.THE KEY TO PEACE: DISMANTLING THE
MATRIX OF CONTROLhttp://www.icahd.org/eng/articles.asp?menu=6&submenu=3
..By Jeff Halper *
..In the complex
situation in which Palestinians and Israelis currently
find themselves, two things seems equally evident: First,
a viable and truly sovereign Palestinian state alongside
Israel is an absolute prerequisite for a just and lasting
peace; and second, Israel needs a Palestinian state.
Without a Palestine state Israel faces what it considers
as two unacceptable options. If it annexes the Occupied
Territories and grants citizenship to their three million
Palestinian inhabitants, it creates de facto a
bi-national state of 5 million Jews and 4 million
Palestinians (not counting the refugees), an option that
would end the Zionist enterprise. If it continues its
Occupation, it inevitably creates a system of outright
apartheid, an untenable option in the long run.
A
Palestinian state thus appears to be indispensable for
both Israel and the Palestinians. So what's the problem?
Why did a decade of negotiations from Madrid and Oslo to
Camp David and Taba end in such dismal failure, indeed,
in an Intifada? What, indeed, must be done, not only to
"restart the peace process," but to ensure that
it concludes with a just peace offering not simply
security for Israel but also a truly sovereign and viable
state for the Palestinians?
Putting
the issue of the refugees aside for the moment, the
answer to these questions depends on whether the
Palestinians succeed in dismantling the Matrix of Control
Israel has laid over the Occupied Territories since 1967.
The issue before us, the issue separating a just peace
from an imposed one, a sovereign Palestinian state from a
bantustan, has to do not only with territory but with
control. One indisputable fact that has accompanied the
entire "peace process" is that Israel will
simply not relinquish control voluntarily over the West
Bank and East Jerusalem. It will not relinquish the core
of its settlement system, or control of the West Bank
aquifers, or sway over the area's economy or it
"security arrangements" extending over the
entire Palestinian area.
From
Israel's point of view, then, the trick is to find an
arrangement that would leave it in control, but
"relieve" it of the Palestinian population -- a
kind of occupation-by-consent. This was the essence of
the "take it or leave it" offer Barak and
Clinton made at Camp David (the Palestinians left it), as
well as that of the Taba negotiations in January, 2001.
The popular impression has it that Barak made a
"generous offer" of 95% of the West Bank, plus
considerable parts of East Jerusalem and all of Gaza, and
that the Palestinians made an "historic
mistake" in rejecting it. This has let Israel off
the hook in terms of repressing Palestinian resistance.
It has become fashionable, even among the moderate
Israeli left, to blame the Palestinians for
"spoiling" the peace process. They, after all,
spurned Barak's "generous offer" of 95% and
reacted with "violence." We, the Israelis, did
our part. We were forthcoming. They are not ready for
peace, do not want peace, are not "partners"
for peace. We are OK; they are to blame for everything.
They deserve anything they get. We are not responsible.
The
Matrix of Control: Rendering the Occupation Invisible
Before we
begin our analysis of Taba, I must define what I mean by
a Matrix of Control? It is a system of control designed
- to allow
Israel to control every aspect of Palestinian
life in the Occupied Territories, while
- lowering
Israel's military profile in order to give the
impression to the outside that what Palestinians
refer to as "occupation" is merely
proper administration, and that Israel has a
"duty" to defend itself and the status
quo, yet
- creating
enough space for a dependent Palestinian
mini-state that will relieve Israel of the
Palestinian population while
- deflecting,
through the use of "administrative"
image and bureaucratic mechanisms, international
opposition and thus to maintain control
indefinitely and, in the final analysis,
- to force
the Palestinians' to despair of ever achieving a
viable and truly sovereign state and to accept
any settlement offered by Israeli. ("Time is
on our side" is, as Sharon has often said, a
cornerstone of Israeli policy.)
Because it operates under a
Kafkaesque guise of "proper administration,"
"upholding the law," "keeping the public
order" and, of course, "security," the
Matrix of Control renders the Occupation virtually
invisible. In "normal" times (when active
Palestinian resistance can be stifled), its outward
appearance is legal and bureaucratic, the most effective
means of control over a long period of time. The Israeli
military government over the Occupied Territories is
called, for example, the "Civil
Administration," even though it is headed by a
colonel under the strict authority of the Ministry of
Defense, and is bound by the orders of the general
commanding the "Central Front.
