Is Jerusalem-Area Settlement Expansion Closing the Door

on the Two-State Solution?

 

Danny Seidemann & Dan Rothem

April 5, 2005

 Daniel Seidemann is an Israeli lawyer and legal counsel to Ir Amim, an Israeli organization concerned with the future of that city for Israelis and Palestinians.  He is widely recognized as a foremost expert on Jerusalem, and his connections through out the city have made him an invaluable resource for U.S. policy makers, diplomats and journalists alike.  Dan Rothem is the Director of Research at the Center for Middle East Peace and Economic Cooperation.  Using publicly available information, personal research, and data obtained through contacts in Israel's policy and security community, Mr. Rothem has developed the most extensive map database relating to the West Bank, Gaza, and Jerusalem available outside of the U.S. and Israeli intelligence communities.  Following are Seidemann and Rothems’s remarks in Washington on April 5 at a forum sponsored by the Foundation for Middle East Peace, American Task Force on Palestine, and Americans for Peace Now.  The transcript has been provided by the Foundation for Middle East Peace. 

There has been much drama over the direction of the Israeli and Palestinian conflict.  The death of Yasser Arafat, the election of Abu Mazen, the recent differences between the Israeli government and the Bush administration concerning settlement expansion, and a kind of hidden drama over the last several months concerning Jerusalem are all involved. 

The Jerusalem issue, especially, is critical to the future of the peace process, and the future of a Palestinian state. 

Let's begin by disaggregating and taking this apart to its component parts.  More than 50 percent of the wall/fence in Jerusalem is complete.  In Jerusalem alone, the barrier will be more than  64 kilometers in length.  But only now, as the wall becomes more of a hermetic seal, are we beginning to view its full humanitarian impact.

East Jerusalem is being sealed in for the first time since 1535, when Suleiman the Magnificent built his wall around what is now the Old City.  Today Jerusalem is resembling  a clover.  Three cloverleaves that define the route of the wall extend out deep into the West Bank, far beyond the current municipal boundary -- to the northwest, the southwest, and the east. 

This plan was approved by the Israeli government on February 20.  The cloverleaves cut into about 160 square kilometers of the West Bank.  To the northwest, the cloverleaf surrounds the Israeli settlement of Giv'at Ze'ev and Route 443 to Tel Aviv.  Consequently, it traps about five Palestinian neighborhoods or villages – Bir Nabala, Jdeirah, Al Jib, Qalandiya and Beit Hanina Balad.

In the southwest, the wall was to have run east of the Etzion bloc, cutting deep into the West Bank and creating enclaves around a number of Palestinian villages there, for example Batir, Hussan, Nahalin, and Walaja.  There have been significant amendments made to the route of the wall in this area, mostly to placate international public opinion. 

The planned encirclement of the Palestinian enclaves has been cancelled.  But the wall still extends deep into the West Bank, so as to include the Etzion bloc in a path that links it to Jerusalem to the north and to the west.

The most controversial aspect of this is proposed settlement expansion to the east of the city.  The cloverleaf extends deep into the West Bank, surrounding not only Maale Adumim but the settlements to the north and the south of Maale Adumim. 

The ramifications of this are very stark.  Maale Adumim will be inside the wall, but the route of the wall and the planned expansion of Maale Adumim are still uncertain, since the U.S. administration has not yet given the green light to proceed.

What does this disclose?  Most Israelis have in the past thought in terms of the mantra, "Jerusalem, the undivided capital of Israel that will never be re-divided."  But that has never been exclusively Sharon's position.  Sharon has always thought in terms of Greater Jerusalem, that is the establishment of Israeli hegemony, not only over the united capital of Israel but in its environs, all of which discloses his geopolitical vision of the future of the West Bank.  It can be argued that the route of the fence, as currently approved by the Israeli government, embodies Sharon’s political agenda.

In addition to the route of the wall, Sharon wants to line the wall with settlements.  The most prominent aspect of this is the E-1 plan.  To visualize this, imagine the Temple Mount being the center of the face of a clock.  Maale Adumim is at three o’clock, due east of Jerusalem in the West Bank, and with its approximately 30,000 residents, is the largest settlement in the West Bank.  It's something of a consensus in Israel that Maale Adumim will always remain under Israeli sovereignty, and there has been some Palestinian understanding that this will be necessary.   

