143-517: The Palestinian enclaves are areas in the West Bank designated for Palestinians under a variety of unsuccessful U.S. and Israeli-led proposals to end the Israeli–Palestinian conflict . The enclaves are often compared to the nominally self-governing black homelands created in apartheid -era South Africa , and are thus referred to as bantustans . They have been referred to figuratively as
286-414: A "devastating impact on the economy, social networks, [and] the provision of basic services such as healthcare and education". A variety of terms are used by Palestinians and outside observers to describe these spaces, including "enclaves", "cantons", "open-air prisons", reservations , or, collectively, a "ghetto state"; while "islands" or "archipelago" is considered to communicate how the infrastructure of
429-660: A 26 May 2005 joint press conference with Mahmoud Abbas, in the White House Rose Garden , President George W. Bush stated his expectations vis-a-vis the Roadmap Plan as follows: Any final status agreement must be reached between the two parties, and changes to the 1949 Armistice lines must be mutually agreed to. A viable two-state solution must ensure contiguity of the West Bank, and a state of scattered territories will not work. There must also be meaningful linkages between
572-583: A cement factory in Hebron. In order to protect Israeli farmers, melon production was forbidden, imports of grapes and dates were banned, and limits were set to how many cucumbers and tomatoes could be produced. Israeli milk producers exerted pressure on the Ministry for Industry and Trade to stop the establishment of a competitive dairy in Ramallah . The sum effect after two decades was that 15% of all Palestinian firms in
715-420: A fact. d'Alema replied that the words he gave were "a precise quotation of your prime minister." Another Israeli guest, who was present at the dinner and who was (deeply) involved in cultivating ties between Israel and South Africa, confirmed that "whenever he happened to encounter Sharon, he would be interrogated at length about the history of the protectorates and their structures." In the same year Sharon himself
858-546: A gross domestic product of $ 1,349 per capita for a million people. The West Bank's population was 585,500, of whom 18% were refugees, and was growing annually by 2%. West Bank growth, compared to Gaza (3%), had lagged, due to the effect of mass emigration of West Bankers seeking employment in Jordan. As agriculture gave way to industrial development in Israel, in the West Bank the former still generated 37% of domestic product, and industry
1001-535: A map I had never seen before, and directed me to trace certain lines and shapes. Just make them clearer, he said. No cartographer was present, no graphic designer weighed in on my choices, and, when I was through, no Gilad Sher reviewed my work. No one knew it mattered. Motro's then superior officer, Shaul Arieli , who drew and was ultimately responsible for the Oslo maps, explained that the Palestinian enclaves were created by
1144-539: A mere 13%. The growth rate of the West Bank economy in the period of the Jordanian rule of the West Bank, before Israeli occupation, had ticked along at an annual rate of 6–8%. This rate of growth was indispensable if the post-war West Bank were to achieve economic self-reliance . In June 1967, the West Bank and East Jerusalem were captured by Israel as a result of the Six-Day War . With the exception of East Jerusalem and
1287-421: A permanent peace treaty would have to reflect "demographic realities" on the West Bank. In May 2011 US President Barack Obama officially stated US support for a future Palestinian state based on borders prior to the 1967 War, allowing for land swaps where they are mutually agreeable between the two sides. Obama was the first US president to formally support the policy, but he stated that it had been one long held by
1430-461: A plan which Gershom Gorenberg likens to a "photo negative of Allon's." The Allon plan evolved over a period of time to include more territory. The final draft dating from 1970 would have annexed about half of the West Bank. Israel had no overall approach for integrating the West Bank. The early occupation set severe limits on public investment and comprehensive development programmes in the territories. British and Arab commercial banks operating in
1573-496: A possible " State of Palestine " into five zones: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas commented on the fragmented nature of the proposal at the United Nations Security Council , waving a picture of the fragmented cantons and stating: "This is the state that they will give us. It's like a Swiss cheese, really. Who among you will accept a similar state and similar conditions?" According to Professor Ian Lustick ,
SECTION 10
#17328444342691716-506: A process of subtraction, consigning the Palestinians to those areas that the Israelis considered "unimportant": The process was very easy. In the agreement signed in '93, all those areas that would be part of final status agreement—settlements, Jerusalem, etc.—were known. So I took out those areas, along with those roads and infrastructure that were important to Israel in the interim period. It
1859-573: A professor of international law at the University of London , described as the "Bantustanization" of a " self-determination unit". The Intifada lost impetus after the Madrid Conference of 1991 that brought together Israeli and Palestinian representatives for the first time since 1949 and in 1992, Rabin pledged to halt settlement expansion and began secret talks with the PLO. Soon after the joint signing of