The control mechanisms of the
Matrix are varied and diverse. There are, first of all,
active measures to ensure acquiescence:
- Outright
military actions, including attacks on civilian
population centers and the Palestinian
infrastructure;
- Extensive
use of collaborators and undercover
"mustarabi" army units; administrative
detention, arrest, trial and torture;
- "Orders"
issued by the Military Commanders of the West
Bank and Gaza (some 2000 in number since 1967),
supplemented by Civil Administration policies,
that replace local civil law with policies and
procedures that cynically further Israeli
political control.
******************************************
Protocol
Additional to the Geneva Conventions, relating to
the Protection of Victims of Non-International
Armed Conflicts, 8 June 1977Part IV. Civilian
Population
Art 13. Protection
of the civilian population
1. The civilian
population and individual civilians shall enjoy
general protection against the dangers arising
from military operations. To give effect to this
protection, the following rules shall be observed
in all circumstances.
2. The civilian
population as such, as well as individual
civilians, shall not be the object of attack.
Acts or threats of violence the primary purpose
which is to spread terror among the civilian
population are prohibited.
3. Civilians shall
enjoy the protection afforded by this part,
unless and for such time as they take a direct
part in hostilities.
A
second set of controls derives from Israel's
policy of "creating facts on the
ground" - virtually all of them in violation
of international law (including the Fourth
Geneva Convention signed by Israel itself).
These include:
Massive
expropriation of Palestinian land;
Construction
of more than 200 settlements and the transfer of 400,000
Israelis across the 1967 boundaries: about 200,000 in the
West Bank, 200,000 in East Jerusalem and 6000 in Gaza
(the latter occupying a fourth of the land, including
most of the coastline);
Carving
the Occupied Territories into areas -- Areas
"A," "B," "C,"
"D" in the West Bank; "H-1" and
"H-2" in Hebron; Yellow, Green, Blue and White
Areas in Gaza; nature reserves; closed military areas,
security zones, and "open green spaces" of
restricted housing over more than half of Palestinian
East Jerusalem - which confine the Palestinians to some
190 islands all surrounded by Israeli settlements, roads
and checkpoints;
Carving the Occupied Territories into areas -- Areas
"A," "B," "C,"
"D" in the West Bank; "H-1" and
"H-2" in Hebron; Yellow, Green, Blue and White
Areas in Gaza; nature reserves; closed military areas,
security zones, and "open green spaces" of
restricted housing over more than half of Palestinian
East Jerusalem - which confine the Palestinians to some
190 islands all surrounded by Israeli settlements, roads
and checkpoints;
A
massive system of highways and by-pass roads designed to
link settlements, to create barriers between Palestinian
areas and to incorporate the West Bank into Israel
proper;
- Imposing
severe controls on Palestinian movement;
- Construction
of seven industrial parks that give new life to
isolated settlements, exploit cheap Palestinian
labor while denying it access to Israel, rob
Palestinian cities of their economic vitality,
control key locations and ensure Israel's ability
to continue dumping its industrial wastes onto
the West Bank;
- Maintaining
control over aquifers and other vital natural
resources;
- Exploiting
holy places (Rachel's Tomb in Bethlehem, the Cave
of the Patriarchs in Hebron and others in and
around Jerusalem) as pretexts for maintaining a
"security presence," and hence military
control.
Yet a third set of control
mechanisms, the most subtle of all, are those of a
bureaucratic or "legal" nature. They entangle
Palestinians in a tight web of restrictions and trigger
sanctions whenever Palestinians try to expand their life
space. These include:
- A permanent
"closure" of the West Bank and Gaza;
- A
discriminatory and often arbitrary system of
work, entrance and travel permits system
restricting freedom of movement both within the
country and abroad;
- The use of
diverse methods of active displacement: exile and
deportation; the revoking of residency rights;
induced emigration through impoverishment; land
expropriation, house demolitions and other means
of making life in the Occupied Territories
unbearable. Schemes of "transfer" have
also been suggested (in fact, two parties in
Sharon's government -- the National Union Party
of the assassinated Tourism Minister Ze'evi and
Minister of Infrastructure Lieberman's
"Israel Is Our Home" -- have
"transfer" as their main political
program). Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians
have "departed" since 1967, but a core
of three million sumud ("steadfast")
Palestinians still remains.