If the Haram al-Sharif Temple Mount is the center of the face of a clock, E-1 would create an uninterrupted built-up land bridge between Maale Adumim at three o’clock and East Jerusalem at twelve o’clock.

Strange things have been happening in E-1.  Construction began about nine or ten months ago, illegally. Nobody intervened, and certainly not the administration here in Washington.  When the matter was brought to the attention of high levels in the administration, once again, the work proceeded.  It was only after the Washington Post exposed this in an op-ed by myself and a reporter in Jerusalem that work on E-1 halted in the first week of September 2004.

Nevertheless, the Israeli government has taken action to expedite the statutory planning of E-1. Mr. Sharon and his spokesperson have periodically said that E-1 is about to take place, after the statutory planning is completed. 

E-1 is not the only settlement scheme of this kind.  There are additional plans in the area of Walaja/Givat Yael for 13,000 new residential units in the southwest part of the city and similar embryonic plans, not very well advanced, for new settlements just southeast quadrant of the city. 

E-1 is very problematic.  It is not merely another settlement expansion, taking more Palestinian land.  It is a strategic deviation from the status quo, implemented outside the framework of a political process.  If E-1 is constructed, it will achieve at least two things. 

Number one, because of the topography, it will sever the West Bank into two, into a northern canton of the West Bank, the canton of Ramallah, and a southern canton of Bethlehem – with no natural contiguity between the two.  A land bridge to Maale Adumim will clearly weld Maale Adumim into the state of Israel in any future final status negotiations.  Additionally, in sealing East Jerusalem on its twelve o'clock-three o'clock quadrant, it will render virtually impossible the option of having a capital for the state of Palestine in East Jerusalem.  So E-1 is a matter of strategic importance.

I want to go on quickly to other points that have come up, because I think we're arriving at some sort of collective portrait.  In recent months, the Israeli government attempted for the first time since 1967 to systematically invoke the Absentee Property Law, declaring any properties owned by Palestinians in the environs of Jerusalem to be state property, vesting these lands withthe absentee property custodian. 

Technically, this law exists and is in effect, but consecutive Israeli governments have refused to invoke it because of the devastating effect it would have on private property rights in East Jerusalem.  In a covert decision made last summer, the government for the first time decided to apply the law.  But it was subsequently ruled inapplicable by the Israeli attorney general.

The significance of this is not only the ability to undermine property rights in East Jerusalem. The two planning schemes in the southern part of the city that I mentioned, in the Walaja area and in Mazmoriya, could take place only if Israel were to seize lands under the Absentee Pproperty Law.  These schemes become less likely now, given the ruling of the attorney general.

One last point in drawing our collective portrait of East Jerusalem:  There have been persistent reports, not entirely verified but clearly not baseless, that as of this summer, the Palestinians of East Jerusalem will need permits in order to visit Ramallah, Bethlehem and the environs.  In the past, East Jerusalemites, although living under Israeli law, have been allowed to visit Palestine and to go back and forth, even at the height of the Intifada, albeit at times with great difficulty.

Where does this all come down to?  Walling Jerusalem, lining the wall with settlements, aggressively applying absentee property law, denying access of East Jerusalemites to the West Bank is called “Judaization” by Palestinians.  I dislike this term because it smacks a bit of anti-Semitism.  But it can be called “Jaffo-ization” of Arab East Jerusalem, that is an attempt to make East Jerusalem an integral part of Israel in ways no previous government has dared.  This is unprecedented and ignores the complexities of Jerusalem.

The withdrawal from Gaza is being used by Mr. Sharon to get a green light from the administration in Washington for the cloverleaf-shaped wall around Jerusalem, which would designate the border and establish an Israeli sphere of influence in greater Jerusalem.

To be fair to Mr. Sharon, with all of his reputation for being a foxy tactician, (which he is), is acting without guile.  Mr. Sharon believes that he can carry out his plans for greater Jerusalem and still arrive at a non-violent state of equilibrium with the Palestinians.  I believe this is not only impossible but that the wall is contrary to Israeli interests.  I say this as an Israeli and as a Zionist, and not because of my friendship with the Palestinians, as.  Indeed, Sharon’s plans may jeopardize the very viability of Israel as a homeland for the Jewish people. 

