In late 1994, I published an analysis of the "Borders and
Settlements" aspect of a potential Israeli-Palestinian final-status
agreement (Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, Tel Aviv
University). The operative conclusion of that study held that a
prolonged process of negotiation between the two sides would
eventually lead them to a point where, after narrowing down their
demands to their truly vital interests, they would agree on a map
that would leave in Israeli hands approximately 11 percent of the
territories, embodying some 70 percent of the settlers. While the
map would be influenced primarily by Israel's demographic-political
requirements, it would also deal, at least partially, with its
water needs, as well as its need to improve the defensibility of
the country's "narrow waist." Thus, the Green Line would be moved
eastward between five and eight kilometers in the west of the
territories, the Jerusalem corridor would be expanded, and the
major settlement blocs that adjoin the Green Line would be annexed.
What came to be known as the "Alpher Plan" (or "Blocs Plan") also
envisioned an ongoing Israeli security presence in the Jordan
Valley area.
From the Palestinian standpoint, the plan would provide for
geographical contiguity and common borders with the Arab world, as
well as the water, territorial and economic needs of a Palestinian
state.
The Alpher Plan deliberately avoided suggesting solutions regarding
Jerusalem. The issue-areas involved there are unique, and differ
significantly from those relevant to the West Bank and Gaza.
In the years that followed its publication, the Alpher Plan served
as one of several frames of reference for both scholars and
negotiators dealing with final-status issues. It was the point of
departure for the Beilin-Abu Mazen talks of 1995. And it has proven
relevant to the official final-status talks that began in earnest
in Stockholm in the spring of 2000 and continued at Camp David and
elsewhere in the summer of 2000.
The current analysis will first summarize the main features and
assumptions of the plan as published in 1994, and then comment on
its relevance to today's circumstances.
Four Key Issues
There are four primary considerations in an Israeli
withdrawal:
* Security can best be guaranteed by Israel's capacity to
defend itself on the Jordan River, and by separation of Jewish and
Arab populations. Israeli control of the airspace over the West
Bank and Gaza, electronic early-warning posts on the mountain
ridge, and the effective demilitarization of Palestinian territory
with regard to weaponry and formations with offensive potential,
are all amenable to agreement, application and verification without
Israel annexing territory and without reliance on settlements.
There remains a need for Israel to be able to counter strategic
threats from east of the Jordan River - from Iran, Iraq, Syria or
due to a radical change of regime in Jordan. Thus Israel will still
require, for years to come, an ongoing security presence in the
Jordan Valley, coupled with the capacity to move additional
defensive forces there in real time and without encountering
physical or political obstacles.
Turning to current, or tactical, security, a Jordan Valley presence
could also deal with potential terrorist incursions from the east.
As for the situation inside the West Bank and Gaza, the plan's
basic assumption holds that the mixing of populations - Israeli and
Palestinian - is the single factor that most disrupts attempts by
both sides to achieve security. Hence the plan calls for the
maximum possible separation of populations. Any solution that
leaves enclaves of Israeli settlements in the heart of Palestinian
territory - or enclaves of Palestinian villages inside
Israeli-annexed territory - is likely to constitute a source of
friction. Nevertheless, in view of powerful domestic constraints,
any Israeli government will wish to avoid forcible removal of
settlements that remain inside Palestinian territory, and to rely
instead on a transition period during which settlers could
themselves decide whether they wish to remain inside an Arab
country or leave of their own volition and be compensated by
Israel. By the same token, the annexation of settlement blocs may
require the two sides to find creative solutions regarding the
status of Palestinians living inside these blocs.
* Water. Long before the establishment of the State of
Israel in 1948, the Jewish Yishuv exploited aquifers located
underneath the West Bank. International law - the Helsinki
Convention of 1966 - recognizes such historic rights of usage, but
international law also recognizes the rights of the inhabitants of
the land above the aquifer, i.e., the Arab residents of the
territories.
Wholesale abandonment by Israel of its control over West Bank water
resources could be disastrous for the country's economy,
agriculture and ecology. Israel depends on these sources for a
significant proportion of its water supply. Unmonitored Palestinian
exploitation of them could deprive Israel of a large portion of its
current consumption; irresponsible development and
industrialization could contaminate what is left. Thus a
final-status solution must ensure either long-term Israeli control
over these aquifers, or, at least, reasonable joint supervision and
development. In any event, Israel must ensure that the
Palestinians, too, enjoy adequate access to freshwater
sources.
From the standpoint of water, the principal area destined for
annexation is in the western part of the territories, above the
Yarkon-Taninim Aquifer. In this context, as in that of security,
the land designated for annexation corresponds broadly with the
territory indicated by the more dominant demographic-political
consideration.
* Demography. An overriding proportion of Israelis would
oppose a return to the 1967 borders, largely because this would
mean abandoning, or forcibly removing, nearly 200,000 settlers.
This would constitute an extremely traumatic domestic crisis that
no Israeli government would be likely to survive.
