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The Oslo Accords’ Last Remnants Are Under Fire. Don’t Let Them Die.
Whether Netanyahu is re-elected or not, Israel and the Palestinians have set precedents this summer that could destroy any chance of achieving a lasting peace.
Dr. Koplow is an advocate for a viable two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.
Last Tuesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced his intention to immediately annex the West Bank’s Jordan Valley after Israel’s election on Sept. 17, should he emerge victorious. He further pledged to apply sovereignty to Israel’s settlements throughout the West Bank after President Trump unveils his Israeli-Palestinian peace initiative.
But Mr. Netanyahu’s fortunes and Mr. Trump’s plan may not matter. Under the radar, the Israelis and Palestinians have already set ominous precedents in administering their divided territories that will be extremely difficult to back away from and promise an incendiary environment for any talks about a lasting peace.
In short, the longstanding rules of temporary side-by-side coexistence in the West Bank, as set out under the Oslo Accords in the 1990s, are already being violated, and bit by bit both sides are taking steps that would nullify the remaining vestiges of the accords. If that trend continues, what is shaping events on the ground now may render any type of future division impossible.
Here is the problem: Oslo created clear lines of administrative control in the West Bank for Israel and the Palestinians by dividing the territory into distinct zones in which each side is responsible for day-to-day governing. Areas A and B are under Palestinian Authority administrative control, and Area C is under Israeli administrative control. While there have been numerous and continuing violations by both sides when it comes to security responsibility, that has not been the case with administrative responsibility. Until recently, Israel exercised its administrative control of Area C without attempting to extend its administrative reach into Areas A and B, while the Palestinian Authority ran Areas A and B with respect for Israel’s monopoly on governing Area C.
But in the past two months, those basic ground rules have been deeply breached over the seemingly mundane issue of building permits. In late July, Israel took the first step by demolishing Palestinian homes in Areas A and B in the West Bank neighborhood of Wadi al-Hummus. What made these demolitions extraordinary is that the homes in question were in territory where Israel does not claim to be the governing authority, and the homes in question had building permits issued by the Palestinian Authority. The Israeli government argued that even though these homes were legally built in an area under Palestinian Authority control, they were built too close to Israel’s security barrier and therefore had to be demolished for security purposes. The demolitions were carried out after Israel’s Supreme Court accepted that rationale, and the precedent this set effectively destroyed the equilibrium that had reigned in the West Bank.
Demolitions by Israel
Several Palestinian homes, in a Palestinian neighborhood along Israel’s security barrier, have been demolished by Israel this year.
RAMALLAH
WEST BANK
Atarot
Israeli
settlements
Israeli security
barrier route
Neev Ya’akov
Almon
Alon
Pisgat Ze’ev
Kfar
Adumim
French Hill
Ramot
Allon
Ramat
Shlomo
1949 ARMISTICE LINE
Mishor
Adumim
Jerusalem
Maale
Adumim
Old
City
ISRAEL
EAST
JERUSALEM
Qedar
East
Talpiyot
Israeli security
barrier route
Area of
demolitions
Givat
Hamatos
Gillo
Har
Homa
Har
Gillo
Wadi al-
Hummus
2 MILES
BETHLEHEM
RAMALLAH
2 MILES
WEST BANK
Israeli
settlements
Atarot
Neev Ya’akov
Pisgat Ze’ev
French Hill
Ramot
Allon
Ramat
Shlomo
Israeli
security
barrier
route
1949 ARMISTICE LINE
Jerusalem
Old
City
ISRAEL
EAST
JERUSALEM
East
Talpiyot
Area of
demolitions
Givat
Hamatos
Gillo
Har
Homa
Har
Gillo
Wadi al-
Hummus
BETHLEHEM
It was the first time in a quarter century that Israel had demolished Palestinian homes that had valid Palestinian building permits, stood in Palestinian territory, and had no connection to terrorism. Allowing it rendered the carefully planned division of administrative zones of control in the West Bank useless, because it established an Israeli claim to control the construction process for Palestinians throughout Areas A and B should any Israeli claim of a security need, however indeterminate, arise.
Within months, it was not only Israel that was upending the status quo. In response, the Palestinian Authority went a giant leap further and announced that it was no longer going to honor the West Bank’s administrative divisions in any circumstances. To drive the point home, the Palestinian prime minister, Mohammed Shtayyeh, stated that if Israel was going to treat the entire West Bank as Area C, the Palestinian Authority would treat the entire West Bank as Area A. Putting this new principle into practice, the Palestinian Authority began issuing building permits for Area C in the first week of September.
This determination of both sides to raise the stakes risks predictably dangerous consequences. A situation in which Israel continually razes homes in places beyond its jurisdiction would raise the already high temperature in the West Bank to a boiling point. Palestinian expansion in Area C without the necessary Israeli building approvals could lead to fraught clashes between the Israeli army and Palestinian residents, and create political pressure in Israel to deal more harshly with Palestinian violators of Israeli administrative regulations, and with the Palestinian Authority itself.
More alarmingly, the efforts of both parties to erase the existing distinctions in the West Bank amount to an effective declaration of intent on both sides to move away from negotiations to decide the territory’s ultimate division. Israel’s claim to be able to limit or even remove Palestinian construction in areas under Palestinian Authority administration could be a back door to unilateral annexation across the entire West Bank, and the Palestinians’ extension of their governmental authority to areas under Israeli administration could be a back door to a unilateral establishment of statehood. Neither would resolve anything, and both would create even more intractable problems.
The appropriate Israeli response to security challenges is not to throw out the arrangements that have kept the West Bank largely quiet in recent years. And understandable Palestinian frustration over the near impossibility of obtaining building permits in Area C does not inexorably lead to the conclusion that ratcheting up the tension with Israel in Area C will solve this issue.
While new alarm has been raised over Mr. Netanyahu’s future plans for the Jordan Valley, precedents have already been set that have nothing to do with his continuation as prime minister. Both sides should re-evaluate the directions in which they are heading, and step back from the brink before they permanently shatter a highly imperfect but relatively stable and predictable status quo.
Michael J. Koplow is the policy director of the Israel Policy Forum in Washington.
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