2002-584: A responsibility on the part of Israel's government to not settle Israeli citizens in the West Bank. As of February 2020, 134 (69.4%) of the 193 member states of the United Nations have recognised the State of Palestine within the Palestinian territories , which are recognized by Israel to constitute a single territorial unit, and of which the West Bank is the core of the would-be state. The future status of
2145-462: A separation, though not according to the borders prior to 1967. We want to reach a separation between us and them. We do not want a majority of the Jewish residents of the state of Israel, 98% of whom live within the borders of sovereign Israel, including a united Jerusalem, to be subject to terrorism." The first Israeli politician to campaign successfully on a platform based explicitly on separation, under
2288-544: A series of archipelagos (referred to variously as isolated islands, enclaves, cantons, and Bantustans) under an arrangement referred to as 'one of the most intensively territorialized control systems ever created'. The enclaves are often referred to as "bantustans", particularly but not exclusively by those critical of Israeli policy towards Palestinians , in reference to the territories set aside for black inhabitants in Apartheid South Africa. The label implies that
2431-490: A small group of officers and senior Israeli officials advocated that Israel unilaterally plan for a Palestinian mini-state or "canton", in the north of the West Bank. Policymakers did not implement this cantonal plan at the time. Defense minister Moshe Dayan said that Israel should keep the West Bank and Gaza Strip, arguing that a "sort of Arab 'bantustan' should be created with control of internal affairs, leaving Israel with defence, security and foreign affairs". Just weeks after
2574-459: A third of Jordanian investment was allocated to it and mainly to the private housing construction sector. Even though its per-capita product was 10 times greater than that of the West Bank, the Israeli economy on the eve of occupation had experienced two years (1966–1967) of a sharp recession. Immediately after the occupation, from 1967 to 1974, the economy boomed. In 1967, the Palestinian economy had
2717-621: A web of blocks of settlements of different sizes situated on the mountain ridges throughout the West Bank in and around Palestinian cities and villages. Sharon thought the Allon plan insufficient unless the high terrain was also fortified. Later, Sharon's plans were adopted as the "Master Plan for the Development of Settlement in Judea and Samaria for the Years 1979–1983", authored by Matityahu Drobles on behalf of
2860-540: Is ruled by Hamas . The Jordanians neglected to invest much in the area during their time governing the area, although there was some investment in the immediate vicinity of Jerusalem. Soon after the 1967 war, Yigal Allon produced the Allon Plan , which would have annexed a strip along the Jordan River valley and excluded areas closer to the pre-1967 border, which had a high density of Palestinians. Moshe Dayan proposed
3003-612: Is applied and under the Oslo Accords was supposed to be mostly transferred to the PNA by 1997, but this did not occur. The international community considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank to be illegal under international law . Citing the 1980 law in which Israel claimed Jerusalem as its capital, the 1994 Israel–Jordan peace treaty , and the Oslo Accords, a 2004 advisory ruling by the International Court of Justice concluded that
SECTION 20
#17328444342693146-495: Is mostly rugged dissected upland, some vegetation in the west, but somewhat barren in the east. The elevation span between the shoreline of the Dead Sea at −408 m to the highest point at Mount Nabi Yunis , at 1,030 m (3,379 ft) above sea level . The West Bank is landlocked; its highlands are the main recharge area for Israel's coastal aquifers. The West Bank has 220 km (85 sq mi) of water area, consisting of
3289-581: Is territory held by Israel under military occupation, regardless of its status prior to it coming under Israeli occupation, and that the Fourth Geneva convention applies de jure . The international community regards the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) as territories occupied by Israel. International law (Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention ) prohibits "transfers of the population of an occupying power to occupied territories", incurring
3432-464: Is what I will incorporate and this is what I will exclude' without having a physical barrier that prevents movement between the two." In 2005, Israel carried out the disengagement from Gaza ( Hebrew : תוכנית ההתנתקות , romanized : Tokhnit HaHitnatkut , lit. 'disengagement plan'), a unilateral dismantling in 2005 of the 21 Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip and
3575-438: The 2000 Camp David Summit , and Sharon's vision of a Palestinian state have proposed an enclave-type territory – i.e. a group of non-contiguous areas surrounded, divided, and, ultimately, controlled by Israel; as has the more recent Trump peace plan . This has been referred to as the " Bantustan option". The consequences of the creation of these fragmented Palestinian areas has been studied widely, and has been shown to have had
3718-567: The Courrier International that public support by an overwhelming majority for " hafrada " was an outgrowth of the average Israeli 's indifference to the history and lot of the Palestinians – which he contrasted with Israel's demand that Palestinians study the Holocaust to understand Jewish motivations. In Mapping Jewish Identities , published that same year (2000), Adi Ophir submitted that support for what he calls "the major element of
