Subsequent to the unprecedented US endorsement of the creation of an independent Palestinian state, alongside the state of Israel, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon recently stated that, under stringent conditions, he would agree to the establishment of such a state, even at one point calling it "inevitable".

Polls show that more and more people in Israel would acquiesce to a Palestinian state, without being aware of the numerous implications of such a move. Most people are ready to see a Palestinian sovereign state, yet reject the idea of a Palestinian army on the hills overlooking Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, without realizing that it would be difficult, or impossible, to insist on a demilitarized Palestininan state.

There has been very little coverage both in the world media and in local Israeli news about what the full implications of a Palestinian state would mean for the defense and security of the State of Israel, especially if IDF and Intelligence sources continue to define the potential state as being hostile to Israel.

Defense & Air Space

Gen. Thomas Kelly, director of operations for the US Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Gulf War, said of a visit to the Judea-Samaria mountain range, "I look out from those heights and look on to the West Bank, and say to myself, 'If I'm the chief of staff of the Israeli Defense Forces, I cannot defend this land without that terrain."'

Settlements

250,000 Israelis have built their homes and created flourishing communities with advanced schools, businesses and infrastructure in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip (including the Jordan Valley). There are various proposals for creating blocs of Jewish communities in the disputed territories, from slight to drastic changes of the existing map. These raise both economic and demographic problems, whichever solution is adopted, as well as issues of Jewish historical and religious connection to the land.

Jerusalem

Under an interim agreement, it might be possible to approach this major issue at a later stage, but if a Palestinian state is declared soon, there is currently no mutually acceptable proposal that could be configured within a document of arrangement.

Likud

The background of the Likud Central Committee's vote against the establishment of a Palestinian state on May 12th, 2002 is as follows:

Less than a decade ago it would have been inconceivable that the center-right Likud Party would find it necessary to take a vote on the issue of the establishment of a Palestinian State. The Likud was always firmly opposed to the establishment of a Palestinian state and its opposition to that state has appeared in every Likud platform in election campaigns, including the most recent one (2001).

Yet this time a formal vote was taken, and the Likud Central Party voted almost unanimously against the establishment of any Palestinian state, following a vote by 59% of the Likud central committee to reject Prime Minister Sharon's initial proposal to not take any decision on the issue. While the media widely reported the split in the Likud over Sharon's proposal to delay any decision in this regard, the press downplayed the near unanimous decision of the Likud central committee to reject any Palestinian state.

The issues that former Likud Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu brought to the attention of the Likud Central Committee included his warnings that an independent Palestinian state would include:

• The right to full control over its own borders, through which they could import unlimited arms and soldiers;
• Since an independent state would control its own air space, Israeli civilian and military aircraft would not be able to overfly the area - or maintain current levels of military surveillance;
• A Palestinian state would also have the right to make agreements with states hostile to Israel (Iraq, Libya, Syria...) ;
• A Palestinian state would control the mountain aquifer originating in its territory, which supplies about 30 percent of Israel's water and most of Israel's drinking water.

The Likud's vote on Sunday May 12th, 2002, rejecting the concept of a Palestinian state, elicited a wide variety of responses from Arafat, Sharon, the Labor Party and the general media.

Following the outcome of the vote, Sharon made a brief statement saying he would honor the decisions of his party's central committee, but added:
"I will continue to lead the state of Israel and the people of Israel according to the same ideas that led me always - security for the state of Israel and its citizens and our desire for real peace."

Labor

At the Labor Party Meeting on May 15th, 2002, MK Chaim Ramon, who will be running against Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer in the next internal Labor Party elections, stated that since Israel has no negotiating partner,

• Israel should withdraw from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank and set up a fence on the 1967 Green Line, formerly known as the 1948 Armistice lines.
• Ramon would favor the evacuation of the 210,000 Israeli Jewish citizens from 12 Jewish neighborhoods that Israel as established since 1967 in Jerusalem, including Jerusalem's Old City.

Ramon, Defense Minister Ben-Eliezer and former Prime Minister Ehud Barak all saw the need to withdraw from disputed territories, in order to avoid including within Israel a large Palestinian population.

• However, Ben Eliezer has now embraced a proposal to preserve the status of the "basin of holy sites" (comprising the Old City of Jerusalem) essentially unresolved, that is to say, neither under Israeli nor Palestinian sovereignty.
• He also stated that the Palestinian state must be demilitarized and that Israel must retain control of the airspace over the Palestinian state.
• In recognition of the critical nature of demilitarization to this agreement, Ben Eliezer declared that the state could not come into being before it was possible to anchor this requirement with the proper guarantees.

The Peres Plan

One week following the Likud's Central Party vote against a Palestinian state, and three days after Labor Party colleagues Binyamin Ben-Eliezer and Chaim Ramon each unveiled blueprints for a diplomatic solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres released details of a diplomatic plan calling for the almost immediate establishment of a Palestinian state.

• Peres explained on Army Radio that the growing possibility of a nuclear Iran is behind his proposal to establish a sovereign Palestinian state "within weeks". This would be done without resolving any of the enduring conflicts between the two people.
• Peres said that ending Israel's control over the Palestinians is both a Jewish moral imperative and in the state's best security interests.
• According to Peres, the Palestinians raised serious doubts as to whether they are a viable partner for peace when they rejected then US president Bill Clinton's proposals at Camp David.
  "It appears that as a result of the lack of trust created by this rejection, another partner is needed to lend trustworthiness to the negotiations and faith in their results," Peres said.
  He said this new partner is the body known as the "Quartet," made up of the US, the European Union, Russia, and the United Nations.

Peres's plan is based on understandings he reportedly reached earlier in the year with Palestinian Legislative Council Speaker Ahmed Qurei (Abu Ala), who consistently denies any such understanding.

• Any peace plan needs to suggest steps that will be acceptable to Israel and not be rejected by the Arab world, Peres said. He said that the understandings he reached with Qurei were not formally accepted or rejected, and are a logical way to bridge both ideological gaps within Israel, and political gaps between Israel and the Palestinians.

Arafat's Houdaibiyya Model

Meanwhile, while differing factions in the Israel Labor Party suggest new solutions for a Palestinian state, PA chairman Yasser Arafat had his own say in an address he made to the Palestine Legislative Council in Ramallah on May 15th, 2002.
http://www.p-p-o.com/Eng/2002/5/KE15-5-2002-1.htm
Arafat maintained that the Palestinians should enter into an agreement with Israel only until they can get the upper hand.
"Let us remember the Houdaibiyya Conciliation Accord out of our concern for the national and pan-Arab interest of our people and nation, and out of our concern for strengthening international solidarity with your people and your cause."

The Houdaibiyya agreement was a 10-year peace treaty between Mohammed and the tribe of Qura'ish. After two years, when Mohammed had improved his military position, he tore up the agreement and slaughtered the Qura'ish.

Mention of this agreement has been the underlying theme of many of Arafat's speeches to his people starting from the very beginning of the Oslo Accords.

POINTS TO PONDER

• In your opinion, how will leaving issues such as the Old City of Jerusalem unresolved impact on the future?
  How can Israel guarantee that a Palestinian state be demilitarized? (Arafat and the PA already have 50,000 troops under arms.)

• How can Israel prepare a cohesive position for the upcoming regional/international conference on Peace in the Middle East?