On the other hand, the vast majority of the settlers live in blocs
adjacent to the Green Line, where there is by now a significant
Jewish majority. Moreover, these settlements were developed at
least in part with water and tactical security considerations in
mind. Hence an approach dictating annexation of a large majority of
the settlers, but a small portion of the land, has a legitimate
place in Israel's calculations regarding a negotiated agreement
with the Palestinians.
* The Heritage Dimension. It would be unwise to belittle the
importance of sites and settlements that evince the Zionist or
Jewish heritage, as symbols of the viability of a people and a
country. Gush Etzion - a collection of settlements near Jerusalem
that were overrun by Palestinian fedayeen and the Jordanian Arab
Legion in 1948 - is one example. Gush Etzion is also a potentially
logical annexation insofar as it offers Israel advantages in most
of the issue areas surveyed above: it holds more Jewish than Arab
population, it enhances the security of the Jerusalem Corridor, and
it borders the Green Line. Hebron presents a more difficult
example; even if it cannot logically be attached to Israel for
demographic and geographic reasons, a way must be found to ensure
unfettered Jewish access.
Implementing the Plan
An implementation of the Alpher Plan would involve the
following:
* The annexation of parts of the Qalqiliya-Tulkarem area that are
heavily populated by Israelis and adjacent to the Green Line, with
the border moved some five to eight kilometers eastward along most
of the line. An effort would be made to avoid annexing Arab
demographic concentrations, and particularly Tulkarem and
Qalqiliya, whose combined population is around 50,000.
* The annexation of the Latrun Salient, the Givat Ze'ev area north
of the Jerusalem Corridor, and Gush Etzion south of the
Corridor.
* The annexation of the Ma'aleh Adumim area, preferably as part of
Jerusalem. This would be the deployment zone for a rapid
intervention force designated to defend the Jordan River security
border in times of emergency.
* The annexation of a small area (Mutsavei Ha-Berech) south of Beit
Shean, where a second rapid intervention force would be
deployed.
* Israel would maintain early warning stations on the mountain
ridge of the West Bank, and maintain control of West Bank and Gazan
airspace. Israeli military units would be deployed on Palestinian
territory in the Jordan Valley and the eastern slopes of the
mountain ridge. Israel and the Palestinians would agree in advance
on the duration of this arrangement: either a fixed period of time,
or (preferably from Israel's standpoint) preconditioning removal of
Israeli forces on the emergence of a predefined set of
circumstances (e.g., peace with Syria, Iran and Iraq) that
radically improve the security situation to Israel's east.
* The Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron would enjoy a special status
that ensures Israeli and Palestinian access and usage.
* All remaining territory in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip would
be turned over to the Palestinian entity. Settlers wishing to
remain would, at the end of a transition period, be subject to
Palestinian authority.
Will the Palestinians Agree?
From the Palestinian standpoint, the territorial requirements
outlined above constitute substantive concessions. Why should they
agree? Israel could cite a number of justifications:
* The map created by these concessions leaves the Palestinians in
control over their own vital needs: unfettered access to Jordan and
Egypt, full territorial contiguity, relatively empty land in the
Jordan Valley for refugee resettlement, a Dead Sea shore, and joint
access with Israel to water resources.
* The one remaining vital Palestinian need is an extraterritorial
land corridor, perhaps built on stilts, connecting the Gaza Strip
to the West Bank. This is a major Israeli concession that would, at
least in part, balance Palestinian territorial concessions. Israel
could also offer the Palestinians special privileges in its air and
seaports, which are well located for their use.
* UN Security Council Resolution 242, upon which the negotiating
framework rests, allows for border modifications and guarantees
Israel's right to secure boundaries.
* Israel could also consider transferring Israeli territory to the
Palestinians: either uninhabited land, or Arab-populated lands in
the "Triangle" or Wadi Ara areas. Both of these options are
problematic for Israel, insofar as they constitute concessions
involving land inside pre-1967 Israel - a possibly dangerous
precedent - and/or land inhabited by Israeli citizens who almost
certainly would not agree to the move. On the other hand, in their
October 1994 peace agreement, Jordan and Israel agreed to
territorial swaps that set a positive precedent.
* Some of the lands comprised in the settlement blocs could
conceivably be designated for joint rule, or condominium, or some
other "gray" status that avoids specific and immediate designation
of sovereignty.
* Finally, the Palestinian concessions implicit in these
arrangements might also be balanced by Israeli concessions in some
other sector of the final-status process, such as refugees or
Jerusalem, or even by enhanced Israeli financial
compensation.
Current Applicability
These, then, are the main features of the Alpher Plan as presented
some six years ago. Since then, three key aspects of the plan
appear to have become institutionalized in Israeli thinking on
final status: annexation to Israel of a maximum number of settlers
in a minimal expanse of territory; an ongoing Israeli security
presence in the Jordan Valley; and the need for Israeli negotiators
to consider Palestinian vital needs as well as their own. These
principles appear to be central to the approach to final status of
Israeli Prime Minister Barak.
The Israeli public, too, has in the course of the past six years
become acculturated to the underlying considerations of the plan.