3861-477: The Israeli Defense Forces , submitted that " hafrada (separation) – they are there and we are here" had become the "new ideology" and "new word for those who fantastize about peace." Indor aimed strong criticism toward Ariel Sharon 's proposed peace agreement put forward during the 2001 elections in which Sharon claimed he would provide "peace and security" by making "a hafrada the length and breadth of
4004-539: The Israeli occupation of the West Bank has disrupted contiguity between Palestinian areas. " Swiss cheese " is another popular analogy. Of these terms, "enclaves", "cantons" and archipelago have also been applied to the pattern of Jewish settlements in the West Bank. The Encyclopedia of the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict entry for "Bantustan" says that they also are called "cantons or enclaves" and makes use of
4147-454: The Israeli–Palestinian conflict . The Palestinians consider it the heart of their envisioned state , along with the Gaza Strip. Right-wing and religious Israelis see it as their ancestral homeland , with numerous biblical sites. There is a push among some Israelis for partial or complete annexation of this land. Additionally, it is home to a rising number of Israeli settlers. Area C contains 230 Israeli settlements into which Israeli law
4290-796: The Jordan River , is the larger of the two Palestinian territories (the other being the Gaza Strip ) that comprise the State of Palestine . A landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the Levant region of West Asia , it is bordered by Jordan and the Dead Sea to the east and by Israel (via the Green Line ) to the south, west, and north. Since 1967, the territory has been under Israeli occupation , which has been regarded illegal under
4433-609: The Jordanian Parliament seats, thus enjoying equal opportunities in all sectors of the state. Many refugees continued to live in camps and relied on UNRWA assistance for sustenance. Palestinian refugees constituted more than a third of the kingdom's population of 1.5 million. The last Jordanian elections in which West Bank residents voted in were those of April 1967. Their parliamentary representatives continued in office until 1988, when West Bank seats were abolished. Palestinians enjoyed equal opportunities in all sectors of
Palestinian enclaves - Misplaced Pages Continue
4576-600: The Oslo I Accord on 13 September 1993, Yassir Arafat and Shimon Peres engaged in follow-up negotiations at the UNESCO summit held in December that year in Granada . Arafat was incensed at what he saw as the impossible terms rigidly set by Peres regarding Israeli control of border exits with Jordan , stating that what he was being asked to sign off on resembled a bantustan. This, Peres insisted,
4719-596: The Palestinian National Council proclaimed the State of Palestine . Sharon announced the Seven Stars plan in 1991, calling for settlements on the Green Line , with the declared intention of its consequent eradication and the 1992 Meretz - Sheves plan contemplated four Palestinian cantons divided by zones of Jewish settlement and later evolved as a plan to annex all major settlement blocs along with three "autonomous Palestinian enclaves", which Catriona Drew,
4862-427: The Palestinian archipelago , among other terms. The de facto status in 2024 is that Israel controls all area outside these enclaves . The "islands" first took official form as Areas A and B under the 1995 Oslo II Accord . This arrangement was explicitly intended to be temporary, with Area C (the rest of the West Bank ) to "be gradually transferred to Palestinian jurisdiction" by 1997; however, no such transfer
5005-639: The Supreme Court of Israel have ruled that the status of the West Bank is that of military occupation. In its 2004 advisory opinion the International Court of Justice concluded that: The territories situated between the Green Line and the former eastern boundary of Palestine under the Mandate were occupied by Israel in 1967 during the armed conflict between Israel and Jordan. Under customary international law,
5148-437: The West Bank ; and that before 2015, Israel would unilaterally repartition Jerusalem along lines of its own choosing. Schueftan argued that the "underlying feature" of disengagement is not that it will bring peace, but rather that it will prevent "perpetual terror". Implementation of hafrada continued under the government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert . In October 2000, Ha’aretz journalist Gideon Levy commented in
5291-748: The apartheid system – the so-called separation (hafrada) between Israelis and Palestinians," among Zionists who speak in favor of human rights is attributable to internal contradictions in Zionist ideology. In 2002, a television broadcast of The McLaughlin Group on the subject of Israel's separation policy opened with the words: "Jews call it hafrada , "separation", in Hebrew. Critics call it apartheid. The more technical neo-nomenclature is, quote, unquote, "unilateral disengagement." It's an idea that has gained ground in Israel." According to Smith and Cordell, implementation of
5434-675: The "Master Plan for Settlement for Judea and Samaria, Development Plan for the Region for 1983-1986", co-authored by the Ministry of Agriculture and the Settlement Division of the World Zionist Organisation, aimed at attracting 80,000 Israelis to live in 43 new Israeli settlements (for which up to 450 km of new roads were to be paved) in order to raise the total settler population to 100,000 by 2010. In late 1984, some embarrassment
