist alongside an Arab majority within the whole of Palestine as it existed under the British mandate.
Khalidi has illustrated what many Israelis and Americans refuse to see: the Palestinian general public instinctively distinguishes between "independence" (the end of occupation) and "sovereignty" (statehood). Most Palestinians wish to get rid of Israeli control but do not necessarily strive to see the land divided. More and more Palestinians are therefore considering options other than statehood. One option, proposed by Abdel Mohsin al-Qattan, former chair of the
THE ELUSIVE ENDGAME
In 2000, the Camp David talks proved that Israeli and Palestinian leaders were not capable of bridging their differences on the core issues: the fate of the Palestinian refugees, control of Jerusalem, final borders, and security arrangements along the Jordanian border. Since then, the gap has only widened. The secret high-level negotiating sessions in 2007-8 ended in failure even though Olmert offered Abbas more territory than Ehud Barak had offered Arafat in 2000, when Barak was prime minister: all but six percent of the West Bank. Israel would have compensated the Palestinians by transferring areas adding up to a similar size to Palestine and relinquishing control of the Arab neighborhoods in East Jerusalem. Olmert's offer included entrusting management of the Holy Basin--Jerusalem's Old City and its immediate surroundings--to a multinational commission in which both Jordan and Saudi Arabia would have been partners. Palestinian leaders never responded to this offer and even backed away from their previous acceptance of the Israeli army's right to deploy in the
There is no reason to assume that the prospects for a final-status agreement will improve anytime soon. On the contrary, Abbas is bound to be extremely cautious before offering any concessions, given the challenge that he faces from
On the Israeli side, Netanyahu's coalition government cannot be expected to adopt Olmert's 2008 offer, let alone improve on it. Almost all the members of Netanyahu's cabinet believe that final-status negotiations cannot succeed at this stage. Instead, some key officials, including Barak, who is now Israel's defense minister, advocate pursuing interim arrangements, a path that Netanyahu himself also seems to be considering.
More important than the posturing of politicians is the public mood in both camps. Among the Israelis, there is a growing sense that the PA is too weak to strike a comprehensive deal while
In the absence of a negotiated settlement, there is also a risk that the Palestinians might seek to advance their interests through a third intifada. Indeed, the Palestinians are increasingly considering the potential benefits of a conflagration. Forty percent of those Palestinians interviewed as part of a
STATEHOOD NOW
It is imperative that Israel halt the Palestinians' retreat from the two-state solution, and it can only do so by immediately negotiating the establishment of a Palestinian state within armistice boundaries--before a comprehensive peace is secured.
There is a precedent for such an interim approach. After its war of independence ended in 1949, Israel concluded armistice agreements with its four Arab neighbors:Egypt, Jordan,Lebanon, and Syria.These agreements transformed the existing truce into an armistice structure that would, so it was hoped, eventually lead to formal peace treaties. The armistice arrangements consisted of drawing armistice lines as borders and included a territorial swap between Israel and Jordan in the West Bank. It also created several demilitarized zones and a system of convoys for the Jewish enclave of Mount Scopus in East Jerusalem. Other elements included an exchange of prisoners of war and the establishment of the
The Palestinians were never party to an armistice agreement of their own in 1949 because at the time they did not exercise military control over any territory. Instead, Jordan and Egypt negotiated territorial claims over the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, respectively. Now, the reality on the ground is quite different: the Palestinians have military control over all of the Gaza Strip and important sectors of the West Bank. If armistice talks were initiated today, Palestinian leaders would finally have the opportunity to claim the seat at the table that they have for so long been denied. (The
The push for Palestinian statehood should be accompanied by firm commitments from Israel and outside actors to pursue final-status talks once the state has been established. Both parties must abandon the old slogan of "nothing is agreed upon until everything is agreed upon."This would allow the negotiators to implement agreements without making them conditional on the resolution of all the other points of contention. Just as the Arab states recognized the armistice lines with Israel in 1949 without resolving other issues, Israel could recognize a Palestinian state without immediately settling other outstanding issues, such as the refugee question. The guiding principle behind armistice talks should be to deal first with the status and rights of the 3.5 million Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza and turn later to the approximately six million Palestinians living in the diaspora.
Both the PA and
Most important, some PA leaders are now willing and able to run a country. This represents a significant departure from the era of misgovernment under Arafat, when PA security forces stood by as
DIVIDED BUT NOT CONQUERED
The current split between the pa and
Whereas the PA will hopefully remain committed to the pursuit of peace with Israel,
Within
Some top
PEACE BY PEACE
Because a large majority of Israelis still support a two-state solution, the Knesset would be likely to approve any interim agreement reached by the Netanyahu government and the PA. The first step toward reaching such an agreement would be direct negotiations between Israel and the PA -- with the United States' participation--regarding the fate of both the West Bank and Gaza. Instead of concentrating on an ineffective freeze of settlement construction, diplomats should focus on reaching a deal in which those settlements within the new armistice boundaries of a Palestinian state would actually be removed.
