This is part 4 of our introduction articles. We highly recommend reading them in order.
Twenty years after the extension of Israeli colonialism to the rest of Palestine, the people of the West Bank and Gaza Strip came to live under unbearable repression, sustained through Israel’s military and civil administration in these newly occupied areas. Civil and political freedoms were non-existent, and Palestinians were faced with daily humiliation and violence. Things as simple as dressing in the colors of the Palestinian flag were enough to net you savage beatings and jail time. Land expropriation was rampant, as well as collective punishment and deliberate de-development strategies designed to shrink the Palestinian economy with every year. For all intents and purposes, their lives were run by a foreign military dictatorship that saw them as inferior in every way.
Furthermore, Palestinians were reduced to cheap and exploited labor in Israel, where it is estimated that around 35-40% of the entire Palestinian work force worked within the green line. This concentrated repression and exploitation created a volatile climate which could explode provided the right trigger. This trigger arrived on the 9th of December 1987, when an Israel Defense Force (IDF) truck crashed into a Palestinian vehicle, killing 4 workers, 3 of which were from the Jabalia refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, an event which Palestinians widely saw as deliberate. Naturally, Israel denied all such accusations.
This would set off wide-scale protests, civil disobedience, boycotts and other forms of resistance against Israel that would come to be known as the Intifada, which means to “shake off”. Palestinians would burn Israeli products, refuse to pay taxes to the civil administration, and organized themselves into popular committees to act as an alternative to the civil administration and provide services and promote Palestinian self-reliance. These committees were popularly led and decentralized in nature, which made them almost impossible to stamp out despite Israel’s best efforts.
As is to be expected, Israel responded with extreme violence, deploying tens of thousands of soldiers all over the West Bank and Gaza Strip. It utilized what came to be known as the “Iron fist” policy, which instructed soldiers to break the arms and legs of protestors. However, as harsh as its response was, it was also incoherent and panicked, and often contradictory. It brutally repressed demonstrations and assassinated Intifada leaders, which backfired and brought more Palestinians to the street. It destroyed local farms and businesses to force Palestinians to purchase Israeli products, and closed down educational institutions which would only increase youth mobilization in support of the Intifada. Moreover, these measures generated immense sympathy and solidarity with the Palestinians, and seriously challenged the ‘progressive’ image Israel always tried to project internationally.
The Intifada would have long-lasting effects on Palestinians, and is still fondly remembered to this day. It would seriously challenge Israeli control over Palestine, and would reignite the fire within Palestinians for resistance, which had been dampened by years of military defeat and the normalization of Egypt. It would also prove that Palestinians could be the masters of their own destiny, and could struggle for their liberation in a collective and self-organized matter without support from abroad. It would also put to rest the fantasy that Jerusalem was a united city after capturing its eastern part in the 1967 war, as Palestinians in East Jerusalem were among the vanguard of the movement. In short, it was successful in making the Israeli occupation as taxing as possible, in resources as well as in morale and international standing.
It is within this context that the PLO saw an opportunity to leverage this pressure. With international support from the United States and the Soviet Union, this would culminate in the Madrid Peace conference of 1991. This was an attempt to arrive at a negotiated settlement between the Palestinians and the Israelis. Despite the PLO not officially being part of the Palestinian delegation due to Israeli objections, they were coordinating closely with said delegation. While the Madrid conference held symbolic importance to some, it had very little tangible effect on the ground. It was the secret Oslo negotiations simultaneously going on behind the scenes that would have a much more pronounced effect.
The Oslo accords were a result of the secret negotiations between the PLO and Israel. Negotiating directly, and sitting face to face for the first time, they agreed upon a declaration of principles that would lead to creating the Palestinian Authority as an interim government that would pave the way for a final settlement. Although these talks would kickstart what came to be known as the “peace” process and the two-state solution, they were mostly a declaration of principles which did not contain any concrete specificities for a resolution. As a matter of fact, the word “state” with regards to Palestinians was never mentioned once.
It was two years later, in what is referred to as Oslo II, taking place in the Egyptian city of Taba, that negotiations earnestly began. In these negotiations more concrete parameters were discussed, and the logistics as well as method for instating the Palestinian Authority on the ground were determined. It is also worth mentioning that during this period, Jordan would go on to sign the Wadi Araba peace treaty with Israel and officially normalize its ties, making it the second Arab country after Egypt to do so.
Areas A: These areas were to be under complete civil and security Palestinian (Palestinian Authority) control. This includes the major Palestinian cities and population centers. There should have been no Israeli presence in this area. This area makes up approximately 18% of the West Bank while containing 55% of the Palestinian population.
Areas B: These areas were to be under Palestinian civil control, but Israeli security control. Many Palestinian villages and smaller population centers fall within this area. Areas B constitute approximately 21% of the West Bank while containing 41% of the Palestinian population.