A West Bank that is dismembered into two, a Jerusalem that is hermetically sealed from its natural environs, a wall that dictates to the Palestinians that “are you with us or are you against us?” – will not create a non-violent equilibrium.  Jerusalem is a stable city.  But what I am describing to you is a radical change that will destabilize the city, since there will be a quarter of a million Palestinians on the Israeli side of the wall in the Jerusalem area alone.

The second dimension is that neither the Palestinian people nor the Palestinian leadership now or in the foreseeable future will accept a dismembered, noncontiguous Palestinian state.   Nor will world public opinion.  To be sure, the wall can come down, as the Israeli government says.  But if we line the wall with massive settlements, these facts on the ground may well become irreversible.

Sharon claims that contiguity for Palestinians can be created by roads or tunnels.  But states do not establish their viability with umbilical cords.  In the absence of a viable and contiguous Palestinian state, there will be no peace.  Without two states, we will have a binational entity and the permanent balkanization of the conflict.

Some people in the Israeli left and some Palestinians already say we have reached the point of no return and that the two-state solution is no longer possible.  I don't buy that.  But if E-1 and these other neighborhoods in south Jerusalem are built, I believe that the two-state solution will be jeopardized to such an extent that there will be no Palestinian state.  If there's no Palestinian state, ultimately there will be no Jewish state.

That is the bad news.  Let me talk about the good news.  First, within a couple of days of the death of Yasser Arafat, it became very clear that Palestinian elections would happen.  Nobody was really prepared for them.  The Israeli government, including my prime minister, was dead set against conducting elections in East Jerusalem.  All it took was half a raised eyebrow from Washington and there was a 180-degree reversal on that position, and the elections took place in East Jerusalem.  There were problems and some harassment by the Israeli government, but much less than in 1996.

Point two:  We discovered the absentee property law fiasco when Arafat was still alive.  We brought it to the attention of the Israeli government, but nothing happened here or in Washington.  Six weeks later, after the death of Arafat, the issue gained traction internationally and in Israel.  People realized this was wrong morally and stupid politically.  These reactions shot down the decision.  This wouldn't have happened a year ago. 

Point three:  A year ago, it seemed that E-1 was being built and would be impossible to stop.  Today, the president of the United States is saying a viable Palestinian state requires geographical contiguity.  The secretary of state is saying that Israel should refrain from unilateral actions in Jerusalem that will predispose the outcome of final status issues.  We have not heard these things for the last four years.  Still, we are not sure of the depth of U.S. resolve.

Point four:  Yasser Arafat is getting the last laugh on Ariel Sharon.  By dying, Arafat deprived Mr. Sharon of the thing he loves most – unilateralism, which he justified by claiming there was no partner.  Abu Mazen has contributed to the defeat, though it may only be temporary, with the Absentee property law and E-1.  He is convincing the Israeli public and the international community that he's serious about a ceasefire, Palestinian governance, and a political process.  In the absence, real or perceived, of a political process, Israel can do a lot with impunity.  The moment that that political horizon opens, unilateralism becomes untenable and these acts are stoppable.

Now, Mr. Sharon is coming to Washington next week.  He wants Bush’s agreement on the construction line for the wall and for agreed upon settlement blocs.  But he will also be seeking tacit consent to the agenda that I described, specifically in E-1.  E-1 is the most prominent and strategically important issue.  E-1 is not an existing settlement, it is a strategic change.  Sharon wants to get U.S. consent for E-1 before the Gaza redeployment; he will argue that he is in trouble with his right wing and needs U.S. help.  But what is at stake is the two-state solution.

What should the United States government say?  It should inform Sharon that all land and border issues must be negotiated with the Palestinians and that the Bush administration will not countenance unilateral implementation of E-1, because it is the quintessential act that predisposes the outcome of final status.  Yet at precisely a time when Abu Mazen is trying to consolidate his power Israel is telling him, “you must reform governance, and maintain a ceasefire, yet we are going to be using our superior clout and strength to determine what the borders of Israel are, regardless.” 

