The West Bank, between occupation and annexation

Text by: Guilhem Delteil Follow

17 mins

Israel's internationally recognized borders stop at the Green Line, marking the separation from the West Bank. But since 1967, the country has occupied this Palestinian territory. Thanks to the Oslo Accords, the Palestinians were able to develop a certain autonomy there. But the peace process has come to a standstill and the Israeli government is now threatening to annex part of it.

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From our correspondent in Jerusalem,

On this summer day, the hill is crushed with sun. The environment is quite arid, the ground rather rocky, but the location is coveted. Kfar Etzion is an Israeli kibbutz located about twenty kilometers south of Jerusalem, in the occupied Palestinian territory . In the eyes of international law, it is a colony.

It was even the first created by Israel when the country took control of the West Bank after the Six Day War in 1967. “  But it's the only Israeli settlement in the West Bank where you can't talk about occupation,  ”said Maya Harlavan, a 20-year-old woman working at the kibbutz museum. "  The Jews were there before 1948, the Arabs were not,  " she explains.

A first Jewish community had settled in these hills in 1927. It was driven out by an Arab revolt in 1929, but was saved at the time by the inhabitants of the neighboring Arab villages. Five years later, a new community is established. But the surrounding Arab localities refuse to work and trade with it. Under economic pressure, the community eventually left in 1939.

Kibbutz fall

But the ardor to keep a Jewish community alive on this hill, “  halfway between the two most important cities of Judaism, Jerusalem and Hebron,  ” says Maya Harlavan, does not end. The kibbutz was recreated in 1943. Four others also appear in the vicinity. When the UN voted in 1947 on the partition plan for Palestine which would give birth to Israel the following year, 32 Jewish communities were outside the borders of the future state. These five communities were part of it, but in Kfar Etzion, the inhabitants refuse to leave. Tensions are growing, attacks are increasing, women and children are evacuated, but the men decide to stay defending their community. On the eve of Israel's proclamation of independence, the kibbutz falls. Its inhabitants still present are killed.

The survivors of Kfar Etzion settle in Israel and bring the memory of the kibbutz to life. “  The orphans grew up in a community and the group brought us to life Kfar Etzion,  ” recalls Israel Sadiil. This septuagenarian never knew his father, killed in the battle of 1948. His mother was pregnant when she left the kibbutz. For ten years after their departure, the former inhabitants of Kfar Etzion lived together. Over the years, they have drifted apart. “  But we got together for the celebrations: weddings, bar and bat mitzvahs. Every year, we participate in the commemoration day for those who fell for the state. And then we had summer camps together,  ”says Israel Sadiil.

Back home "

After the Six Day War in June 1967, Israel took control of the West Bank from the Jordanians. Three weeks later, the families of Kfar Etzion are authorized by the Israeli army to come and spend the day at the site. In September, Hanan Porat, born in Kfar Etzion, decides to re-establish the community. The Israeli government, led by Levi Eshkol of Mapai (ancestor of the Labor Party), gives him the authorization. "  In 1967, it was thought that the United Nations would force us to return Judea Samaria,  " explains Israel Sadiil, using the name given by the Israelis to the West Bank. Developing Jewish communities there was one way of ensuring that they remained in control. He himself came to settle in this reborn kibbutz a month later, at the end of his military service. "  I had come home, it is not an insignificant place  " he judges. Kfar Etzion was the first Israeli settlement in the West Bank. Today it is at the heart of a "  bloc  ": 22 settlements where more than 75,000 Israelis live.

Soon after the Six Day War, a few Israelis also wanted to settle in Hebron. The city is home to the tomb of the Patriarchs. A historic building containing the burials attributed to the patriarchs of the Bible Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, as well as those of their wives Sarah, Rebecca and Leah. The site is a holy place for the three great monotheistic religions, one of the most important in Judaism after the Western Wall in Jerusalem. Being able to get to the Tomb of the Patriarchs is therefore important in the eyes of some observant Jews.

Colonized from within

Settling in Hebron is also seen by these Israelis as a “return”. Because if in 1967 the city has only Palestinians, it has hosted a Jewish community for most of its history. The community had been evacuated in 1929, under the British Mandate, after the massacre of 67 of its members by Arab inhabitants of the city. In 1968, a colony, Kiryat Arba, was created on the outskirts of the city. But at the end of the 1970s, the Israelis began to occupy buildings in the old city and gradually settled there.

Today, five settlements in which nearly 800 people live are located a few hundred meters from the Tomb of the Patriarchs. "  My old primary school is now a yeshiva (a Jewish religious school editor's note) and the clinic where my mother received free treatment in the old city was also taken by the settlers,  " said Anwar Abu Eisheh, elected municipal officer and president of the Hebron-France association. Hebron is the only Palestinian city colonized from the interior.