5577-412: The "unification of Jerusalem" and preventing it from being divided in the future. Pursuant to this and subsequent plans, twelve Israeli settlements were established in such a way as to "complete a belt of built fabric that enveloped and bisected the Palestinian neighborhoods and villages annexed to the city." The plan called for the construction of Jewish neighbourhoods in stages, which started shortly after
5720-519: The 1980s, Sharon used coercive measures to control the population such as curfews, destruction of homes and the uprooting of trees, a policy reaffirmed in 1985 by Yitzhak Rabin . These Israeli settlements constituted a "creeping de facto annexation" that fed Palestinian discontent. In 1985, the National Conference of Black Lawyers in the United States compiled a report, entitled Bantustans in
5863-483: The 1993 Oslo Accords , the Palestinian Authority officially controls a geographically non-contiguous territory comprising approximately 11% of the West Bank, known as Area A , which remains subject to Israeli incursions. Area B, approximately 28%, is subject to joint Israeli-Palestinian military and Palestinian civil control. Area C , approximately 61%, is under full Israeli control. Though 164 nations refer to
Palestinian enclaves - Misplaced Pages Continue
6006-466: The 2004 Beit Sourik case that: The general point of departure of all parties – which is also our point of departure – is that Israel holds the area in belligerent occupation (occupatio bellica)......The authority of the military commander flows from the provisions of public international law regarding belligerent occupation. These rules are established principally in the Regulations Concerning
6149-446: The Allon plan. In 2016, the last year of his presidency, Barack Obama and John Kerry discussed a number of detailed maps showing the fragmentation of the Palestinian areas. Advisor Ben Rhodes said that Obama "was shocked to see how 'systematic' the Israelis had been at cutting off Palestinian population centers from one another." These findings were discussed with the Israeli government, which never disputed them. Obama's realization
6292-600: The Ariel Sharon Government began work on the Israeli West Bank barrier at the Seam Area . Israel has since maintained that the barrier is vital to keep Palestinian attackers out of Israeli cities. The barrier has been described by Daniel Schueftan as constituting, "the physical part of the strategy," of unilateral separation. Schueftan has explained that: "It makes the strategy possible because you cannot say 'this
6435-596: The Bantustans, but that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) will be allowed to continue setting up roadblocks, arresting suspects and invading Palestinian homes, all in the name of 'security needs'." In a 2016 interview, former Israeli Member of Knesset (MK) Ksenia Svetlova argued that West Bank disengagement would be very difficult and that a more likely outcome was "annexation and controlling Palestinians in Bantustans". The 2020 Trump peace plan proposed splitting
6578-533: The Court observes, these were therefore occupied territories in which Israel had the status of occupying Power. Subsequent events in these territories have done nothing to alter this situation. The Court concludes that all these territories (including East Jerusalem) remain occupied territories and that Israel has continued to have the status of occupying Power. In the same vein the Israeli Supreme Court stated in
6721-570: The Hafrada policy to apartheid , and others argue the word "hafrada" bears a "striking similarity" to the South African use of the term. In 2014, United Nations Special Rapporteur Richard A. Falk used the term repeatedly in his "Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967". Yitzhak Rabin was the first to propose
6864-570: The Holy Land, making the analogy with what was taking place in the West Bank. The term was much maligned at that time, but 15 years later, an American comparative law scholar and Africanist , Adrien Wing wrote that events in the ensuing decade and a half regarding the way territory was being regulated seemed to support the cogency of the analogy. By late 1987 tensions had sharpened and the Intifada began. In 1988, Jordan surrendered any claim to Palestine and
7007-573: The IDF from the Gaza Strip. The West Bank closures have also been cited as an example of the policy. Other names for hafrada when discussed in English include unilateral separation or unilateral disengagement. Aaron Klieman has distinguished between partition plans based on "hafrada", which he translated as "detachment"; and "hipardut", translated as "disengagement." The Hebrew word Hafrada can imply both "separation" and "segregation." Critics have linked
7150-530: The Israeli government and enacted in August 2005, the unilateral disengagement plan resulted in the dismantlement of all settlements in the Gaza Strip and four in the northern West Bank . Schueftan has characterized Sharon's unilateral disengagement plan as only the first step in a "wider historical process." Telling The Jerusalem Report in 2005 that he could "even pin the dates on it," he suggested that in 2007 or 2008, there would be another major disengagement in
7293-557: The Israeli government of a policy of separation is generally credited to the ideas and analysis of Daniel Schueftan as expressed in his 1999 book, Korah Ha'hafrada: Yisrael Ve Harashut Ha'falestinit or "Disengagement: Israel and the Palestinian Entity". An alternate translation for the title in English reads, "The Need for Separation: Israel and the Palestinian Authority ." In it, Schueftan reviews new and existing arguments underlying different separation stances, in order to make
