Untitled Document

What did Bush signal?

George Bisharat
Monday, May 29, 2006

Did President Bush give Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert a red light or a green light for his plan to unilaterally annex parts of the Palestinian West Bank? That is what many are asking in the aftermath of Olmert's visit to Washington, D.C., last week. The confusion arises from President Bush's clear admonition that Olmert must attempt to negotiate with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, coupled with his approving remarks regarding Olmert's "bold ideas."

The particular "bold idea" in question is what Olmert and his Kadima Party call their "convergence" plan. While they market the plan as a "withdrawal" that will ostensibly reduce conflict with the Palestinians, the plan, in fact, would allow Israel to seize large parts of the West Bank, including some of the best agricultural land and most valuable water resources. An estimated 60,000 to 70,000 Israeli settlers will be relocated from settlements more distant from Israel's pre-1967 borders to larger settlements that are closer to Israel, but still on the West Bank.

This would continue long-term Israeli policies of racial gerrymandering, aimed at absorbing maximum Palestinian land while minimizing the number of Palestinian residents it governs. Most settlers would be relocated to the west of the wall being built by Israel primarily in the West Bank -- and accordingly judged illegal by the International Court of Justice in 2004.

Over the last year, Israel has quietly declared the Jordan Valley -- almost one-third of the West Bank -- a "closed area" to Palestinians, and Israeli officials have repeatedly stated that they would never surrender control over Israel's eastern border. In aggregate, this could mean that Israel will eventually assert sovereignty over nearly half of the West Bank, far more than the 10 percent on which the large settlement blocs sit.

Palestinian areas of the West Bank would be divided into three isolated cantons. It is not clear to what extent relocation of Israeli settlers will be accompanied by a reduction in Israeli military forces from Palestinian areas. There is no doubt, however, that "convergence" would snuff out the chance for the two-state solution that the Palestinians, the Arab world and the international community have favored for decades.

It would further violate international law, which bars territorial acquisition by war and is the foundation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242 calling for Israeli withdrawal from the territories it seized in the Six-Day War in 1967.

The Israeli government has threatened to implement this land grab unilaterally, claiming that it "lacks a Palestinian partner for peace." In fact, what it lacks is a Palestinian partner for surrender. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has repeatedly expressed willingness to enter negotiations since his democratic election in January 2005. Israel has done everything possible to ignore Abbas and undermine his standing, simply because it cannot achieve through negotiations what it can achieve by unilateralism, backed up by overwhelming military force.

No Palestinian leader could agree to further erosion of the tiny land base for a Palestinian state, and encirclement by Israeli settlements and troops within "Bantustans," is increasingly reminiscent of apartheid.

The election of a Hamas-dominated Palestinian Legislative Council has given Israel a new pretext for avoiding negotiations. In fact, the Palestinian Authority is responsible for internal administration in the Gaza Strip and the small islands of land it controls in the West Bank. It is the Palestine Liberation Organization -- also led by Mahmoud Abbas -- that is the legal representative of the Palestinians and is authorized to negotiate for them. Very few West Bank and Gaza Palestinians support the Hamas program of establishing an Islamic state in the area -- 3 percent, according to a December 2005 poll -- while more than two-thirds continue to support negotiations with Israel. Hamas leaders themselves have, on numerous occasions, signaled willingness to enter talks with Israel without preconditions. An intense internal debate is occurring now among Palestinians, the outcome of which is yet unclear, but many signs portend a unified stance in support of negotiations with Israel.

None of this will matter, of course, if Israel continues to demand concessions that are impossible for responsible Palestinian leaders to accept. Time will tell whether President Bush is a partner in Israel's charade, or will genuinely demand that Israel negotiate with the Palestinians in good faith, and on the basis of international law. Our standing in a critical region of the world will turn on the answer.

George Bisharat, a professor of law at Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco, writes frequently on law and politics in the Middle East.