In 1997, Palestinians and Israelis signed the Hebron Protocol. Israel then hands over control of 80% of the city to the brand new Palestinian Authority: this is the part called H1. But the occupying power retains control of 20% of the city: H2, comprising the historic part, the Israeli settlements, but also the homes of 33,000 Palestinians.

"  From its inception, the process of colonizing the interior of the city triggered a cycle of violent attacks and reprisals between Israeli settlers and Palestinian residents which resulted in large numbers of casualties on both sides,  " OCHA notes , the United Nations humanitarian agency. “  Citing the need to prevent friction between the two populations, the Israeli authorities gradually isolated the center of Hebron from the rest of the city, cutting off the continuity between the southern and northern parts of the city. This policy has been guided by what the Israeli authorities call the "principle of separation"Continues the report.

Walled buildings

This "  principle of separation  " was applied gradually from 1994. On February 25, Baruch Goldstein, a resident of the neighboring settlement of Kiryat Arba, opened fire on a group of Muslims praying inside the Mosque of 'Abraham, name given to the Tomb of the Patriarchs by Muslims. 29 Palestinians were killed, sparking violence in the city and the West Bank. "  Israel then introduced a system to regulate separate access  " to the site, OCHA notes. But the “  systematic  ” separation between the settlement area and the rest of the city began with the second Intifada in the early 2000s.

Today, the old city of Hebron is crossed by streets with very little activity, even completely deserted. "  More than 1,500 businesses have been closed by military order from Israel,  " said Anwar Abu Eisheh, noting that "  only about 100 businesses are currently open  ." Buildings have also been walled up, fences installed on the windows of Palestinian homes. The old town looks like a ghost town. Many of its Palestinian inhabitants preferred to move to the modern city, under the control of the Palestinian Authority.

Around 5,000 Palestinians still live in the Old City, under the control of the Israeli army. For many, staying is an act of resistance. The living conditions are difficult there. Some areas around the settlements are restricted to access. "  Palestinian residents wishing to receive visitors should announce their visitors,  " said Anwar Abu Eisheh. "  They must give their identity numbers 24 hours in advance and pick them up at the checkpoint where visitors must leave their identity cards  ." The geographical division also gives rise to absurd situations: in order to access the cemetery, Palestinians must cross the rue des Martyrs. This is now prohibited for them. "  You have to bypass the street and make a detour of 7 kilometers for that  " specifies the elected municipal officer, former Palestinian Minister of Culture.

Strategic interest

Disputed for its historical importance, the West Bank also represents a major strategic interest. Israel took control of it after the Six Day War in 1967. The conflict was, in Israel's eyes, defensive. The country responded to what it had previously defined as a declaration of war. The blockade of the Straits of Tiran giving access to the Red Sea to Israeli ships initiated by Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser.

In six days, Israel took control of large swathes of land. The Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and part of the Golan Heights. If the Sinai Peninsula was returned to the Egyptians following the peace agreement signed between the two countries in 1979 and the Gaza Strip evacuated in 2005, a complete withdrawal from the West Bank is not envisaged.

At the end of the Six Day War, Israeli Minister of Labor Yigal Allon drew up a plan to partition the West Bank. Israel plans to return part of the territory to Jordan: the most populated areas, around the big cities (Ramallah, Bethlehem, Hebron, Nablus, Jenin, Jericho…). But the Israeli authorities want to retain border control. A strip of 15 kilometers west of the Jordan Valley, 25 kilometers around the Dead Sea was to be annexed to Israeli territory. And the region of Jerusalem was also to be attached to Israel. A partition plan which should, according to its designer, allow the Palestinians to obtain a national space while ensuring the security of Israel. But the territorial concessions were deemed too important to be accepted by King Hussein of Jordan.

More than 250 colonies

As soon as the Allon plan was drawn up, recourse to colonization to preserve Israel's strategic interests was mentioned. The plan provides for the creation of settlements in areas intended to come under Israeli sovereignty. This Israeli civilian presence in the territories located beyond the Green Line, the one marking the internationally recognized borders of the country, is seen as a security guarantee. The stronger this presence, the more it lasts. And the presence of Israeli civilians justifies a military presence.

Today, the Israeli anti-colonization organization "  Peace Now  " lists more than 250 settlements in the West Bank. All are illegal under international law. On November 23, 2016, the UN Security Council adopted a new resolution , building on ten previous decisions of the organization since 1967, which demanded Israel that the country "  immediately and completely stop all its settlement activities. in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem  ”. But almost half of the settlements are also illegal under Israeli law. And the evacuations of these are rare.

According to La Paix Now, 126 of these so-called wild colonies were born, but only two were destroyed. The organization also noted in 2007, forty years after the start of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, that nearly a quarter of the land on which the settlements are built is confiscated Palestinian private land.

