By Khalil Toufakji
Control of the land is an important component in drawing the borders of the Hebrew state — as such the establishment of settlements is fundamental. In June 1967, Israel attacked the Arab states in a war justified for security reasons that quickly resulted in the complete occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, as well as other lands belonging to the Arab states.
The purpose was to open a new front for Israeli settlement. Immediately and up until the 1980s, Israel planted settlements on the lands that it confiscated for “security reasons” and where the Jordanian military had created bases. Then it concentrated on legally establishing settlements as temporary posts with military value (as in the settlements of the Jordan Valley) and the Etzion bloc, thereby transforming conditions on the ground in the West Bank, including parts of Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip. Key to this was the law passed on June 28, 1967 that widened the borders of Jerusalem. The Likud government then further advanced these policies in the legislature, thereby controlling some 40 percent of the West Bank.
Even before the shooting stopped entirely, Israeli bulldozers were destroying Palestinian villages (like Yalo, Amwas and Beit Nuba) and part of the town of Qalqilia. Fifty-eight square kilometers were thus controlled in these no-mans-lands, and new settlements established there. Similarly, an entire neighborhood was destroyed in the city of Jerusalem, on which was built what is now called the Jewish Quarter. It was through these policies that Israel was able to change the borders of the land in its favor (in Jerusalem, Latroun, and the Gush Etzion area), along with the security area in the Jordan Valley, concentrating its settlements in those areas.
According to the Alon plan, other areas were to be returned to Jordan but over time and with changes in the political atmosphere and the Zionist vision, these became part of the strategic settlement project. The policy of Israel became to employ the borders of the West Bank that included the largest areas of land with the fewest number of people. In addition to this, Israel sought to reach a status quo with Jordan that created a political border of 10-15 kilometers deep the length of the Jordan valley, and the Dead Sea, Gush Etzion and the Latroun area. This policy advanced with the Likud government in 1977 that lay down new lines in the settlement project, planting settlements in the Palestinian hills that ultimately were intended to geographically destroy the prospects for a Palestinian state.
During this phase, the population of the settlements grew immensely. By the signing of the Wye River accords in 1998, the number of settlers had risen to 170,000. By 2010, the number had risen even higher to 328,000. Israeli bulldozers were turning over Palestinian ground at a faster rate for new settlements, implementing a settlement master plan. Israel took advantage of the agreements and invested in expansion, and drew new borders for the Israeli state. Barely had Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu returned from Washington when military orders confiscating more land signed and delivered. Knesset member Benny Eilon from the Moledet party called on the settlers to grab as much land as possible from Palestinians. Ariel Sharon said, “Everybody has to move; run and grab as many hilltops as they can to enlarge the settlements, because everything we take now will stay ours. Everything we don’t grab will go to them.”
This process put in place 116 settlement outposts planned by Sharon when he was housing minister in 1990. In 2001, the decision was made to build the Separation Wall, which at times cut 500-900 meters inside the Green Line, seeking to sever Palestinian areas from Israeli areas. In that way, the maps that were created in Camp David and in Taba were overridden by facts on the ground and a new border. The removal of the settlements in the Gaza Strip and the north of the West Bank sped up the process of fulfilling the map envisioned by Ariel Sharon that would strengthen Israeli control over the Israeli settlement blocs in the West Bank. Then came the creation of the police station as part of the E1 plan between the settlement of Maale Adumim and Jerusalem, as one more attempt to create facts on the ground before the start of final status talks. As Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said, “The settlement blocs in the West Bank will be in the hands of Israel and behind the wall, and this was made clear to the Americans, and that is our position, even if they have reservations.”
The American letter of support of April 14, 2004 preempted final status, accepting the expansion of the settlements in the West Bank and Jerusalem, sketching the borders of the Palestinian state according to Israel plans. Here we see that the settlements and their expansion are integral to Israel. The Jordan valley remains under Israeli security, economic, and environmental control. Thus, Israel has drawn the borders of the Palestinian state the way it desires, and not according to the 1967 borders.
Khalil Toufakji is head of the maps department at the Arab Studies Society. This commentary is published by Daily News Egypt in collaboration with bitterlemons-api.org.