- Zoning
policies which, under the guise of planning and
the law, serves to freeze the natural development
of Palestinian towns and villages. Part of this
system involves the restrictive use building
permits, enforced by house demolitions, arrests,
fines and daily harassment, all designed to
confine the population to small enclaves;
- Expansive
"master plans" being drawn around the
settlements which allow for massive building
while contending that settlement building has
been "frozen."
- Restrictions
on the planting of crops and their sale, together
with the wholesale uprooting of hundreds of
thousands of olive and fruit trees since 1967;
and
- Employing
licensing and inspection of Palestinian
businesses as a means of political control.
To all of this must be added, of
course, the debilitating psychological costs of life
under occupation: loss of life, imprisonment, torture,
harassment, humiliation, anger and frustration, as well
as traumas suffered by tens of thousands of Palestinians
(especially children) who witnessed their homes being
demolished, saw their loved ones beaten and humiliated,
suffered from inadequate housing, and who lost
opportunities to actualize their life potentials. These
are wounds that will take generations to heal.
Barak's "Generous
Offer" and the Matrix of Control
This popular view is based on both
false information and false assumptions. First of all,
there never was an Israeli "offer," and Israel
never proposed to relinquish 95% of the West Bank. At a
desperate time when Barak knew he would lose the
election, the Israeli delegation came to Taba prepared to
talk about conceding 93% of the West Bank - with the
Palestinians counter-proposing 97%. But they were not
talking about the same land. Because Israel does not
consider East Jerusalem and "No Man's Land"
around Latrun as part of the West Bank, but does include
the part of the Dead Sea falling within the Palestinian
territory, Barak's 93% was actually more like 88% of the
actual Palestinian territory.
The major fallacy in this view is
to equate territory with sovereignty. Although gaining
control of 95% or 88% of the territory is important -
especially if the territory is contiguous -- it does not
necessarily equate with sovereignty. This is where the
crucial issue of control enters the picture. The
Palestinians could well receive 95% of the West Bank,
Gaza and pieces of East Jerusalem and still not have the
prerequisites of national self-determination: coherent
territory, economic viability and genuine sovereignty.
Since 1967 - and increasingly since the Oslo Accords were
signed in 1993 -- Israel has laid a "Matrix of
Control" over the West Bank, East Jerusalem and
Gaza. The Matrix, an intricate and an interlocking series
of control mechanisms, resembles the Japanese game of
"Go." Instead of defeating your opponent as in
chess, in "Go" you win by immobilizing the
other side, by gaining control of key points of a matrix,
so that every time your opponent moves he or she
encounters another obstacle. This strategy was used
effectively in Vietnam, where small forces of Viet Cong
were able to pin down and virtually paralyze some
half-million American soldiers possessing overwhelming
fire-power.
In effect Israel has done the same
thing to the Palestinians. Laid out strategically, the
Matrix of Control paralyzes the Palestinian population
even if Israel does not actually occupy large swathes of
land. All the settlements and by-pass roads take up less
than 5% of the land; "settlement blocs,"
"security zones" and other forms of control can
be expanded to include 12% of the land as in Barak's
conception or 56% as in Sharon's. But these 5-12% are
what makes the difference between a bantustan and a
sovereign, viable state. From the point of view of
control, 88% of the West Bank that the Palestinians might
receive indeed, sounds "generous," but it must
be evaluated in light of the impact the other 5-12% have
on Palestinian viability and sovereignty.
Barak's "offer" at Taba
deserves to be looked at carefully, not because it was
truly an "offer" or because it truly
represented the Israeli position or a genuine
possibility, but because, as Barak never tired of saying,
it is by far the best "deal" the Palestinians
will ever be offered, the most "generous," a
one-time "take-it-or-leave-it" that would be a
"historical mistake" for the Palestinians to
reject. If all this is true, would the so-called
"95% offer" at Taba have led to a sovereign and
viable Palestinian state? Would it have in fact
dismantled Israel's Matrix of Control? The answer to this
"best case" scenario is "no."
