Policy Brief #10 (June 2002)

by Arie Kacowicz

In Brief Recent public opinion polls in Israel indicate substantial support for several proposals for a long-term resolution of the conflict. Combining these proposals into a single scheme would thus produce a formula for future negotiations with broad political support. This formula should include an Israeli declaration of acceptance in principle of the Saudi initiative, Israel's unilateral disengagement from 85% of the West Bank and the entire Gaza Strip, the creation of an international trusteeship regime in the West Bank and Gaza during a three-year transition to a Palestinian state, the deployment of multinational peacekeeping forces, and bilateral negotiations on the core issues of the conflict.

Since "every war must end," one should ask nowadays how the current war between Israel and the Palestinians should end? What will happen in the day after? How can we reduce the tragic suffering of both peoples? What will be the contents of a regional peace conference, when and if it is convened? Are we heading towards another sterile interim agreement, or is there now an opportunity to end the conflict through the pooling of several plans and ideas that have significant support of public opinion in Israel?

There are no magic solutions to offer. Yet, according to the polls of the last several weeks, the majority of the population in Israel, notwithstanding its political affiliation with the "right" or the "left," understands that there is no military solution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians in the long term. Moreover, this conflict will not end with the vanishing (voluntarily or by force) of Yasser Arafat from the political scene, since without him Israel remains in control of the fate of the Palestinian people in the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) and the Gaza Strip.

Assuming that the vast majority of the Israeli public wants to keep the Jewish and democratic character of the State of Israel, and hence opposes the "transfer" (i.e., forced expulsion) of millions of Palestinians from the territories, Israel cannot accept the current status quo of the continuing occupation of another people. There is a clear demographic rationale for this. Currently, in the State of Israel there are about 5.3 million Jews and 1.2 million Arabs; in the Palestinian territories, there are about 3.3 million Palestinians. Within the next few years demographic trends indicate the Jewish majority in the State of Israel will either become a Jewish minority in the Land of Israel/Palestine (between the Mediterranean sea and the Jordan River), or Israel will cease to be a democratic state by denying the Palestinians under its control their legitimate political rights.

So what can be done? It is clear that today Israel does not have a partner on the Palestinian side who wants or can enforce a cease-fire and fight effectively against terrorism. This is partly a consequence of the leadership failure within the Palestinian Authority, and partly a result of the recent Israeli military actions, which have seriously undermined the Palestinian Authority as a true and reliable interlocutor. It is also evident that the Israeli army cannot stay forever in the Palestinian territories, against the will of the United States and the international community. This will only increase the motivation for Palestinian terror, which cannot be defeated by force alone, even force used in excessive doses.

Over the last few weeks several political blueprints have been proposed to break the cycle of violence in the region. Surprisingly, these blueprints have the support of the majority, or close to the majority of the population in Israel, according to polls conducted by the Steinmetz Center for Peace Research at Tel Aviv University and the Israeli newspapers Maariv and Yediot Hachronot. The Saudi initiative is supported by about 52% of the population, unilateral disengagement from the territories by about 65%, and the establishment of an international force that will separate between Israel and the Palestinians by about 39%. A simple mathematical equation indicates that all the plans together sustain significant popular support, in contrast to the political positions formulated in the Israeli Parliament or in the Israeli government. Given the compatibility of these proposals and the strong public support for them, why not combine them in the following formula, as an outline for the end of the current war and the transition towards the political management and eventual resolution of the conflict?

1. The State of Israel will declare in principle its acceptance of the Saudi initiative as a basis for future negotiations between Israel and responsible actors within the Arab world, including Palestinian representatives, who will be ready to accept and to implement UN Resolutions 242 and 338 and will commit themselves to resolve the conflict in the region only by peaceful means on the basis of the formula of "territories in exchange for peace." Moreover, Israel will be ready to continue the political negotiations on the basis of the Clinton blueprint of December 2000, if and when the Palestinian party will be ready to accept the Clinton blueprint as a future basis for negotiations, and renounce terrorism as a political and military option.