SECTION 50
#17328444342697436-491: The Israeli proposals for a Palestinian autonomy to the Bantustan strategy of South Africa, In January 1978, Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) leader Yasser Arafat criticized a peace offering from Menachem Begin as "less than Bantustans". The September 1978 Camp David accords included provision for the Palestinians, who did not participate, based on Begin's 1977 Plan for the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Published in 1983,
7579-457: The Israeli right, knowing full well that Arafat would fly into a rage. Neither is true. I know, because I had a hand in producing the official Oslo II map, and I had no idea what I was doing. Late one night during the negotiations, my commander took me from the hotel where the talks were taking place to an army base, where he led me to a room with large fluorescent light tables and piles of maps everywhere. He handed me some dried-out markers, unfurled
7722-523: The Jordan River valley denies Palestinians any direct access eastward into Jordan. About one hundred military checkpoints completely surround Palestine and block routes going into or between Palestinian communities, combined with an uncountable number of other roads that are permanently closed with large concrete cubes or mounds of earth and rocks. There was no possibility that any Palestinian leader could accept such terms and survive, but official statements from Washington and Jerusalem were successful in placing
7865-581: The Jordan Valley, from the river to the eastern slopes of the West Bank hill ridge, East Jerusalem , and the Etzion bloc while the heavily populated areas of the West Bank hill country, together with a corridor that included Jericho , would be offered to Jordan. Allon's intention was to create a zone deemed necessary for security reasons between Israel and Jordan and set up an "eastern column" of agricultural settlements. The plan would have annexed about 35 percent of
8008-684: The Laws and Customs of War on Land, The Hague, 18 October 1907 [hereinafter – the Hague Regulations]. These regulations reflect customary international law. The military commander's authority is also anchored in IV Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War 1949. The executive branch of the Israeli government, through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, has defined
8151-639: The Oslo peace process's memorandum had been underwritten and supported by an international concert of nations, both in Europe, the Middle East and by the Russian Federation. A subsequent Wye River Accord negotiated with Benjamin Netanyahu drew similar criticism. Israeli author Amos Elon wrote in 1996 that the idea of Palestinian independence is "anathema" to Netanyahu, and that "[t]he most he seems ready to grant
8294-414: The Oslo process was deliberately designed to segregate Palestinians into isolated enclaves so that Israel could continue to occupy the West Bank without the burden of policing its people. If so, perhaps the map inadvertently revealed what the Israeli wordsmiths worked so diligently to hide. Or perhaps Israel's negotiators purposefully emphasized the discontinuity of Palestinian areas to appease opposition from
8437-444: The Palestinian area. The most recent endeavours included the construction of Har Homa (1991) and the so far unsuccessful attempts to connect Ma'ale Adumim with other Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem. Ariel Sharon was the primary figure behind Likud 's policy for Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territories for decades, and is widely regarded as its main architect. According to Ron Nachman , Sharon had been thinking about
8580-556: The Palestinians is a form of very limited local autonomy in some two or three dozen Bantustan-style enclaves". Noam Chomsky argued that the situation envisaged still differed from the historical South African model in that Israel did not subsidize the fragmented territories it controlled, as South Africa did, leaving that to international aid donors; and secondly, despite exhortations from the business community, it had, at that period, failed to set up maquiladoras or industrial parks to exploit cheap Palestinian labor, as had South Africa with
8723-601: The Palestinians – by Clinton, not Barak – had been to withdraw 20 percent of the settlements, covering about 10 percent of the occupied land, including land to be 'leased' and portions of the Jordan River valley and East Jerusalem. The percentage figure is misleading, since it usually includes only the actual footprints of the settlements. There is a zone with a radius of about four hundred meters around each settlement within which Palestinians cannot enter. In addition, there are other large areas that would have been taken or earmarked to be used exclusively by Israel, roadways that connect
SECTION 60
#17328444342698866-413: The Separation Wall, that area had been potted with 605 closure barriers whose overall effect was to create a "matrix of contained quadrants controllable from well-defended, fixed military positions and settlements". Olmert's Realignment plan (or convergence plan) are terms used to describe a method whereby Israel creates " facts on the ground " for a future Palestinian state of its own design as foreseen by