It is true that some significant
gains were made at Taba. Israel relinquished claim to the
Jordan Valley, much territory was conceded (though not
95%), the settlement blocs were reduced in size, and
Israel gave up its extra-territorial control over its
by-pass road system. The Palestinians gained a greater
degree of territorial contiguity and control of their
borders, though not of their water resources. But Taba
did not break Israel's hold on the Occupied Territories.
On the contrary, it revealed how much Israel could
relinquish and still retain control. Taba revealed the
essential elements of the Matrix of Control, the minimum
"red lines" of any foreseeable Israeli
government. Looked at closely, this is what the
"generous offer" in fact offered:
- Consolidation
of Strategic Settlement Blocs. In the mid-1990s
Israel began a major strengthening and
consolidation of its settlement presence. In
order to avoid international opposition to the
establishment of new settlements, the government
shifted to building new settlements within the
expansive master plans around each settlement. In
that way it was able to argue that it was simply
"thickening" existing settlements to
meet natural population growth (an outright
falsification), not establishing new ones. It
also began to merge discrete settlements into
large settlement blocs. Although the fate of some
of these blocs remains uncertain (the Jordan
Valley settlements, for example, as well as the
Kiryat Arba bloc near Hebron and settlements in
heavily populated Palestinian areas), Israel is
unmoving in this insistance on retaining three
large blocs comprising today some 150,000 Israeli
settlers:
- The
city of Ariel and its surrounding
"Western Samaria" bloc control
a strategic area on the western side of
the West Bank, seriously compromising
territorial contiguity and the coherent
flow of people and goods between the
major Palestinian towns of Kalkilya,
Nablus and Ramallah. It would also
severely restrict the urban development
of the Kalkilya area. No less important
than its strategic location on the ground
is Ariel's location vis-a-vis Palestinian
resources under the ground: the Ariel
bloc sits atop the major aquifer of the
West Bank and would control the flow and
distribution of water.
- The
central Givat Ze'ev-Pisgat Ze'ev-Ma'alei
Adumim (and perhaps Beit El) bloc
stretches across much of the central West
Bank from the Modi'in area to within 20
kilometers of the Jordan River. It
effectively divides the West Bank in two,
compelling north-south Palestinian
traffic (especially from Ramallah to
Bethlehem and Hebron areas) to pass
through Israeli territory - the
funnel-like Eastern Ring Road. It also
keeps the Palestinians of the West Bank
far from Jerusalem, isolating the 200,000
Palestinians of East Jerusalem from their
wider state and society, and cutting the
natural urban link between Jerusalem and
Ramallah. In terms of viability, this
bloc, a main component of Israeli
"Greater Jerusalem,"
constitutes the greatest threat to a
coherent Palestinian state.
- The
Efrat-Gush Etzion-Beitar Illit bloc to
the southwest of Jerusalem (yet connected
through Gilo, Har Homa and the Eastern
Ring Road/Road #7 complex to the Ma'aleh
Adumim bloc) is the other key component
of "Greater Jerusalem." It also
impacts seriously on the viability and
sovereignty of any Palestinian state. The
bloc severs any coherent connection
between the major cities of Bethlehem and
Hebron, as well as traffic using the
"safe passage" from Gaza. It
forces Palestinians moving between these
areas to use Israeli-controlled
"security" roads passing
through dense areas of settlement,
continually exposed to disruption and
closure. It locks in Bethlehem to the
extent of preventing its normal urban
development. And, like the Ariel bloc, it
sits astride and brings into Israeli
control a major West Bank aquifer.
- The
Creation of a "Greater [Israeli]
Jerusalem." The Givat Ze'ev-Adumim and Gush
Etzion settlement blocs, 250 square kilometers
containing some 80,000 settlers, when annexed to
Israeli-controlled "Greater Jerusalem,"
will dominate the entire central region of the
West Bank and obstruct the territorial contiguity
necessary for a viable Palestinian state. They
also function as a buffer, to separate Jerusalem
from its wider West Bank surroundings, thus
keeping the Palestinians at a considerable
distance away. Because some 40% of the
Palestinian economy revolves around Jerusalem in
the form of tourism, commercial life and
industry, removing Jerusalem from the Palestinian
realm carries such serious economic consequences
as to call the very viability of the Palestinian
state into question. And in general the
"Greater Jerusalem" concept neutralizes
Jerusalem as a major Palestinian urban, religious
and cultural center.