2. Meanwhile, and in the immediate term, until the political negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians resume, Israel will redeploy itself within several months up to a year through a unilateral disengagement from 85% of the West Bank and the entirety of the Gaza Strip. Israel will draw the map of its unilateral disengagement on the basis of its security concerns and national interests, such as keeping and relocating as many as 80% of the Israeli settlers from the West Bank in a few "settlers' blocks" immediately adjacent to the pre-1967 borders of the State of Israel; maintaining interim security control of the Jordan Valley; and establishing territorial contiguity for the Palestinians in the 85% of the West Bank that will be evacuated. Israel will not formally annex the 15% of the territory in the West Bank that will remain under its control, but rather will negotiate their future status within the framework of future negotiations.

3. Yet, the territories evacuated by Israel in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip will not be transferred, without further negotiations, to the Palestinian Authority. Instead, for a transitional period of three years a trusteeship regime will be established in the 85% of the West Bank and the entire Gaza Strip, under the direct control of responsible international actors, including the United Nations, the Organization for Cooperation and Security in Europe, NATO, Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. Before entering into force, this trusteeship regime should be approved by a plebiscite among the Palestinian population in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, so both the international and the domestic dimensions of legitimacy will be guaranteed. Then, the international actors will control the Palestinian territories in the political/civic dimensions, in cooperation with the Palestinian Authority after its reconstruction. Several items should be included on the agenda of the trusteeship regime: the economic and civil reconstruction of the Palestinian territories; the reconstruction of its infrastructures and their further development; democratic elections after a period of one to two years; significant changes in the Palestinian education system in the direction of peace and tolerance; the end of incitement to violence; and renewal of transnational and people-to-people cooperation between Israelis and Palestinians. The State of Palestine will be established in the territories of the trusteeship regime after two years, so in the third year the territories will be jointly managed by the international regime and the State of Palestine.

4. Between the State of Israel and the Palestinian trusteeship regime there will be not only a security border but also a significant multinational force that will be composed of peacekeeping forces from the UN, NATO, Egypt, Turkey, and Jordan, which will coordinate and cooperate with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the Israeli Border Police. These multinational forces will be responsible for keeping the peace and repressing any terrorist actions in and from the Palestinian territories, and will be stationed in the Palestinian side of the security border. The multinational forces will not end their mission with the end of the trusteeship regime (after three years), but will continue to function as a security component in the future negotiations and final peace agreement between Israel and the State of Palestine. Peacekeeping forces such as this have been effective in several instances, including the UN forces in Sinai between 1957 and 1967, the current multinational force in Sinai after the Peace Treaty between Israel and Egypt, and international forces that acted in the past in Central America, Cambodia, Kosovo, Namibia, Bosnia, and East Timor.

5. After the establishment of the State of Palestine (after two years of the trusteeship regime in 85% of the West Bank and the whole of the Gaza Strip), bilateral negotiations will take place between the States of Israel and Palestine on a final peace agreement and the resolution of the pending "core" issues of the conflict: Jerusalem, refugees, Israeli settlements, the final political borders between the two states, and security and water arrangements. The United States, Russia, the UN, NATO, the OSCE, the European Union and the Arab League will be guarantors of the final peace agreement. With the end of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict Israel will conclude peace and cooperation agreements with all the Arab states.

These five principles should be included as a basis for discussion in the forthcoming peace conference as the official Israeli position. Yet, if the Israeli government does not adopt these guidelines, a political/civic block that transcends political affiliations should be formed. This block should encompass the Zionist camp in Israel that believes in the future of the State of Israel as both a Jewish and democratic country, together with the Arab public in Israel that is ready to support a fair solution to the conflict between Israel and Palestinians. This political/civic block should then run for the 2003 elections in the Israeli Parliament as a viable alternative to the current government.

About the Author
Arie Kacowicz is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of International Relations at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a resident of Gilo, Jerusalem. He was a visiting fellow at the Kroc and Kellogg Institutes in 1997-98. He is the author of Zones of Peace in the Third World: South America and West Africa in Comparative Perspective (SUNY Press, 1998) and co-editor of Stable Peace among Nations (Rowman and Littlefield, 2000). He may be contacted at mskaco@mscc.huji.ac.il.

  

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