Oslo

Since the Allon plan, the other peace initiatives proposed or mentioned have never recorded a complete withdrawal of Israel from the West Bank either. The most successful was the Oslo Accords: these were signed by the Israelis and the Palestinians during a ceremony in the gardens of the White House on September 13, 1993. The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) then recognized Israel, and Israel recognized the PLO as representative of the Palestinian people. And both sides pledged to establish relative Palestinian autonomy in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. But the Agreements were only interim and did not cover all the points of contention.

The future of the settlements as well as the definition and control of borders had notably been left to the final negotiations, which were never successful. The implementation of the Oslo Accords resulted in the withdrawal of the Israeli army from Palestinian towns, but not from the entire West Bank. Almost two-thirds of this territory remains under the exclusive control, both civil and security, of Israel.

The most recent peace initiative is that of the Trump administration. “  The deal of the century  ” as it was named by the US president was presented on January 28, 2020 at the White House. It moves away from the spirit of Oslo, the creation of a sovereign Palestinian state within the 1967 borders, which remains the position officially defended by the international community. "  Peace is based on truth  " justifies Jared Kushner, the author of this plan. It highlights Jewish history in the West Bank and Israel's security needs.

The plan contains a map that redraws the borders between Israel and the Palestinian Territories. In this scenario, Israel would retain control of the settlements in the West Bank, the Jordan Valley and the shores of the Dead Sea: 30% of the West Bank would thus be integrated into Israeli territory. In return, the Palestinians would receive land in the Negev desert, but half as much as they lose to Israel.

An abandoned annexation

Relying on this peace plan rejected by the Palestinians and the entire international community except the United States, Benjamin Netanyahu promised during the last election campaign to annex part of the West Bank. The coalition agreement he signed with Benny Gantz, his former rival, allowed him to implement this campaign promise from July 1. But he did not have a political majority to do so. His projects sparked an outcry on the international scene. And even the United States did not support it, demanding concessions from Israel to the Palestinians that Benjamin Netanyahu rejected.

The prospect of annexation was strongly opposed by the Palestinian leadership. In May and June, they mobilized their international support to try to block this development. “  We are perhaps the weakest people in the world, ” Saeb Erekat, chief negotiator of the Palestine Liberation Organization, told RFI in June, denouncing an attempt to impose a solution without negotiation . “  But we decided to resist. We are not going to sign for Apartheid  ”. "  There is no way that we can accept this annexation  " abounded for his part Prime Minister Mohamed Shtayyeh, recalling that under the Oslo Accords, Israel had to gradually cede control of additional parts of the West Bank to the 'Palestinian Authority. “  The world must choose between international law and annexation,  ” warned the head of government.

The annexation projects seem for the moment stopped. This Thursday, August 13, Israel and the United Arab Emirates announced their desire to reach a peace agreement. And Abu Dhabi was opposed to the annexation of parts of the West Bank by Israel. The joint statement issued by the two countries with the United States specifies that Israel "  will suspend the declaration of sovereignty  " and "  concentrate its efforts on developing ties with other countries in the Arab and Muslim world  ". Benyamin Netanyahu assures that the project is “  temporarily stopped  ” but that he still intends to carry it out. However, no change seems possible before the US presidential election in November.

International Penal Court

For the time being, Benyamin Netanyahu's campaign promise is therefore buried. But the continued Israeli colonization of the West Bank undermines a peace solution based on the existence of two states living side by side in a peaceful manner. And in the absence of negotiations for ten years, the Palestinian leaders have chosen to turn to the International Criminal Court. Palestine entered the UN as an observer state on November 29, 2012. Building on this recognition, the Palestinian government subsequently ratified several international treaties, notably adhering in 2015 to the Rome Statute which governs the International Criminal Court. .

Under international law, the displacement of civilian populations in occupied areas is a war crime. Denouncing the Israeli colonization of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the Palestinian leaders appealed to the International Criminal Court. The possible opening of an investigation could lead to the issuance of arrest warrants against Israeli political and military officials. The complaint, filed in 2015, is ongoing in The Hague.

In December 2019, the prosecutor considered that the criteria were met to justify the opening of an investigation for war crimes in Palestine. A reading immediately rejected by the Israeli Prime Minister. "  The court has jurisdiction only over the territories of sovereign states and there has never been a sovereign Palestinian state,  " said Benjamin Netanyahu. Fatou Bensouda, she believes that "  the State of Palestine  " is indeed a member of the Rome Statute. But she recognizes that the question of the sovereignty of this state is complex.

Fatou Ben Souda asked a pre-trial chamber of the ICC to rule on the territorial jurisdiction of the Court in this case. Palestinians claim a state within the 1967 borders. The West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem. It is now up to the ICC pre-trial chamber to rule on the legal existence of the Palestinian state and, where applicable, on the delimitation of its borders.

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