- The
Emergence of a "Metropolitan [Israeli]
Jerusalem." The ring roads and major
highways being built through and around Jerusalem
are intended to create a regional infrastructure
of control, turning Jerusalem from a city into a
metropolitan region. "Metropolitan"
Jerusalem covers a huge area. Its boundaries,
incorporating a full 10% of the West Bank (440
square kilometers), stretch from Beit Shemesh in
the west up through Kiryat Sefer until and
including Ramallah, then southeast through
Ma'aleh Adumim almost to the Jordan River, then
turning southwest to encompass Beit Sahour,
Bethlehem, Efrat abnd the Etzion Bloc, then west
again through Beitar Illit and Tsur Hadassah to
Beit Shemesh. It also provides a crucial link to
the Kiryat Arba and the settlements in and around
Hebron. In many ways "Metropolitan"
Jerusalem is the Occupation. Within its limits
are found 75% of the West Bank settlers and the
major centers of Israeli construction.
By employing a regional approach to the planning
of highways, industrial parks and urban
settlements, an Israeli-controlled metropolis can
emerge whose very power as a center of urban
activity, employment and transportation will
render political boundaries, such as those
between Jerusalem and Ramallah or Jerusalem and
Bethlehem, absolutely irrelevant. A good example
of how this is already happening is the new
industrial park, Sha'ar Binyamin, now being built
at the "Eastern Gate" to metropolitan
Jerusalem, southeast of Ramallah. In terms of
Israeli control this industrial park provides an
economic anchor to settlements - Kokhav Ya'akov,
Tel Zion, Ma'aleh Mikhmas, Almon, Psagot, Adam,
all the way to Beit El and Ofra - that otherwise
would be isolated from the Israeli and Jerusalem
economy. More to the point, it robs Ramallah of
its economic dynamism, providing jobs and perhaps
even sites for Palestinian industry that would
otherwise be located in or around Ramallah.
Again, looking at Israel's strategy from the
point of view of control rather than territory,
"Metropolitan Jerusalem" virtually
empties a Palestinian state of its meaning in
terms of viability and sovereignty.
- An East
Jerusalem Patchwork. Between the negotiations at
Camp David and Taba, various options were
explored to give the Palestinians more of a
presence in East Jerusalem, which they claim as
their capital. The peripheral villages and
neighborhoods to the north and south of the city
might have been ceded, although the Palestinians
might receive less than full sovereignty over
them - "functional autonomy,"
"administrative control" or
"limited sovereignty." In Taba Israel
considered ceding some parts of the core areas as
well: some of the "Holy Basin" between
the Old City and the Mount of Olives, downtown
East Jerusalem, the Sheikh Jarrah Quarter, and in
the Old City the Muslim and Christian Quarters.
The Temple Mount/Haram issue remained unresolved,
with Israel prepared to cede "functional
sovereignty" (though not official) to the
"upper" area of the mosques, while
retaining sole sovereignty over the
"lower" Western Wall.
Regardless of the size of the territorial
compromises, Israel will not cede the entire area
of East Jerusalem, where Israelis (about 200,000
in number) outnumber Palestinians. Since the
settlements there were situated strategically for
maximum control of territory and movement, and
since they are today in the process of being
connected, any Palestinian patches will only
tenuous connections to each other and to the
Palestinian capital in Abu Dis. The Palestinian
presence in Jerusalem will be fragmented and
barely viable as a urban and economic center.
Moreover, it would be entirely surrounded by the
"outer ring" of Israeli "Greater
Jerusalem," hemming it in and preventing
East Jerusalem's normal urban and economic
development. (Indeed, functionally ceding
Palestinian areas of East Jerusalem to the
Palestinians - relinquishing an
"unwanted" population of some 200,000
people without relinquishing control - while
incorporating the surrounding settlements into a
"Greater Jerusalem" would increase the
majority of Jews in the expanded city from the
present 70% to 85%.)