The administration must inform Sharon that E-1 must be addressed around the negotiating table.  The President should repeat that the “realities” on the ground that I acknowledged about existing settlement blocs are not a green light to radically change the terrain in the interim. 

The President should make clear that the U.S. is not abandoning the Roadmap and its requirement for a settlement freeze, but wants to implement it.  The administration need not invent anything new.  It has to abide by what it's committed itself to.  If it does that, I think we will get through these next months with the two-state solution still alive.  Failing that, I believe the decisions that will be made in the upcoming weeks may very well jeopardize the very existence of a two-state solution. 

Questions and Answers

Question:  If you were a Las Vegas bookie and you were giving odds for U.S. pressure against Sharon to negotiate as opposed to acting unilaterally what would your odds be?

Answer:  Had you asked me six months ago, I would say forget it.  I no longer say forget it.  The answer is complex.  I think a lot depends on Abu Mazen.  A strong Abu Mazen and government proceeding and he's made very few mistakes so far, makes a political process inevitable.  On the other hand, Abu Mazen needs help, which he's not receiving, from Israel, and not sufficiently from Washington. 

There's a consensus in the administration and in certain quarters in Israel that in Abu Mazen's first term of office he was left dangling in the wind.  There is a certain amount of resolve that this should not happen again.  If Abu Mazen is given the space by Israel and the United States to proceed as he is doing, I think there is a reasonable chance that this administration will engage in a political process.  I'm seeing indications of it.  I would not have said that on my last visit three months ago.

Question:  Is it your conclusion, as it is mine, that the internationally established border that should be the basis of negotiation is the Green Line?  Would that be accepted by the Israeli government if Washington were to adopt that view?

Answer:  I think this takes us to places where we've already been and gotten beyond it. 

I don't know the West Bank that well.  I certainly know Jerusalem.  We all know what final status looks like in Jerusalem and its environs.  It's all over but the body count.  Gilo is land taken from the Palestinians.  There aren't enough calories in the Palestinian people or the Arab world to turn Gilo once again into a Palestinian neighborhood.  Ras Al Amud has a Moskowitz settlement there.  There aren't enough calories in the Jewish people or in Israel to turn Ras Al Amud into Israel.  Gilo will need to be paid for in kind by a land swap. 

We know where the border goes.  It is very much along the Green Line, though not exclusively.  When it deviates from the Green Line, it has to be paid for with land swaps.  That's what final status looks like.  The difficulty now is how to proceed from the politically impossible period of today to the historically inevitable, where we know what final status looks like, with the exception of 3 percent of the geography.  The Green Line informs this discussion, it does not dictate it.  I would recommend not engaging in an overly zealous belief and attachment to a political boundary that can be moved.

Question:  My question is about Labor government.  I haven't heard anything really about them or Peres or any of those guys.  They are apparently still in the government, right?  What are they doing, if anything, to try to stop all this nonsense?

Answer:  Labor is the amazing disappearing political party.  People treat Jerusalem symbolically, in a way that's detached from the realities.  We are working very hard in Israel to convince not only Labor people but the Likud people, that Israel is acting contrary to its own interest.  It was an impossible job with the terror raging, because clear, lucid thinking when you're worried about your kids.  Now that the bloodshed is abating – there wasn't one terror fatality in March, people are listening and talking differently and we're chipping away at that.  I'm convinced that trying to explain to Israelis what E-1 was was an impossibility four months ago; it's a possibility today.  But we've got our work cut out for us.

Question:  I presume it's not an accident that this meeting is taking place in a committee room of a House International Relations Committee.  We know, for instance, that recently the House of Representatives roundly rejected the opinion of the International Court of Justice that the wall is illegal.  What would you like to see the House of Representatives do?

Answer:  To be a genuine friend and supporter of Israel, and to genuinely love and support Israel means to support its security, to support its well being, to support it financially, but also to critically engage the policies of Israel. 

I would hope that those members of the House, and there are many, would listen to arguments such as these, and give the president the political space to pursue a political process between Israelis and Palestinians.  That opportunity was not available for the last year. It is today.  To engage Israelis and Palestinians in a political process, which will be difficult and painful, is not acting contrary to Israeli interests, it's acting in favor of Israeli interests.  That's a very difficult position to take on the Hill, but I think that is what could and should be done.