9009-408: The Settlement Division of the World Zionist Organization in 1979. In 1982, Sharon, then Minister of Defence, published his master plan for Jewish Settlements in the West Bank Through the Year 2010 which became known as the Sharon Plan. These plans – the Allon, Drobles and Sharon master plans, as well as the Hundred Thousand plan , which has never been officially acknowledged – were the blueprint for
9152-538: The Six-Day War. In particular, the new settlements of Ramot Eshkol , French Hill and Givat HaMivtar closed the gap in the northern parts of the city. The second stage took place in the 1970s and early 1980s, when Ramot and Neve Ya'akov in the north and Gilo and East Talpiot in the south were built. The third stage included Pisgat Ze'ev in 1980 and the creation of the "outer security belt", which consisted of Ma'ale Adumim (1977), Givon (1981) and Efrat (1983), built on high ground and next to strategic roads in
9295-410: The State of Palestine ). However, the "Road Map" states that in the first phase, Palestinians must end all attacks on Israel, whereas Israel must dismantle all outposts. The Palestinian Authority believes that the West Bank ought to be a part of their sovereign nation, and that the presence of Israeli military control is a violation of their right to Palestinian Authority rule. The United Nations calls
9438-407: The US in its Middle East negotiations. In December 2016, a resolution was adopted by United Nations Security Council that condemned Israel's settlement activity as a "flagrant violation" of international law with "no legal validity". It demands that Israel stop such activity and fulfill its obligations as an occupying power under the Fourth Geneva Convention . The United States abstained from
9581-407: The United States, the EU, the International Court of Justice , and the International Committee of the Red Cross refer to the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, as occupied Palestinian territory or the occupied territories. General Assembly resolution 58/292 (17 May 2004) affirmed that the Palestinian people have the right to sovereignty over the area. The International Court of Justice and
9724-470: The West Bank Israeli settlements. According to professor Saeed Rahnema, these plans envisaged "the establishment of settlements on the hilltops surrounding Palestinian towns and villages and the creation of as many Palestinian enclaves as possible" while many aspects formed the basis of all the failed "peace plans" that ensued. According to Avi Primor , the former deputy director-general of Israel's Foreign Ministry's department for Africa, Asia and Oceania, who
9867-399: The West Bank and annexed it in 1950 . In 1967, Israel captured the West Bank from Jordan in the Six-Day War. UN Security Council Resolution 242 followed, calling for withdrawal (return to the 1949 armistice lines) from territories occupied in the conflict in exchange for peace and mutual recognition. Since 1979, the United Nations Security Council , the United Nations General Assembly ,
10010-417: The West Bank and Gaza Strip Israeli-occupied territories . The United States State Department also refers to the territories as occupied . In 2005 the United States ambassador to Israel, Daniel C. Kurtzer , expressed U.S. support "for the retention by Israel of major Israeli population centres [in the West Bank] as an outcome of negotiations", reflecting President Bush 's statement a year earlier that
10153-415: The West Bank and Gaza employing over eight people, and 32% with seven or less, were prohibited from selling their products in Israel. Israeli protectionist policies distorted wider trade relations to the point that, by 1996, 90% of all West Bank imports came from Israel, with consumers paying more than they would for comparable products had they been able to exercise commercial autonomy. From 1517 to 1917
10296-511: The West Bank and Gaza. This is the position of the United States today, it will be the position of the United States at the time of final status negotiations. Sharon eventually disengaged from the Gaza in 2005, and in the ensuing years, during the Sharon-Peres interregnum and the government of Ehud Olmert it became a commonplace to speak of the result there, where Hamas assumed sole authority over
10439-408: The West Bank and consequent pressure for higher wages there. The contrast between the quality of their lives and Israelis' growing prosperity stoked resentment. Attempting to impose governmental authority, Israel established a licensing system according to which no industrial plant could be built without obtaining a prior Israeli permit. With Military Order No. 393 (14 June 1970), the local commander
10582-595: The West Bank and eventually stripped West Bank Palestinians of Jordanian citizenship. In 1982, as a result of the Egypt–Israel peace treaty , the direct military rule was transformed into a semi-civil authority , operating directly under the Israeli Ministry of Defense, taking control of civil matters of Palestinians from the IDF to civil servants in the Ministry of Defense. The Israeli settlements were administered as Judea and Samaria Area , directly by Israel. Since
10725-485: The West Bank as "disputed" instead of "occupied" territory, whose status can only be determined through negotiations. The Ministry argues that the West Bank was not captured in war because it was not under the legitimate sovereignty of any state prior to the Six-Day War (when it was occupied by Israel). The International Court of Justice ruling of 9 July 2004, however, found that the West Bank, including East Jerusalem,
