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The American-Israeli 'Peace Plan': a Textual and Political Analysis

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The American-Israeli 'Peace Plan': a Textual and Political Analysis Mada al-Carmel: The Arab Center for Applied Social Research, Haifa The American-Israeli ‘Peace Plan’: A Textual and Political Analysis Dr. Mohanad Mustafa August 2020 This Paper has been produced in collaboration with The Palestinian Forum For Israeli Studies (MADAR), Ramallah. This paper discusses Israeli efforts to definitively terminate the cause of Palestinian statehood after the announcement of the American ‘peace plan’ for Israel-Palestine (“Peace to Prosperity” or more colloquially the “Deal of the Century”).1 In recent years, especially since the election of Donald Trump as US president in 2016, the a neo-Zionist project led by Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli right has focused on finally quashing the Palestinian cause, both politically and on the ground. The content of the US plan is consistent with these efforts, but in some respects it surpasses them, proposing ideas that have otherwise not been prioritized in Israeli political discussions on Palestine. The US plan would represent the political and moral surrender of the Palestinian national movement. Implementation of the plan prior to its announcement The US plan is based on the principle of might is right, meaning that you take all facts on the ground as incontrovertible, even if they were illegally established. In this regard, the plan embraces the most extreme Israeli position on settlements and borders. It does not distinguish between government-sanctioned settlements and those established by rogue settlers at their own initiative. The rate of settlement growth and expansion has risen since the election of Donald Trump, and has accelerated further in the past year. The current Israeli minister of defense, Naftali Bennett, has taken several measures to strengthen Israeli control over Area C, whose annexation he has demanded ever since he entered politics.2 To strengthen Israeli sovereignty over these areas, Bennett announced the demarcation of seven new nature reserves in the West Bank, as well as the expansion of twelve existing reserves. The aim of this policy is to prevent Palestinians from expanding in these areas, and to restrict Palestinian space under the guise of preserving nature. It is worth noting that some settlement outposts have been established within these reserves on Palestinian public and private land; Israel has not dismantled them.3 1 The White House, Peace to Prosperity: A Vision to Improve the Lives of the Palestinian and Israeli People (Washington, DC: Author, 2020), https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Peace- to-Prosperity-0120.pdf. 2 Muhannad Mustafa, “Annexation in the Current Israeli Debate: The Dialectic of Citizenship and Land,” Israeli Affairs Journal, vol. 66, 2017, 37–51. 3 The Israeli Supreme Court rejected a petition submitted by a group of Israelis (forty individuals) to cancel the nature reserve Em Zuka in which a settlement outpost was built because it discriminates between 1 There are fifty-one nature reserves in Area C covering 500,000 dunums, and the new nature reserves announced by Bennett cover a further 130,000 dunums.4 According to data supplied by Peace Now, 427,000 settlers were living in the West Bank (excluding Jerusalem) in 2018. They constitute 5 percent of the total population of the State of Israel. 132 settlements have been established by government say-so, whereas 121 outposts have been independently established.5 The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs published a report regarding settlements in April 2019 on the eve of the announcement of US plan. The president of this center is Dore Gold, Netanyahu's former consultant. According to this report, there were approximately 448,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank (approximately 15 percent of the total population living in the West Bank). According to estimates used by the center, , there are 1.7 million Palestinians in the West Bank, which means that the settler population would be 26 percent of the total West Bank population.6 The data used by the center is consistent with Peace Now data, which puts the settlers at 4 percent of Israel’s total population. Seventy-seven percent of the settlers live in settlement clusters. The policy of extending Israeli sovereignty over these clusters enjoys broad support inside Israel. Other settlers live deep within the West Bank. All settlers live in Area C. The center’s data is based on statistics from the Settler Council. This council undoubtedly played a role in determining the details of the Trump plan, including the idea of imposing Israeli sovereignty upon areas of the West Bank.7 Table 1. West Bank Land Square kilometers Percentage Area A 982,000 17.1 Area B 1,035,000 18.1 Palestinian and Jewish settlers. Moreover, Judge Menahem Mazuz called the lawyer who submitted the petition a provocateur. (Amira Hess, In the West bank settlers recruit nature to their mission- with the high court`s consent, Haaretz, 17\1\2020,p:17.) 