Question:  Is the attorney general's decision on the Absentee Property Law really set in concrete or are there going to be attempts at the Supreme Court and other levels to change it? 

Answer:  This requires a great deal of vigilance.  Although the rule of the attorney general is binding on the executive branch, there are at least two ministers who disagree.  So we haven't quite found the stake to drive through the heart of this vampire. 

Question:  With the wall between Jerusalem and Bethlehem and its eleven gates, aren’t we going to have segregation?

Answer:  The existence of the wall is nowhere compatible with the dignified and efficient movement of people, goods and services.  The eleven checkpoints are grossly inadequate in number, in planning, in scope.  I do not see this changing in any significant way the humanitarian disaster that will result.  Now, let's put things in perspective. 

I'll give you just two small examples.  I had the opportunity of cross-examining the director of defense project in court about how many people go through one of these checkpoints a day?  He answered, 2,000 or 3,000 people.  I said, that can't be.  I have 11,000 receipts from the bus company.  A count was taken and it turned out that twenty-three thousand people passed through in one day.   

Now, the army comes in and says, we're going to build a checkpoint where a thousand people an hour will be able to transit.  But most of those 23,000 people go in between seven and nine o'clock in the morning, so they're going to be waiting on line for three or four hours.  The planning did not anticipate this. 

I don't see these problems being resolved if walls and checkpoints survive.  We can gain limited tactical advantages for a period of time, but I don't believe these measures are compatible with anything vaguely resembling normalcy.

The second dimension you raise is what these measures are doing to the Holy Land and its people of all faiths.  The only industry that has ever succeeded in Jerusalem is pilgrimage and its secularized version, tourism.  Jerusalem is a multi-religious, multicultural people.  It is clearly not the intention of the wall to rupture that, but that is certainly the result. 

Today the Christian narrative in Jerusalem cannot be lived out, nor can the Muslim narrative.  We should recall that the first law Israel passed in 1967 was the law for the protection of the holy sites, to provide universal access.  The wall prevents this.

We cannot ignore that this is taking place against a backdrop of hundreds of people killed by suicide bombings.  We're not living in a Scandinavian neighborhood.  But on the other hand, Jerusalem is not Jerusalem anymore unless it has a breathing border where the narrative of Christianity can commence at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem through Bethany on the Mount of Olives to Golgotha where Jesus was crucified.  Jerusalem without its historic places is not Jerusalem, and access to these sites is now endangered by the wall.

Dan Rothem: There are other alternatives to the currently proposed route of the wall.  The most prominent one is what's known as the demographic alternative.  If you look at this map, what you see here is a proposal by the Council for Peace and Security that goes along demographic lines, more similar to what would be the future border, if we followed the Clinton parameters that said whatever is Arab within Jerusalem should come under Palestinian sovereignty and whatever is Jewish, here blue, should come under Israeli sovereignty. 

A demographic line would render free access for Palestinians in East Jerusalem to the West Bank and would eliminate the great humanitarian effects of the municipal boundary barrier.

I acknowledge that there would be some problems with a barrier built along demographic lines:  Would you enable access of East Jerusalemites who hold dual identity cards, or Israeli residents, not citizens but residents, to West Jerusalem could be managed for work or humanitarian services or services?  I think this could be managed. 

Another issue with the current plan is that 200,000 Palestinians on the Israeli side of the barrier might become an increasingly hostile community detached from its natural environment of the West Bank, so alternatives should be found. 

Question:  What do you expect the common ground between Israelis and Palestinians will ultimately be?

Answer:  I don't know.  Oslo failed because it didn't deliver to Israelis or Palestinians.  Oslo made people's lives worse.  It made Israeli lives worse because there was terror.  Oslo promised the Palestinians an incremental end to occupation but it delivered precisely the opposite – an increasing Israeli stranglehold, more settlements and more checkpoints. 

Haven't we learned anything?  Of course, there should be zero tolerance for terror and violence.  But there should also be zero tolerance for using superior power to dictate the outcome of final status. 

At the same time, there has to be realpolitik and compromise.  It's going to be painful.  But we must not replicate the mistakes of the past.  There must be zero settlement expansion and zero violence.  There is no moral equivalent between terror and settlement, but there is a political parallel. 

