Greater Palestine: Matching Demography, Geography, and Heart

Sharif S. Elmusa1 Political Science Department, The American University in Cairo, 113 Kasr El-Aini Street, Cairo Egypt

Demography matters. Witness South Africa from the village of Abbasiyya (now the town and Iraq, where blacks won majority rule and of Yehud), once told me that a Jewish man where Shiites and Kurds are asserting their from a settlement of Petah Tekfa said to her demographic weight. People, like buildings and a group of villagers in Hebrew-accented and roads, like swimming pools and tele- , “Ya khabibi inta rayekh yiji youm phone towers, are facts on the ground. Today tihij ib-balalsh” (“A day will come, love, there are more than 8 million in when you’ll do the pilgrimage to Mecca for Greater Palestine,2 the Palestine that existed free”). In the highly revealing film Route 181, before Winston Churchill split it by fiat into jointly directed by an Arab and a Jew, Michel Palestine and . Their number Khleifi and Eyal Sivan (2004), the randomly should double, in 30 years or so, to 16 interviewed Jews, almost without exception, million. They will need housing; they will advocate the expulsion of the Palestinians. It need food and roads; they will need water and is not a wordless wish, as Erskine Childers health care. They will become more educated (1971)called the Zionist desire to expel the and more productive. They will fight fiercely Palestinians, but a loud, emphatic, contemp- for a state in which they have equal citizen- tuous one. Eviction is not an easy act to ship rights, as the last 100 years have taught implement; the Palestinians would resist it, us. I submit here that the site of this state must and the Jordanians too. be re-imagined, and that Greater Palestine is Where would the Palestinians go? To the only viable alternative for the three major Transjordan; that is, across the River. ethnic communities that live in it: East Jorda- And what would happen then along the new, nians, Jews, and Palestinians. long front? Would the Palestinians look west The Israelis have been obsessed with and be stricken with historical amnesia? demography. This obsession has led them to Would they forget their land and their houses, fix their gaze eastward, where they wish the their hills and their sea? Would they give up Palestinians to vanish. Build a wall, they have al-Aqsa mosque and the church of the Nativ- told themselves lately, so you can’t see them, ity and the Holy Sepulchre? Or would perpet- so you can secure behind the 1949 ual warfare between two irreconcilable foes armistice line, grab more land, found more be the outcome? Jewish settlements, expand those that exist This is for prophets to fathom; I am a already, and further fragment Palestinian political scientist with a limited horizon. I am space. That way you also carry the battle into reluctant to bring up the idea of ethnic cleans- the enemy’s remaining meagre territory in the ing; talking too often about an unspeakable . Soon the pressure cooker will subject can render it normal, thinkable, if not cause the Palestinians to evaporate, to inevitable. The topic of expulsion should become, indeed, a people without a land, as remain taboo, spoken of or imagined only Max Nordau, the Hungarian-born Zionist with gravity, with a sense of the forbidden. I orator, infamously called them (cited in bring it up because it happened twice before, Childers 1971, 168). My mother, who hailed in 1948 and in 1967, and because not much