Areas C: These areas were to be under full Israeli civil and security control. Areas C constitute the majority of the West Bank making up approximately 61% of the land. It is in these areas where the majority of settlement activity takes place, as they are abundant in land and resources while containing a relatively small portion of the Palestinian population.
The labeling and designation of these areas continues to be an issue of importance to this day, as increasing numbers of Israeli officials call for the complete annexation of areas C to Israel. This means that Israel makes life as difficult as possible for Palestinians in areas C to encourage their exodus. Other issues of importance such as the use of water resources are heavily affected by which area you live in. Naturally if you are an illegal Israeli settler, such distinctions do not matter.
Today Israel barely distinguishes between these areas, as it is seen operating freely in Areas A, as well as retroactively recognizing new settlement outposts in Areas B. This will be discussed in depth in the next article.
In theory, then, the two-state solution calls for establishing two states, as the name implies. The Palestinian state would be erected in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital. On the question of refugees, this topic was always postponed for future negotiations. The Palestinian Authority insists that there will be a “just solution” to the refugee question, but internal documents reveal that they have basically given up on the matter. Not even a token amount of refugees would be permitted to return to their homes. Another issue is borders, where Israel has attempted to keep control of its illegal settlement blocs in the West Bank.
The Oslo accords came bundled with the Paris protocol, which dictated the economic policies the Palestinians were allowed to make, and directly tied the Palestinian economy to the Israeli one. In essence, what the Paris protocol achieved was a structured subordination of the Palestinian economy to the Israeli one, giving the Israeli market immense control and power over it. As a matter of fact, many aspects of the Oslo accord were just a reformulation of occupation policies with a civil face; domination and exploitation were simply rebranded as cooperation.
Setting aside the practical issues and stalemates in the negotiation, the two-state solution has many conceptual problems that make it unfitting as a mechanism through which a resolution can be found. To put it bluntly, Israel is not a normal state. It is a settler colony. We are not talking about two naturally occurring populations which have a land dispute. Israelis are descended from settlers that arrived from abroad with the goal of erecting an ethnocratic settler state in an area that was already home to the Palestinians.
Additionally, this approach is inadequate to right historical wrongs, as it focuses on the pre-1967 borders as a starting point, which are in themselves a product of this colonization, and not the root cause of it. It is thus preoccupied with finding solutions to symptoms, rather than dare address the root cause, which is Zionist settler colonialism and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.
This automatically means that Palestinians must relinquish any rights or hopes for their millions of refugees, and it also means that Palestinians must relinquish their rights to live in over 80% of the land they were ethnically cleansed from. Naturally, this promises that resource distribution, from water to fertile land, will be heavily stacked in Israel’s favor.
All of these shortcomings are often countered with the assertion that Palestinians must compromise to reach peace. Israeli control is treated as a fait accompli and that Palestinians must deal with it, rather than demand justice. This is the whole premise of the two-state solution, that Palestinians must compromise on their rights to be granted a small, powerless sham of a state in part of their homeland. Israel, of course was not asked to compromise on anything substantial. The only “compromise” asked of Israelis is to stop its illegal occupation of foreign lands, as well as stop its illegal settlement enterprise, which it should cease regardless of any negotiation with the Palestinians. This attitude basically boils down to “What’s mine is mine, and what’s yours is negotiable.”.
Yet despite all of this, Palestinians were willing to agree to these terms. The PLO was willing to give up on the Palestinian people’s historical rights in order to find peace and have a state. But none of this was sufficient for Israel. Even Rabin, the Israeli Prime Minister who signed the Oslo accords, who is considered a holy martyr for peace among the Israeli peace camp was not prepared to give the Palestinians a real state. He spoke of a sham “state-minus” with no sovereignty, and the offers did not get better than that throughout the history of negotiations.
So even when Palestinians accepted the 1967 borders, an incredibly limited return of refugees, and other compromises, this was still not good enough for Israel that sought to shrink the Palestinian Bantustan even further. These arrangements seek to formalize the status quo with cosmetic changes. Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, promised that no sovereign Palestinian state will emerge, and in the case of any limited self-rule arrangement for the Palestinians, there will be a permanent IDF presence in the West Bank, as well as Israeli control of the borders and airspace. As it stands, Palestinian aspirations cannot exceed the ceiling of Israeli table scraps, and any rejection of this ridiculous premise is framed as irrational intransigence.
Needless to say, the Palestinian Authority, which was supposed to last only 5 years still exists to this day. No Palestinian state has materialized, and the Israeli matrix of control is more far-reaching than ever. Israeli intransigence and the stalemate in negotiations following the failed Camp David negotiations would erupt a second Intifada. This time, however, it would differ in character and organization from the first, and would become much more militarized over its course.