- Israeli
Control over Highways and Movement. Over the past
decades (and especially during the Oslo
"peace process'), Israel has been
constructing a system of major highways and
"by-pass roads" designed to link its
settlements, to create barriers between
Palestinian areas and to incorporate the West
Bank into Israel proper. Even if physical control
over the highways is relinquished, strategic
parts will remain under Israeli control - the
Eastern Ring Road, Jerusalem-Etzion Bloc highway,
Road 45 from Tel Aviv to Ma'aleh Adumim, a
section of Highway 60 from Jerusalem to Beit El
and Ofra, and the western portion of the
Trans-Samaria highway leading to the Ariel bloc.
In terms of the movement of people and goods,
this will effectively divide the Palestinian
entity into at least four cantons: the northern
West Bank, the southern portion, East Jerusalem
and Gaza. There are other restrictions as well.
The "safe passages" from Gaza to the
West Bank, crucial to the viability of a
Palestinian state, will only be administered by
the Palestinians; they will not receive
extra-territorial status. And Israel insists on
retaining rights of "emergency
deployment" to both the highway system and
to the Jordan Valley, severely compromising
Palestinian sovereignty. Indeed, the highways
would retain the status of Israeli "security
roads," meaning that Palestinian development
along them would remain limited.
To fully understand the role of the highway grid
in completing the process of incorporation, one
must link these West Bank developments to the
ambitious Trans-Israel Highway project. Already
in 1977, in his Master Plan for the settlement
and incorporation of the West Bank, Sharon
presented his "Seven Stars" plan
calling for contiguous Israeli urban growth
straddling both sides of the "Green
Line." The Trans-Israel Highway, which hugs
the border of the West Bank, provides a new
"central spine" to the country.
Hundreds of thousands of Israelis will be
resettled in the many towns and cities planned
along the length of the highway, especially along
the "Green Line" and in areas of the
Galilee heavily populated by Arabs. New and
expanded Israeli cities, towns and settlements on
both sides of the Green Line form a new
"metropolitan core-region" in which
Metropolitan Tel Aviv (including the Modi'in area
settlements, Rosh Ha-ayin and the Ariel bloc)
meets Metropolitan Jerusalem (stretching from
Modi'in, Kiryat Sefer, Beit Shemesh and the
Etzion Bloc across the most of the central West
Bank to the settlements east of Ma'aleh Adumim.
The Trans-Israel Highway, articulating as it does
with the highways and settlement blocs of the
West Bank, moves the entire population center of
the country eastward, reconfiguring the entire
country.
- Industrial
Parks for Economic Control. The establishment of
industrial parks on the "seam" between
Israel and the Palestinian state is a key
strategy in subduing popular Palestinian
opposition to continued Israeli presence and
control in the Occupied Territories. Seven such
parks have already been built, with several other
in various stages of planning and construction.
Yet, while providing employment to the
Palestinian workforce, these industrial parks
threaten the economic viability of the
Palestinian state, maintain a dependency
relationship on Israel and present dangers to the
environment. They allow Israeli firms continued
access to cheap Palestinian labor while denying
the workers access to Israel (a key component of
the "separation" strategy). Although
they pay higher salaries than Palestinians can
earn in their own de-developed economy, the wages
are still well below Israeli minimum wages and
benefits. The proximity of Israeli industrial
parks to weaker Palestinian industries nearby
creates unfair competition and in the end saps
Palestinian cities of their economic vitality.
(They also provide crucial economic anchors to
the settlements whose residents manage the parks
and the factories, as the Sha'ar Binyamin project
illustrates.) Just as serious, the lax
environmental standards and low costs means that
these industrial parks attract Israel's most
polluting industries - chemical, aluminum,
plastics, metalworks, batteries. Though
established in Palestinian areas (or
specially-created Industrial zones), these parks
ensure Israel's ability to continue dumping its
industrial wastes into the West Bank.
- Meeting
Israeli "Security" Concerns.