10868-434: The West Bank as a violation of their right to statehood and sovereignty. Israeli opinion is split into a number of views: The West Bank has an area of 5,628 or 5,640 square kilometres (2,173 or 2,178 square miles), which comprises 21.2% of former Mandatory Palestine (excluding Jordan) and has generally rugged mountainous terrain. The total length of the land boundaries of the region are 404 km (251 mi). The terrain
11011-471: The West Bank to Palestinians. Responding to Ross' comments, Hassan Abdel Rahman , the Palestinian representative in Washington since 1994, at a forum sponsored by the U.S. Institute for Peace, disputed this version of events. Ehud Barak said that revisionist critics' charges that his plan offered "noncontiguous bantustans" was "one of the most embarrassing lies to have emerged from Camp David." Others were of
11154-643: The West Bank was part of the Ottoman Empire . Turkey, successor state to the Ottoman Empire, renounced its territorial claims in 1923, signing the Treaty of Lausanne , and the area now called the West Bank became an integral part of the British Mandate for Palestine. During the Mandate period Britain had no right of sovereignty, which was held by the people under the mandate. Nevertheless, Britain, as custodians of
11297-470: The West Bank were closed down soon after Israel assumed power there. Bank Leumi then opened nine branches, without successfully replacing the earlier system. Farmers could get loans, but Palestinian businessmen avoided taking out loans from them, since they charged 9% compared to 5% interest in Jordan. By June 1967, only a third of West Bank land had been registered under Jordan's Settlement of Disputes over Land and Water Law . In 1968, Israel moved to cancel
11440-426: The West Bank with few Palestinians. In Allon's view, if Israel did not give back the Palestinian lands that were not supposed to be annexed for Israeli settlement to that country, it would have to leave Palestinians with an autonomy under Israeli rule. This, he argued, would lead observers to conclude that Israel had set up an arrangement akin to "some kind of South African Bantustan". On 27 June 1967, Israel expanded
11583-517: The West Bank, including East Jerusalem, as " Occupied Palestinian Territory ", the state of Israel quotes the UN that only territories captured in war from "an established and recognized sovereign" are considered occupied territories. After the 2007 split between Fatah and Hamas , the West Bank areas under Palestinian control are an exclusive part of the Palestinian Authority. The Gaza Strip
11726-607: The West Bank, including East Jerusalem, remain Israeli-occupied territory . The West Bank has a land area of about 5,640 square kilometres (2,180 square miles). It has an estimated population of 2,747,943 Palestinians , and over 670,000 Israeli settlers live in the West Bank, of which approximately 220,000 live in East Jerusalem. The name West Bank is a translation of the Arabic term aḍ-Ḍiffah al-Ġarbiyyah , which designates
11869-589: The West Bank, together with the Gaza Strip on the Mediterranean shore, has been the subject of negotiation between the Palestinians and Israelis, although the 2002 Road Map for Peace , proposed by the " Quartet " comprising the United States, Russia, the European Union , and the United Nations, envisions an independent Palestinian state in these territories living side by side with Israel (see also history of
12012-423: The administration must make it unambiguously clear to Israel that while Prime Minister Sharon's planned withdrawal from Gaza is a positive initiative, it cannot be simply the first step in a unilateral process leading to the creation of Palestinian Bantustans in the West Bank". The maps for Sharon's disengagement from Gaza, Camp David and Oslo are similar to each other and to the 1967 Allon plan. By 2005, together with
12155-410: The appellation "State of Palestine" applied to this archipelago of Palestinian-inhabited districts is not to be taken any more seriously than the international community took apartheid South Africa's description of the bantustans of Transkei , Bophuthatswana , Venda , and Ciskei as "independent nation-states." When the plan emerged, Yehuda Shaul argued that the proposals were remarkably similar to
12298-594: The area east of the river as "East Bank" or "Transjordan". Jordan, as it was now known, ruled over the West Bank from 1948 until 1967. Jordan's annexation was never formally recognized by the international community, with the exception of the United Kingdom and Iraq. King Abdullah of Jordan was crowned King of Jerusalem by the Coptic Bishop on 15 November 1948. Palestinian Arabs in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem , were granted Jordanian citizenship and half of
12441-622: The area now known as the West Bank was under Turkish rule , as part of Ottoman Syria . At the 1920 San Remo conference , the victorious Allies of World War I allocated the area to the British Mandate of Palestine (1920–1948). The San Remo Resolution, adopted on 25 April 1920, incorporated the Balfour Declaration of 1917. It and Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations were
12584-536: The areas lack meaningful political sovereignty and economic independence. According to Professor Julie Peteet, Chair of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Louisville , the Israeli government's overall hafrada policy of separation, "exemplified in Jewish settlements, Palestinian enclaves, land expropriation, checkpoints, segregated roads, and the permit system" is a parallel to South African apartheid's pass system, land policies, and Bantustans. Usage of