The stalemate in the negotiations, and the escalating settlement activities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip combined together to create a climate of heightened tension. This tension would erupt into a conflagration at the end of September 2000. Triggered by the visit of Ariel Sharon to the Aqsa mosque and the Noble Sanctuary, the second Intifada, also known as the Aqsa Intifada, would demolish much of what the Palestinian Authority had built over the last few years.
Ariel Sharon, known as the butcher of Sabra and Shatilla to Palestinians, visited al-Aqsa mosque escorted by hundreds of armed troops to make a statement that no matter what agreement would emerge, the Noble Sanctuary would forever remain under Israeli sovereignty and control. Being the third holiest site in Islam, and holding a very special importance for all Palestinians, this visit was deliberately designed to provoke a response from the Palestinians. It was thought that decisively crushing this response would give the Israelis a better position in the negotiations, and lower the political demands of the Palestinian Authority.
Similar to the first Intifada, Palestinians mobilized massive protests, civil disobedience actions, boycotts and other forms of resistance. However, unlike the first Intifada which took Israel by surprise, the repression was much more harsh and violent. Israel ruthlessly shot to kill, using live ammunition and savagely cracked down on Palestinians. What had initially erupted as a popular, mostly peaceful movement, was soon pushed by the harsh response to gradually become militarized. While popular resistance would continue, this time it would be accompanied by guerilla warfare, suicide bombings and other tactics.
This would shake up the status quo considerably; the West Bank and Gaza Strip would be completely cut off from each other and the rest of Palestine. Much of the Palestinian Authority’s security forces were decimated, and Israel retrenched its position to have a tighter grip on the occupied areas. Naturally, during this period there were many attempts at resuscitating the peace process or shifting the status quo, but they all ended in failure.
One of the major events that took place during the second Intifada was the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. While it is true that Israeli forces and settlers withdrew from within Gaza in 2005 due to heavy Palestinian resistance, this does not mean that all manifestations of the occupation were ended, as Israel continued to exert effective control over Gaza. This is confirmed by the United Nations, Amnesty International, the International Red Cross and countless other international organizations specialized in human rights and international humanitarian law [You can read more about this here].
But this claim that Gaza is unoccupied has been very useful for Israel, as it plays into the propaganda that Israel has sacrificed immensely for peace, a talking point unsubstantiated by actual history. As noble as Israelis make it sound, there were less altruistic intentions behind the retreat from Gaza, articulated by Dov Weisglas, top aide to Ariel Sharon who was Prime Minister at the time:
“The significance of the disengagement plan is the freezing of the peace process, and when you freeze that process, you prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state, and you prevent a discussion on the refugees, the borders and Jerusalem. Effectively, this whole package called the Palestinian state, with all that it entails, has been removed indefinitely from our agenda. And all this with authority and permission. All with a presidential blessing and the ratification of both houses of Congress.”
He continued:
“The disengagement is actually formaldehyde, It supplies the amount of formaldehyde that is necessary so there will not be a political process with the Palestinians.”
And he was right. For example, whenever the Palestinian Authority criticized Israel for its intransigence or its new settlement and colonization projects in the West bank, Israel would retort that they gave up Gaza and sacrificed immensely for peace. This was an effective way for Israel to circumvent criticism of its violations of international law and shift the onus of compromise onto Palestinians. In this context, “compromise” came to mean acquiescence to the brazen colonization of the vast majority of the West Bank. Weisglas bragged that:
“That is exactly what happened, you know, the term `peace process’ is a bundle of concepts and commitments. The peace process is the establishment of a Palestinian state with all the security risks that entails. The peace process is the evacuation of settlements, it’s the return of refugees, it’s the partition of Jerusalem. And all that has now been frozen…. what I effectively agreed to with the Americans was that part of the settlements would not be dealt with at all, and the rest will not be dealt with until the Palestinians turn into Finns. That is the significance of what we did.”
Furthermore, Israel knew it was not really relinquishing control of the Gaza strip, but rather reconfiguring how the occupation looked and functioned. They knew that the occupation, despite being in a new form, would still illicit resistance from those inside the strip. Israel could then use this resistance as proof that “relinquishing” land in return for peace with the Palestinians was an impossible task, because Palestinians would continue to attack it no matter what. This has served as a major argument for why Israel should not withdraw from any inch of the West Bank to this very day.
By the end of the second Intifada and due to its militarized nature, nearly 5000 Palestinians and 1000 Israelis would be killed. It shifted the status quo in Palestine, and undid much of the work accomplished by the Palestinian Authority in the years prior. This along with the death of Palestinian Authority and PLO leader Yasser Arafat would trigger changes in the Palestinian Authority and Palestinian leadership in general. The Palestinian Authority would be restructured into an even more docile and obedient entity, Israeli colonization efforts would accelerate, and a new phase in the Palestinian question would begin. This phase continues to this very day, and will be discussed in the next article.
