40 Years of Occupation

Dear readers. (If you are out there). Forty years ago today, on June 5, 1967, the so-called Six-Day-War between Israel and several Arab states (Syria, Egypt, Jordan) started. Six days later, the newly founded (in 1948) state of Israel had gained enormous amounts of territory from its opposing states, more than its own original state territory: the Sinai peninsula from Egypt, the Golan Heights from Syria, the West Bank from Jordan, as well as the Gaza Strip.

While the Sinai was returned to Egypt when a peace accord between the two countries was signed in 1979, Israel today, as you know, still holds the West Bank and Gaza Strip as well as the Golan. The latter was simply annexed in 1981 and declared Israeli territory (in violation of international law, just for the record). The West Bank and Gaza Strip were initially directly ruled by Israel. As in the Golan Heights, many Israeli settlements were established there. New waves of refugees from the West Bank and Gaza fled to neighbouring states (Lebanon, Syria, Jordan) to swell the already significant refugee populations created when Israel was first established in 1948.

After the first Intifada (a civil disobedience campaign directed against the occupation) had started in 1987 and could not be quelled by military means, at the beginning of the 1990s negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians were begun and led to the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993 and 1996. The PLO led by Yasser Arafat, the main Palestinian interlocutor in negotiations with Israel, recognised Israel's right to exist; the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) was created as a proto-state agency, and given some (limited) power to rule things in the West Bank and Gaza. The goal of this exercise, it was declared, was to set up two independent states, Israel and Palestine, living in peace side by side.

Did it work? Obviously not. Although an independent Palestinian state was the declared goal in lofty speeches and negotiations, things on the ground looked very different. The West Bank was now divided into A-, B-, and C-type areas, where the PNA had control over area A, area B meant "shared" control, and C meant Israeli security control. In practice, the set-up of the different areas, the Israeli settlements on large and strategically located swaths of West Bank land, the system of "Israelis-only" roads and tunnels meant that the West Bank remained divided into small enclaves, under Israel's control at any time, and deprived of other criteria of stateness (control of its airspace; control of important water resources being used by Israeli settlements). Jeff Halper has called this the 'matrix of control'.Politically, the achievement of Palestinian statehood remained conditional on the resolution of the most contentious issues (control of Jerusalem; the return of Palestinian refugees; ...) that were supposed to be tackled in "final status negotiations".

So the situation on the ground was contradictory of the Oslo Accords' stated goals, and the proposed final status talks were never begun. Efforts to do this were made at Sharm el Sheikh and at Taba in 2001; but they collapsed (the Palestinians blame the Israelis for this, because the "state" they were being offered could never have lived and breathed for a single day, it was unviable; the Israelis, on the other hand, blame Arafat for rejecting their famous "generous offer" - for a debunking of this myth, see this.). Shortly afterwards, Ariel Sharon triggered the so-called Second Intifada with his visit to the Haram al-Sharif in Jerusalem... and the rest of the story (or, rather, the bits that reach our mainstream media) we all know from watching and reading the news. It keeps going from bad to worse....

....but let's not be fooled. Although one of the most long-running and seemingly intractable conflicts, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is actually fairly easy to solve. Solutions for all difficult problems have been proposed (at Taba, Sharm el Sheikh...) and need only be put into practice. "Only" being of course somewhat of an understatement. But still. The solutions are known. As time is ticking by, the situation is getting ever more explosive, people continue dying, and the Arab-Israeli conflict remains one of the most important mobilising and rallying causes for international terrorism.... we need to solve it. Two states living side by side in peace, as even the most unknowledgeable person will concede, is needed right now!