The Geographer/Le Géographe du monde arabe Vol 8, No 3 (2005) 156-160 © 2005 by AWG – The Arab World Geographer, Toronto, Canada 157 Sharif S. Elmusa has changed in the Zionist vision of the Pales- symbolically, Palestinian towns and villages. tinians. The Likud Party, in cooperation with The itself is a cage, encircled by a Labor, has largely prepared the strategic fence on three sides and an Israeli-patrolled ground for another exodus, if not in one wave, sea on the fourth, and is cut off from the West then gradually, by haemorrhage. The game of Bank. The medieval wall, constructed by the a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza government of Ariel Sharon and declared ille- is over. The Road Map is an illusion. Presi- gal by the International Court of Justice in dent Mahmoud Abbas, the rationalist “engi- The Hague, only exacerbates the situation. It neer of Oslo,” should draw the sobering, may help to protect Israelis from Palestinian logical conclusions. Otherwise, he may find violence, but it has exposed Palestinians even himself before long the political loner he further to Israel’s insatiable appetite for land. once was. Palestinians have already lost more land and Politically and culturally, the Palestini- orchards as a consequence of the wall. The ans constitute a fairly homogenous nation. In fragmentation and isolation of their commu- spite of Israel’s effort to splinter them into an nities have been aggravated. In short, the ever-expanding number of categories— Palestinians have become caught in a fishnet Christians, Druze, Muslims, Gazans, of Jewish settlements, bypass roads, check- Jerusalemites, Jerichoites, residents of area points, and military patrols—walled in and A, B, or C, displaced persons,3 and walled out. Fear, insecurity, and a tremendous refugees—the Palestinians share a strong waste of time are their daily lot. With a state sense of common identity, solidified in their like this, who needs apartheid? long defence against the Zionist and Israeli Fragmentation and severe restrictions on onslaught. They have accumulated rich polit- the mobility of people and goods have turned ical experience and developed, under highly the Palestinian economy into a series of unfavourable circumstances, a civil society micro-economies attached to the Israeli econ- and para-state institutions that, imperfect as omy. Israeli control over international ports they are, could form the institutional nucleus prevents direct linkage of Palestinian markets of a viable state. They would not be, as is to Arab and international markets, except often the case, a state trying to forge a nation through Israeli mediation. A Palestinian state from a multiplicity of identities, a state- would thus be missing a critical component nation, but a nation fashioning a state. What of statehood: a unified national market joined excludes the possibility of a viable state is the directly to external markets. A viable state fragmented and vulnerable geography that cannot evolve without such a market. Israel has left them with. Why did Israel force the Palestinians into I will not dwell on this geography: the this corner? Why did it keep expanding settle- history of its making and its outline are well ments and building bypass roads after Oslo? known to anyone acquainted with the Why did it continue its tight control over the conflict. The long-term Israeli policy of frag- international ports and impede the movement menting the Palestinian territory has reached of goods to and from Jordan? Why did it a new zenith. What remains today is a land refuse to build a safe passage between Gaza archipelago, comprised of isolated islands, and the West Bank? Why did it, during the Bantustans, cages—call them what you will. pre-Oslo negotiations held in Washington, They are discontinuous geographies, and D.C., stubbornly refuse to demarcate the they can be linked to one another only borders of the settlements and agree to a through the menace of Israeli-controlled functional role over them, as the Palestinian roads and checkpoints. Jewish settlements in delegation headed by Dr. Haidar Abd Al- the West Bank, intentionally situated at Shafi had consistently demanded? There is higher elevations, dominate, physically and only one explanation: Israel has never

