While the world keeps talking about the new opportunity presented by the Gaza evacuation, Israel is busy imposing its agenda unilaterally.
Even as it was completing its evacuation of 9,000 settlers in the Gaza Strip and parts of the northern West Bank, Israel was embarking on plans to make room for 25,000 more settlers in Ma’ale Adumim, a settlement east of Jerusalem. Some 30,000 settlers now live in Ma’ale Adumim. While construction was underway on hundreds of new units tendered last year, the Israeli government approved construction of an additional 2,100 units this year, which could house another 10,000 new settlers. All these plans defy international law and are a direct challenge to President Bush’s road map.
Another 3,500 units, which could house over 15,000 new settlers, have been approved in the so-called “E-1 Plan.” The E-1 Plan aims to link Ma’ale Adumim to Jerusalem.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported on Aug. 24 that when complete, Israel’s Wall around Ma’ale Adumim “would put the easternmost point of the fence some 25 kilometers from the Green Line, or about half the width of the West Bank. Both the Palestinians and the international community say it would therefore prevent the establishment of a viable Palestinian state, as it would impede territorial contiguity between the southern and northern West Bank” staking out an area for the Adumim bloc’s settlements larger than that of Tel Aviv.
Free Palestinian access to and from their capital, East Jerusalem, is essential to a viable two-state solution. Metropolitan East Jerusalem accounting for 30-40 percent of the Palestinian economy is also the historic cultural, religious and political centre of Palestinian life.
Palestinian access to East Jerusalem could also promote the success of Gaza “disengagement”: creating links between East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip could help reinvigorate Gaza’s decimated economy by providing Palestinians in Gaza with access to East Jerusalem’s unique international market.
However, Ma’ale Adumim, Israel’s Wall and the settlement rings around East Jerusalem cut off East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank and slice the West Bank in two. If enacted, the E-1 Plan will provide territorial contiguity for 30,000 illegal settlers by denying that contiguity for 2.4 million Palestinians in the rest of the occupied West Bank.
Israeli officials have countered that a road could be built to link Ramallah to Bethlehem. But the road would bypass East Jerusalem. It would also facilitate the expansion of Israel’s settlements and the construction of Israel’s Wall, all illegal under international law and would continue to restrict the natural development of Palestinian communities on Palestinian land, forcing Palestinians into ever-shrinking Bantustans.
The Washington Post confirmed Israel’s Jerusalem strategy when it released the findings of an investigative report on Feb. 7 this year.
The investigation concluded that all of Israel’s ministries had conspired to violate both international law and Israeli law to consolidate its hold in Jerusalem while severing Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank.
And on Oct. 6 2004 Israel’s Haaretz newspaper reported Dov Weisglass, senior adviser to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as saying: “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.”
All this means Israel is not working toward achieving a viable two-state solution.
Gaza cannot sustain itself and has always been subsidized by the West Bank through tourism, trade and labor. Israel will be turning the Gaza Strip into the biggest concentration camp in history if it refuses to withdrawal from the crossing-point into Gaza and the Gaza seashore, disallows the building of a seaport and the two free passage-ways linking Gaza with the West Bank and disallows the Palestinians from operating Gaza’s international airport.
The international community must not allow Israel to disengage from the two-state solution.
The Palestinian leadership is committed to returning immediately to the road map for peace, which includes a freeze on all settlement construction.
— Ali Kazak is head of the General Palestinian Delegation to Australia & New Zealand and Ambassador of Palestine to Vanuatu & East Timor.