Question:  What can be done to support Abu Mazen?

Answer:  We believe in his sincerity.  We believe that he's a man of peace in a way that we did not believe of Palestinian leadership in the past.  I believe that that can be translated into greater public support for helping Abu Mazen.

There was zero interest in Israel for Palestinian suffering during the wave of terror.  That's changing.  It's not going to change without people working hard to make a change, but I think there is a growing perception that it's not only important about what Israeli public opinion can do.  People realize in Israel, I believe, just how difficult a job Abu Mazen has in what he's trying to do. 

If our government were to go further to support Abu Mazen, I believe the prime minister and the government would have the support of 60-70 percent of the Israeli public. We are in a period of mutual convalescence.  That mutual convalescence means mutual humanification, because we've dehumanized each other for the last four years.  We've got to rebuild that.

Question:  How do Palestinian people feel about the barrier?

Answer:  Even after 38 years of Israeli rule, there is contiguity between East Jerusalem and West Bank Palestinians.  The barrier cuts this off.  There is no unilateral solution by physical means in Jerusalem.  It can't be done.  For thirty-eight years, every Israeli government has tried to create facts on the ground that would make the city inseparable.  We largely succeeded.  Israelis and Palestinians are like Siamese twins sharing vital and less vital organs. 

We created those facts.  We now are not capable, I believe, of unilaterally separating the two peoples, although a demographic line may be adopted in the framework of an agreement.

A sustainable line must allow for relatively free access of East Jerusalemite Palestinians holding blue identity cards from East Jerusalem, where they reside, to West Jerusalem, where a significant number of them work. 

One last thing is what exactly does the Israeli government envision, no matter what route it puts down, for the other side of the barrier?  Does it want to create something new that can sustain itself on the other side of the barrier or not?   

I should also mention that re-dividing Jerusalem along demographic lines would be politically explosive.   But it is consistent with accepted notions of permanent status solution.

Question:  How would you advise President Bush and his Republican administration, to reconcile his courting of American Jewry for electoral purposes with the criticism of Israel and Sharon?  Can we do this without alienating the American Jews?

Answer:  Absolutely yes.  One hundred percent yes.  The image of American Jewish community as rubber-stamping any given Israeli policy is incorrect. Israeli society is pluralistic.  The American Jewish community is pluralistic. 

With the emergence of a political process, I believe that a president of the United States can positively and critically engage Israel without jeopardizing the support of the American Jewish community.  My sense is that in large parts of the American Jewish community there is a thirst for a new American policy.

Question:  I recently came back from Jerusalem with one big question.  I found many people saying the window of opportunity that everybody talks about is only going to be open for six months to a year.  If it closes, it will be because Abu Mazen is no more able to deliver a solution to the Palestinians’ problems than Arafat was.  Do you accept this worst-case scenario?

Answer:  I certainly can't discount it.  It's something that people are talking about.  Israelis and Palestinians are similar in many ways.  Both peoples are skeptics.  We have quite a lot to be skeptical about, including each other.  Having said that, there are other things happening. 

I'm out in the streets of East Jerusalem all the time.  People were cynical about Abu Mazen in the past, but that cynicism has begun to dissipate.  That's not insignificant.  Something similar is happening on the Israeli side of the divide.  We're enjoying the quiet, and we understand how fragile it is, but we can build on this.

So yes, there are forces afoot that conspire to Abu Mazen’s collapse.  But there are countervailing forces and that window of opportunity is really there.  The next several weeks and months are critical.  It is unthinkable to me what the consequences are for Israel, should Abu Mazen fail.  This will condemn us to another round of bloodshed, the likes of which we haven't known.

So I pray for his success.  I think we, the international community and Israel, have to help Abu Mazen for our own self-interest.

I cannot overstate how important it is that disengagement goes quietly and smoothly.  If we want to tie this into a greater political context, in the framework of the Roadmap or others, or in the framework of other unilateral Israeli disengagement from parts of the West Bank – in either case, Abu Mazen must be seen as being able to deliver to his people.  It is essential that the Palestinians come up with a counterpart for Israel to coordinate the disengagement process here. 

There could also be some quiet understandings on how to work things quietly in other arenas, such as Jerusalem.