The Arab World Geographer/Le Géographe du monde arabe 8, no 3 (2005) Greater Palestine: Matching Demography, Geography, and Heart 158 accepted the idea of a viable, sovereign Pales- Palestinian Question; the Jewish Question, tinian state. too, still lingers on. And there would be Pales- We must recall that before the 1991 tinian refugees who legitimately demand the Madrid conference Israel had traditionally right to return to the territory from which they rejected the idea of a Palestinian state on the were evicted. Israel exhibits no sign of grounds that it would be unviable. In an consenting to such a demand. That would attempt to rebut this thesis, and shortly before leave us in Greater Palestine with the Jordan- the conference, the Institute of Palestine ian Question, too. For if the refugees remain Studies in Washington, published a mono- in Jordan, East Jordanians, whose identity the graph by economist George Abed, The Jordanian monarchy fostered by pitting them Economic Viability of a Palestinian State. against the Palestinians, would be afraid that Abed argued that a Palestinian state in the sooner or later the Palestinians would take entire West Bank and Gaza would be viable, hold of the reins of power. The establishment given that certain economic and political of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and conditions were fulfilled. If the viability of a Gaza would intensify their apprehension. The Palestinian state was contested before Oslo, threat of instability would be ever present in when Jewish settlements were more sparse the kingdom. than today and the bypass roads and wall were The Palestinians nation has fallen a great not yet built, surely the debate now has been fall, and the time has come to put it together laid to rest. Israel used what was meant to be again. The Palestinians need to do something a transitional period to Palestinian statehood that has not been done before: they must tap to render such a state all but impossible. their demographic advantage. Oslo demobi- Forget about the “generous offer” of Prime lized the Palestinians outside, and Israel’s Minister Ehud Barak to President Yasser recent disengagement from Gaza will slowly Arafat at Camp David, for it meant that Israel demobilize its population. Years of isolation would take away only a bit more land on top under Israel’s dominion tied the West Bank of the 78 % of Palestinian land it had come to elite to Israeli and Western counterparts, control after 1948 and would remain the perhaps more than to the Palestinians outside. virtual gatekeeper of the borders of any The segment of the PLO that entered the West Palestinian state. Forget, too, about differ- Bank and Gaza got busy consolidating its ences between Labor and Likud. Construc- position and ignored the diaspora. “Realist” tion of Jewish settlements and land seizure politicians and intellectuals from both groups was even greater under Labor than under began to find it easy to bargain away the right Likud. Shimon Peres, ever the wolf in sheep’s of return of the Palestinian refugees in the clothing, rescued Prime Minister Ariel naive, if not self-serving, belief that such a Sharon at critical moments whenever the give-away would win them a state. latter found himself constricted in political Why should the people who constitute bottlenecks. The major political forces in the majority in Greater Palestine be without a Israel want the Palestinians out. state, dispossessed and oppressed by Israel and made sub-citizens by successive Jordan- What, then, is to be done? ian regimes? The time has come for a new vision and a commensurate strategy that Even a viable state in the West Bank and would mobilize the Palestinians in Israel, the Gaza, I think, would not resolve the Palestin- West Bank and Gaza, and Jordan to create a ian Question. We would still be left with the single state in Greater Palestine that would Palestinians who are Israeli citizens, unable include themselves, East Jordanians, and to be integrated into a state that insists on Jews. The Palestinians have consistently being a “Jewish state.” There is not only the acquiesced and diminished their aspirations,

The Arab World Geographer/Le Géographe du monde arabe 8, no 3 (2005) 159 Sharif S. Elmusa while the Zionist movement and Israel have in today’s highly competitive world economy. inflated theirs. They have been too polite, too Shimon Peres propagandized after Oslo for a soft in their demands. Their adversaries New Middle East. The current Bush adminis- thought and acted out the outrageous and the tration introduced to the agenda a Greater unthinkable. The Palestinians need now to Middle East. Why not start more modestly, think out of the box, out of the fishnet, out of with Greater Palestine? the cage. Of course, there are many obstacles and A trinational state in Greater Palestine (a deep-rooted resentments. Israelis, it will be mutually acceptable name for the state could said, will not accept such a seemingly radical be agreed on through discussion) has many suggestion. True, but when in 1974 Yasser advantages over the other theoretical alterna- Arafat proposed before the UN General tives: East Jordanian, Jewish, and Palestinian Assembly a democratic secular state in West- states; a binational state in Western Palestine ern Palestine, Israel said that this was a and an East Jordanian state; or a Jewish state disguised plan for its destruction. Neither are and a Palestinian-Jordanian state in Transjor- there many takers in Israel today for the bina- dan, the West Bank, and Gaza, as existed tional state idea that is increasingly gaining between 1948 and 1967. support among Palestinian intellectuals. The It would be large enough for everybody; creation of a unitary state in Greater Palestine no one has to be squeezed out. It would allow is no different in its requisites than that of a people to move into places where their spirit, bi-ethnic state in Western Palestine, and it has their heart, or their pocket feels at home. The the advantage of not leaving the Palestinian right of return of the Palestinian refugees refugees out in the cold or Jordan unstable. would become largely superfluous. The Jews Both are historic projects and require much would live in Eretz Israel, the Palestinians in thought, planning, organization, and persua- Greater Palestine, and East Jordanians in sion. Jordan, and those who hail from cities like The vision of a single state in Greater Hebron and Nablus could, if they so wish, Palestine could come to fruition only through reunite with their roots. With my sincere a strategy of Palestinian mass mobilization, admiration for Jordan’s historical heritage, I non-violence, and dialogue with the other two should think that it would be loftier for East communities. Violence must be relegated to Jordanians to belong to a state that encom- the dustbin of history. The Palestine Libera- passes Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and Nazareth. tion Organization (PLO) needs to reconsti- For millennia, Jews coexisted with Arabs and tute itself into a revitalized and vital Palestine Muslims and thrived economically and Reunification Organization (PRO). A new culturally in their midst. The creation of Israel leadership must emerge, and the old thinking disrupted an admirable, long-shared cultural must be jettisoned. history, as Ammiel Alcalay wonderfully This applies to Israel as well. The course demonstrates in his After Jews and Arabs: it has pursued is one-eyed (my apologies to Remaking Levantine Culture. It relegated the one-eyed). It places too much faith in Israel’s “Oriental Jews” to an inferior position force and the power of arms, and it suffers relative to that enjoyed by Jews of European from an unhealthy dose of hubris. It may have descent. Anti-Semitism is a European demon. won Israel a dunam here and a dunam there, Why has Zionism chosen to make Jews feel but it has embroiled it in interminable that they belong more to the cultures of their warfare. There are no signs that this will oppressors and annihilators than to those in change in the foreseeable future. The which they lived fairly amicably? Not least of Hashemites began their career on a high note the virtues of a triethnic state, a large popula- of pan-Arabism, which has shrivelled to the tion means a large market, nothing to scoff at parochial and divisive “Jordan first.” They