4 Ibid. 5 “West Bank Population,” Peace Now website, https://peacenow.org.il/en/settlements-watch/settlements- data/population. 6 Ibid. 7 Ibid. 2 Nature reserves 166,000 2.9 Area C 3,539,000 61.9 West Bank 5,722,000 100.0 Table 1 shows that Area C constitutes almost 62 percent of the West Bank. The table also reveals how nature reserves areas are used to control areas of the West Bank and to restrict Palestinian construction and agriculture development. In 2019, settlement expansion policies continued in Area C in preparation for its the annexation, even before the announcement of the US plan. These policies ran alongside restrictions placed on Palestinians in these areas and fit with right-wing government plans to annex this area. A report published by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) regarding Israeli policies in these areas stated that Palestinian home demolitions and expropriations in Area C increased by 45 percent in 2019; 393 buildings were demolished or expropriated in 2019, of which 116 buildings had been donated by international bodies, compared to 271 buildings demolished or expropriated in 2018 (see Table 2).8 Table 2. Demolition and Expropriation of Palestinian Buildings in Area C in 2019 Buildings Buildings Palestinians Made demolished expropriated Homeless 2017 256 14 398 2018 226 45 218 2019 328 65 507 The report further indicates that the number of Palestinians left homeless as a result of the demolition or expropriation of their homes has increased from 218 in 2018 to 507 in 2019. Restrictions on the construction of housing are detailed in Resolution no. 8 Reported in Hagar Shizaf, “United Nations: In 2019 the Number of Buildings Demolished or Expropriated in Area C Was Increased,” Haaretz, January 7, 2020, p. 4. 3 1797, which enables Civil Administration supervisors to demolish or expropriate buildings built without a license within ninety-six hours of the first notice issued to the buildings’ owners. During this period, the owners have no practical or procedural means at their disposal to appeal against the order. Since assuming the position of Minister of Defense, Naftali Bennett has been working on developing a plan to freeze all Palestinian construction in these areas for two years.9 During talks with Bennett about Palestinian construction in Area C, the army presented data showing that this area constitutes 60 percent of the West Bank, in which approximately 200,000 Palestinians live in twenty- five organized, planned villages as well as in hundreds of clusters unrecognized by the Israeli Civil Administration. Furthermore, Palestinians were starting to build more than 1,000 additional unlicensed units. Bennett asked the army and the Territories Coordinator in the government, as well as the Civil Administration, to ramp up Israeli supervision in order to prevent Palestinian construction. He also made efforts to stop European funding for Palestinian construction in these areas. Army data indicates that most construction is funded by Europe. Ramping up supervision and restricting funding works effectively deters construction.10 Bennett's measures are part of a wider policy of restricting Palestinian construction in Area C. According to Civil Administration data, Palestinians submitted 1,485 construction requests in these areas between 2006 and 2008.11 The Civil Administration approved twenty-one requests in that time (1.4 percent of the total requests). In the same period, the Civil Administration issued 2,147 demolition orders of Palestinian buildings in these areas. The Civil Administration revealed that it issued only fifty-six construction permits for Palestinians during the same period. thirty-five of these were not based on requests made by Palestinians, but were instead given out as part of a plan to transfer members of Al-Jahaleen tribe, who live near Ma’ale Adumim settlement, into the neighborhood of Al-Jabal, adjacent to Al-Eizariya.12 9 Ariel Kahana, “Bennett's Plan: ‘We Will End the Palestinian Control’," Israel Hayom, December 19, 2019, https://www.israelhayom.co.il/article/717217. 10 Ibid. 11 The Civil Administration did not disclose this information willingly, but only after the organization Bimkom requested this information from the Civil Administration, which was granted through the Freedom of Information Law. 12 Hagar Shizaf, “In Three Years, 98.6% of Palestinian Construction Requests in Area C Were Rejected,” Haaretz, January 22, 2020, p. 3. 4 As for the data revealed by the Civil Administration on the issuing of construction permits in Area C, it was found that in the last two decades (2000–2018) Palestinians submitted 6,532 permit requests, of which a mere 210 (3.2 percent) were approved (Table 3). The data disclosed by the Civil Administration shows that the restriction of Palestinian construction began in the late 1980s, during the first intifada, and intensified after the Oslo Agreement was signed.
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