Ramallah- Since 2014, Israel has refused to open a political track with the Palestinians, and its politicians and party leaders have rejected the principle of establishing a Palestinian state. Rather, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has continued to attack the Palestinian Authority, and pledged not to repeat what he considered the “Oslo mistake,” which the Palestinians say ended under the tracks of tanks. Israeli.
In the midst of talk about the post-Gaza war phase, Israeli research centers present several options, one of which is a proposal by the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, published by the Palestinian Center for Israeli Studies, calling for thinking about alternatives that would change the existing reality in the West Bank.
One of the proposed alternatives is the establishment of a Palestinian civilian government (a technocratic government), commensurate with calls for the establishment of a “renewed Palestinian authority,” which, according to the institute, requires dividing the West Bank into several regions governed by separate civilian administrations within a technocratic government, while Israel maintains With full security responsibility and freedom of military action therein, dismantling the Palestinian security services, and maintaining law and order enforcement units among them.
According to two experts who spoke to Tel Aviv Tribune Net, the occupation has established an infrastructure for administrative divisions in the West Bank, and can separate each from the other at any time, but it is too early to consider this a close political plan.
Trapped and subservient
The expert on Israeli affairs, Adel Shadid, says that the role of the Palestinian Authority now is nothing more than a service role. “The authority has been stripped of any political or national role,” and he does not rule out the option of administrative division of the West Bank regions.
Shadeed added that the continued expansion of settlements, and thus the decrease in Area A, which is supposed to be under Palestinian control, helps with the division.
The Oslo Accords stipulate that the territory of the West Bank is divided into Area “A” and is supposed to be subject to full Palestinian control, but this no longer exists after the invasion of the West Bank about two decades ago.
Area B is administratively and security-wise subject to Israel, while Area C, which constitutes about 60% of the West Bank, is under complete Israeli control.
Shadid added that the expansion of the settlements means tightening the siege of the Palestinian communities, turning them into small islands like detention centers, “scattered, scattered, and disconnected cantons that exist in a large sea of security, military, and settlement control, and bypass roads (settlement settlements that go around the Palestinian communities) as a prelude and part of the project to annex those areas.”
He said, “This means that the management of each region or cluster becomes an internal matter under the full supervision and follow-up of the Israeli Civil Administration, and movement between them requires Israeli approval.”
Shadid pointed out that the program of the leader of religious Zionism, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, wants the Palestinian to be either a servant, an immigrant, or a murderer, and this is the opinion of most components of the current government today, and the opposition also hopes that the Palestinians will emigrate.
The Palestinian analyst added that while the world is busy following up on the aggression against Gaza, the Israeli Knesset (Parliament) has formed, for the first time in its history, a committee to manage the West Bank, which is supposed to be administered by the military ruler as an occupied territory, headed by extremist Knesset member Zvi Sukkot, “indicating that the Zionist religious project In the West Bank, it is progressing quickly and it is intended to be legislated.”
What is Area C in the West Bank?
I always talk about Area C in the West Bank (also known as C) and the seriousness of the situation there.
Most people do not understand the story, and I do not blame them because this is a betrayal of Oslo. Whoever signed it did not understand what happened, so I will try to simplify the issue and avoid going into many details to make it easier for you.
— yaseenizeddeen (@yaseenizeddeen) August 17, 2022
An idea, not a plan
For his part, researcher on Israeli affairs, Walid Habas, points out that the administration of Palestinian affairs has long occupied Israeli research centers, and has put forward many ideas, all of which prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state on what the Israelis call “the land of the Torah” or “Judea and Samaria,” by which they mean the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem.
Habas pointed to previous attempts to create administration formations, including the appointment of mukhtars (plural of mukhtar, which is the head of the clan) and ties before the Palestinian Authority, the aim of which was to create a Palestinian body affiliated with the civil administration without a political future.
He added that the idea of dividing the West Bank into administrative regions is strongly present on the Israeli agenda, but it is not a plan under implementation or linked to an action program.
Habas believes that Israel has worked to divide the Palestinians between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank in the past 15 years, in order to prevent the formation of a single Palestinian authority that can have an independent government.
He adds that dividing the West Bank into administrative states means that each state will have an independent authority, a leadership different from the other, and an administrative formation directly linked to Israel. This idea was presented by Smotrich in his electoral program, and he declared, “There will not be a Palestinian state for the Gentiles on a land that God promised us, the land of the people of Israel.” “.
He said that Smotrich’s proposal includes transforming the West Bank into administrative regions, each of which is governed by a tribal composition under a technocratic government that is in agreement with Israel, has security services, an economic system, and authority that exceeds the authority of the municipality without a political dimension, and manages education, health, economics, and employment affairs.
Many options
Habas points out that researchers at the Israeli National Security Research Center have presented several working papers in recent years on the future of the population between the river and the sea, numbering about 8 million Palestinians and 8 million Jews, none of which include the establishment of a Palestinian state, and some of which include the establishment of a confederation between Jordan and the territories. a”.
He pointed out that the Oslo Accords between Israel and the PLO previously divided the West Bank into 9 administrative regions, namely the major cities and their villages, but until now they are united by one authority, and Israel practically separates them from each other.
He added that Israel has prepared the infrastructure, including a system of barriers, gates, divisions, and isolation, and can practically separate each administrative region from the other.
Within this scenario, the Palestinian researcher points out that the Israeli authorities, represented by the Civil Administration, also maintain relationships with people, individuals and groups in each administrative region separately, ready to rule when asked.
However, Habas says that Israel so far prefers the option of dealing with a single authority over the option of separate administrative regions, and the idea of divisions is “practically out of the question now, and remains a matter of imagination.”