The Arab World Geographer/Le Géographe du monde arabe 8, no 3 (2005) Greater Palestine: Matching Demography, Geography, and Heart 160 and Zionism divided up Greater Palestine and Notes undertook to suppress Palestinian national- 1 The author was a member of the Palestinian ism. In the process they created a deep Pales- delegation in the Land and Water Working tinian–East Jordanian cleavage that keeps the Group in the 1993 bilateral negotiations with two peoples suspicious of each other. But Israel held in Washington, D.C. both they and the Israelis are still in denial, 2 Roughly 2.7 million in the West Bank, believing that somehow, someday, they can 1.3 million in Gaza, 1.3 million in Israel, and contain the Palestinians. They both need to 3.25 million in Jordan (or 60 % of the total see this approach for the mirage that it is. population, which is the commonly cited They made a formal peace with each other, ratio). These figures are based on the depart- and now they must both do the same with the ment of vital statistics in each entity. Palestinians. 3 Refugees of the 1967 war. The Palestinians committed their own share of mistakes along the way, and were not References entirely blameless. The time has come for Abed, G. 1990. The Economic Viability of a them to get out of the tunnel in which the big Palestinian State. Washington, D.C.: Insti- news has been the next date on which Sharon tute of Palestine Studies. will refuse to meet Abu Ammar or Abu Alcalay, A. 1993. After Jews and Arabs: Remak- Mazen. A mini-state never inspired the Pales- ing Levantine culture. Minneapolis: Univer- tinian collective; how could a state comprised sity of Minnesota Press of fragments? The Palestinians need a new Childers, E. 1971. The worldless wish: From citi- source of energy, a new vision. When Jews zens to refugees. In The transformation of were debating the boundaries of Palestine Palestine: Essays on the origin of the Arab- early in the 20th century, an extreme Zionist, Israeli conflict, ed. I. Abu-Lughod, 165-202. whose name I cannot recall at the moment, Evanston: Northwestern University Press. said that the did not divide the Khleifi, M., and Sivan, E. 2004. Route 181 frag- two banks, it united them. I agree with this ments of journey to Palestine, Israel insight, absent the man’s bigotry. A single state in Greater Palestine is the sane alterna- tive to internecine conflict and despair, for all its inhabitants.

The Arab World Geographer/Le Géographe du monde arabe 8, no 3 (2005)