Surveys indicate broad public backing. On the other hand, as the
peace process progresses toward final status, the hard core of the
settler movement, who are the Israelis most negatively influenced
by the plan, has become more galvanized in its efforts to thwart
it.
The Alpher Plan was launched shortly after Israel and Jordan signed
their peace treaty. These two countries' success since then in
developing a security dialogue suggests that a trilateral security
regime, integrating Palestine, is a desirable possibility. Such a
regime could deal effectively with many of Israel's strategic as
well as tactical security needs, particularly in the Jordan Valley,
in a way that might be more acceptable to Palestinians than a
strictly Israeli presence.
The intervening years have also rendered more acute the water
shortage in the region, to the extent that large-scale desalination
or importation of water now appears imminent. Prime Minister Barak
advocates a major internationally financed desalination project as
a key element in an Israeli-Palestinian final-status agreement.
While this development does not necessarily reduce the necessity
for the two peoples to rationalize their reliance on shared
aquifers, it does place it in a broader perspective.
Turning to the central issue of the settlement blocs, two important
developments have taken place. One is PLO Chairman Arafat's
reported acquiescence at Camp David to the principle of annexation,
by Israel, of the large majority of the settlers, apparently in
return for territorial compensation. The other is a tendency, in
some plans and discussions, to draw the lines around the annexed
Israeli settlements as narrow fingers of territory protruding into
Palestine, rather than, as in the Alpher Plan, drawing new borders
that are fairly rational, "rounded" and defensible. The advantages
of the more minimalistic approach - evidenced, for example, in the
Beilin-Abu Mazen Plan - are that it reduces the amount of land
demanded for annexation by Israel, and radically limits the number
of Palestinian Arabs included in Israeli-annexed land. Thus
Beilin-Abu Mazen, for example, reduced the scope of land annexed by
Israel to half (5.5 percent), while encompassing the same number of
settlers and avoiding annexation of Palestinian villages. This
undoubtedly renders negotiations easier.
The disadvantage of this approach is that it violates the principle
of separation, in that it is liable to leave Israeli settlements
vulnerable to harassment or attack at the most elementary level. A
neighboring Palestinian village, embroiled in a dispute with a
settlement, might only have to block a single road in order to cut
off that settlement entirely from Israel, thereby obliging the
latter to send in armed forces to relieve the siege, and risking
major escalation that could be devastating for a stable peace. The
possible negative outcome of such an arrangement was evident in the
way isolated Israeli settlements like Joseph's Tomb and Kfar Darom
were besieged by Palestinian civilians in September 1996.
Finally, with regard to the issue of compensating Palestine for
West Bank lands annexed by Israel, the past few years offer
convincing proof that the most significant concession Israel has to
offer is not Israeli land, but a safe, extraterritorial land
corridor linking the Gaza Strip to the southern West Bank. It is
absolutely vital for a Palestinian state to ensure the total unity
and cohesion of its two parts. All attempts to implement the safe
passage provisions of the Oslo agreements, so as to enable truly
unfettered movement of Palestinians back and forth, have foundered
on Israel's very weighty security considerations. A super highway,
accompanied by rail lines and water and gas pipes, that traverses
Israel on stilts, or is sunken below ground level, and which
Palestinians may travel with complete freedom, is apparently the
only realistic solution, however costly. But such a land link would
at least symbolically cut Israel in half, and constitutes a major
sovereign concession on Israel's part. Thus, in terms of the vital
needs of the two sides, it is the equivalent of the bulk of the
settlements that Israel seeks to annex.
In conclusion, the Alpher Plan appears today to be as relevant as
ever. As a means of guaranteeing both sides their vital interests,
it - or something like it - appears to be the least objectionable
solution to an awesome set of problems and issues. Yet its
applicability must not be allowed to obfuscate the massive trauma
that it implies for Israeli and Palestinian society. Tens of
thousands of the most highly dedicated and motivated Israeli
settlers, associated with the Gush Emunim movement, will not be
included in the annexed blocs and will find themselves inside the
new State of Palestine, faced with agonizing choices. Historic and
religious sites that constitute the birthplace of the Israeli
nation will, after a few decades, once again be removed from
sovereign Jewish control. These sacrifices are paralleled by
concessions at least as traumatic for millions of
Palestinians.
The majority of both peoples appears to be prepared to make these
choices. But the trauma visited upon their societies must not be
taken lightly.
This article was written before the outbreak of widespread
violence in autumn 2000. Now three additional observations appear
to be relevant. First, the settlements are clearly a primary
catalyst of the violence, thus reinforcing the need for a peace
plan that will draw new lines of separation. Second, the
Palestinian Intifada focuses to a large extent on outlying
settlements that are largely indefensible; this reinforces the
need, discussed in the article, for rational borders that provide
reasonable tactical defense of annexed settlement blocs. And third,
the violence has generated discussions of unilateral solutions. The
plan presented here could, to a large extent, be carried out
unilaterally, if the government of Israel has the will and the
capacity to dismantle the many small outlying settlements in the
Gaza Strip and the West Bank mountain heartland.