Final-status issues--including the rights of the Palestinian refugees, sovereignty over East Jerusalem, and the fate of the remaining settlements--would all be deferred to a separate track of negotiations that would convene following the armistice agreement. However, temporary arrangements would be inevitable for most of these core issues: In addition to transferring some Arab suburbs of East Jerusalem to the Palestinian state, the negotiators could consider an interim arrangement allowing the PA to help manage the al Aqsa Mosque and the Holy Basin. Moreover, they could establish joint municipal committees to address the concerns of the city's Arab population and elect an Arab deputy mayor for the Palestinian neighborhoods of the city.
As for the refugees, those residing in the new Palestinian state could be offered speedy compensation and resettlement assistance without the risk of losing their refugee status before a comprehensive solution to the refugee problem is agreed on. Also, the budgets for education, health, and welfare services for the refugees could be transferred from the
Armistice boundaries would need to dramatically expand the amount of West Bank territory fully controlled by the PA.There are three possible ways to draw these borders. Israel could implement the "third redeployment" called for in the Oslo accords, whereby Israel would withdraw from an additional 40 percent of the West Bank without removing any settlements or relinquishing jurisdiction over the remaining settlers. Unfortunately, this minimalist approach would provide little incentive for the PA to back down from its opposition to a provisional deal. A bolder version would follow Olmert's plan for an Israeli withdrawal from roughly 94 percent of the West Bank, including the removal of most of the settlements, with the exception of settlement blocks on the Israeli side of the new armistice line. This, too, is an unpromising option, since it would mean that Israel would be giving up all of its territorial cards, including East Jerusalem, without securing a final peace treaty in return. The most realistic option would follow the now-defunct and unpublished "convergence plan" of 2006, which was developed by Olmert and former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, under which Israel would unilaterally withdraw roughly to the lines of the existing security barrier. This would require dismantling over 60 settlements with approximately 50,000 inhabitants in the hills of the West Bank. Carrying out such an agreement would pose a major political challenge to the Israeli government, since the settlers and their supporters within Israel proper would likely stage violent protests. Still, dismantling these settlements would be far less complicated than evacuating the 86,000 settlers who were slated for removal under Olmert's 2008 off to Abbas.
The two parties would also have to outline a future agreement ensuring a system of safe passage between the West Bank and Gaza, which would go into effect if and when the West Bank and Gaza were reunited under a national unity government led by the PA.This system could take the form of convoys and, later, a highway or railway connecting Gaza to Hebron or Tulkarm. Finally, Israeli and Palestinian leaders must negotiate new interim economic agreements. These should replace the current customs union with a free-trade area, lift the ban on issuing a Palestinian currency, and hand over control of border crossings with Jordan and Egypt to the Palestinian government. They should also include an understanding that Palestine would restrict its armed forces to missions of law and order, allow Israel to use Palestinian airspace, and permit the IDF to deploy in the
THE FINAL HURDLE
Skeptics of an interim approach will argue that the offcial position of the PA has not changed: it continues to insist on a final-status agreement and rejects the concept of a Palestinian state within provisional boundaries. However, overcoming the PA's long-standing rejection of any provisional agreement with Israel is not an impossible task. It will require intense diplomatic efforts from the United States and the
In Israel, too, there is bound to be strong opposition to this approach from right-wing parties and the settler lobby. Settlements at the armistice phase would either be dismantled or stay under the authority of Israeli military commanders (depending on their location in relation to the new armistice boundaries). This would clearly signal to the settlers that their long-term prospects of remaining deep inside the West Bank are slimmer than at any time since the Oslo accords and would encourage non-ideological settlers to seek alternative homes within the settlement enclaves slated to become part of Israel proper. A government program to assist them could go a long way toward reducing the number of settlers residing in Palestinian-majority areas.
If any settlements are dismantled, the Israeli right will likely take to the streets in great numbers, and the Netanyahu government could be toppled by a rebellion within the
Signing an armistice agreement would be the greatest breakthrough in Arab-Israeli peacemaking since the 1994 peace treaty with Jordan. Instead of allowing such issues as the refugees and the status of Jerusalem to delay the establishment of a Palestinian state, it would constitute a major step toward ending the occupation, fundamentally reconfigure the conflict, and make the prospects for a final-status agreement far brighter than ever before.
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Israel and Palestine: Armistice Now - An Interim Agreement