"Security" is defined by Israel in such
maximalist terms that it ensures Israeli
political, military and economic control. Israel
insists that a Palestinian state will be
demilitarized and forbidden to enter into
military pacts with other states, that Israel
controls Palestinian airspace, and that it
reserves the right to deploy forces in the Jordan
Valley in the indeterminate event that it
perceived "a threat" of invasion.
Controlling Palestinian labor and commercial
movement through the imposition of "security
borders," part of Israel's declared policy
of "separation" from the Palestinians,
constitutes additional constraints on Palestinian
development, locking the less that 20% of
Palestine that is the state from the other more
than 80% that is Israel.
- Limited
Palestinian Sovereignty. A Palestinian state
would possess limited sovereignty only. It would
be demilitarized and unable to form military
alliances not approved by Israel. It would have
jurisdiction over its borders, but would have
certain restrictions as to who may enter
(especially vis-a-vis the refugee issue). And the
restrictions regarding military contingencies
(defined by Israel) would apply.
Dismantling the Matrix
of Control: The Only Way Out
If Israel can force or induce the
Palestinians to accept the Camp David formula (or find a
post-Arafat quisling to sign the bottom line), it will
have succeeded in securing control over the Greater Land
of Israel while having relieved itself of the Palestinian
population of the Occupied Territories. This is also true
of Barak's "generous offer" at Taba - Israel's
"best deal" (though it never really approached
a concrete "offer" or "deal"). Again,
it is not hard to understand why the Palestinians
rejected it. Taba would have given Israel title to more
than 80% of Palestine and control over the rest. The
Palestinians would have had to cede the elements
essential to their self-determination: economic viability
and developmental potential, territorial contiguity, true
independence, a normal and sovereign civil society,
recognized borders under their own control. Indeed, they
were already skating on the thin edge of viability and
sovereignty. At Oslo the Palestinians gave up political
claim to 78% of their country, and agreed to a mini-state
of limited sovereignty: no army, no military alliances
not approved by Israel, certain Israeli economic controls
and even limitations on who may enter Palestine. Barak's
"take it or leave it" approach also prevented
agreement. The Palestinians feared they would be doomed
forever to a truncated, dependent, semi-sovereign
mini-state, their hopes for a real country and the
resolution of the refugee issue frozen within the
parameters of Oslo, Camp David and Taba - and ultimately
within the Matrix of Control.
Taba did show that peace was
possible, but only if Israel truly dismantled its Matrix
of Control. Although it represents Israeli's "best
case" scenario, it may not even have been
"real." In articles and interviews Barak has
given since leaving office, he has reiterated his old
pre-Taba, Camp David positions -- 80% of the settlers
must remain under Israeli sovereignty;
"separation;" Israel retains 15% of the West
Bank, etc. Or did he agree knowing full well that any
Taba agreement had no chance passing the Knesset? We will
never know. What we do have now is a Sharon-Peres
government determined to break Palestinian resistance
once and for all. Refusing to even consider picking up
the negotiations from where they left off at Taba, Sharon
has offered the Palestinians 42-56% of the West Bank (the
present extent of Areas A and B with some corridors),
none of East Jerusalem and a truncated Gaza.
The Matrix of Control represents
Israel's success in establishing a system of control over
the Occupied Territories that has lasted decades. Its
usefulness does not end there. Because it renders the
Occupation invisible, it is capable of deflecting
opposition at home and abroad. Although it was Israel who
prejudiced the outcome of the Oslo negotiations by
measurably strengthening its grip over the Occupied
Territories and offering concessions that left its
control intact, it is the Palestinians who have been
almost universally blamed for the breakdown of the
"peace process." An understanding of the Matrix
of Control is essential for comprehending the sources of
the present conflict and the obstacles to its resolution.
Only dismantling it will lead to a just and lasting
peace. This is the only way that Israel's long-standing
and ongoing campaign of "creating facts on the
ground" can be effectively neutralized.
* Jeff Halper, an anthropologist,
is the Coordinator of the Israeli Committee Against House
Demolitions
FROM THE PENGUIN ATLAS OF WORLD HISTORY !!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Mid
East Maps-Canaan and the Israelite Kingdom
|
Israel
during the period of the judges
|
Israel/Canaan
during the reign of King David |
 |
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| From The
Penguin Atlas of World History Volume One, 1974 |
|