12727-471: The arrangements, with Benvenisti concluding that the Palestinian self-rule sketched out in the agreements was little more than a euphemism for Bantustanization. Defenders of the agreements made in the 1990s between Israel and the PLO rebuffed criticisms that the effect produced was similar to that of South Africa's apartheid regime, by noting that, whereas the Bantustan structure was never endorsed internationally,
12870-418: The bantustans. He did draw an analogy however between the two situations by saying that the peace negotiations had led to a corrupt elite, the Palestinian Authority , playing a role similar to that of the black leadership appointed by South Africa to administer their Bantustans. Chomsky concluded that it was in Israel's interest to agree to call these areas states. Talks to achieve a comprehensive resolution of
13013-521: The basic documents upon which the British Mandate of Palestine was constructed. The United Kingdom proclaimed Abdullah I as emir of the Emirate of Transjordan on 11 April 1921. He declared it an independent Hashemite kingdom on 25 May 1946. Under the United Nations in 1947, it was designated as part of a proposed Arab state by the Partition Plan for Palestine . UN Resolution 181 recommended
13156-580: The case for separation from the Palestinians , beginning with those in the West Bank and Gaza . Schueftan favours the "hard separation" stances of politicians like Yitzhak Rabin and Ehud Barak , while characterizing the stance of politicians like Shimon Peres , as "soft separation". After assuming office in 1999, Barak moved to "stimulate cabinet discussion of separation" by distributing copies of Haifa University Professor Dan Schueftan's manifesto, Disengagement , to his ministers. The separation policy
13299-487: The concept-turned-policy or paradigm has dominated Israeli political and cultural discourse and debate. The separation policy was maintained by successive Israeli governments, which constructed the Israel-Gaza barrier and the Israeli West Bank barrier ( Geder Ha'hafrada, Hebrew for "separation fence"). In 2005, Israel carried out the disengagement from Gaza , which included the evacuation of Israeli settlements and
13442-609: The conflict were renewed at the Camp David Summit in 2000 , only for them to break down. Accounts differ as to which side bore responsibility for the failure. Reports of the outcome of the summit have been described as illustrating the Rashomon effect , in which the multiple witnesses gave contradictory and self-serving interpretations. Israel Prime Minister Ehud Barak's offer was widely reported as "generous" and, according to participant Dennis Ross would have handed control over 97% of
13585-615: The creation of a physical barrier between Israelis and Palestinians in 1992, and by 1994, construction on the first barrier – the Gaza-Israel barrier – had begun. In January 1995, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad carried out a double suicide bombing at the Beit Lid Junction near Netanya , killing 22 Israelis . Following the attack, Rabin specified the objectives behind the undertaking, stating that, "This path must lead to
13728-693: The details set forth both in the 1979 Drobles Plan, written for the World Zionist Organization and entitled Master Plan for the Development of Settlements in Judea and Samaria, 1979–1983 , and key elements of the earlier Allon Plan, aimed at ensuring Jewish settlement in the Palestinian territories, while blocking the possibility that a Palestinian state could ever emerge. West Bank The West Bank ( Arabic : الضفة الغربية , romanized : aḍ-Ḍiffah al-Ġarbiyyah ; Hebrew : הַגָּדָה הַמַּעֲרָבִית , romanized : HaGadáh HaMaʽarávit ), so called due to its location relative to
13871-401: The diplomatic process, with some claiming that his vision of Palestinian enclaves resembled the Bantustan model. In 2002, Israel began Operation Defensive Shield and commenced the Israeli West Bank barrier , which frequently deviates from the pre-1967 ceasefire line into the West Bank. It later emerged that in private, Sharon had confided to a foreign statesman as early as April 1999, when he
14014-698: The entire onus for the failure on Yasir Arafat. Following the breakdown of talks, Palestinian protests escalated into the Second Intifada . On his election to the Israeli Prime Minister in March 2001, Ariel Sharon expressed his determination not to allow the road map for peace advanced by the first administration of George W. Bush to hinder his territorial goals, and stated that Israeli concessions at all prior negotiations were no longer valid. Several prominent Israeli analysts concluded that his plans torpedoed
14157-508: The evacuation of Israeli settlers and army from inside the Gaza Strip . Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had originally dubbed his unilateral disengagement plan – in Hebrew , Tokhnit HaHitnatkut , or Tokhnit HaHinatkut – the "separation plan" or Tokhnit HaHafrada before realizing that, "separation sounded bad, particularly in English, because it evoked apartheid." The plan was put before the Israeli public in mid-December 2003. Formally adopted by
14300-527: The former Israeli–Jordanian no man's land , the West Bank was not annexed by Israel. It remained under Israeli military control until 1982. The 1974 Arab League summit resolution at Rabat designated the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) as the "sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people". Jordan did not officially relinquish its claim to the area until 1988, when it severed all administrative and legal ties with
14443-646: The implications of the plan thus: "Without anyone taking notice, a process is underway establishing a 'Palestinian state' limited to the Palestinian cities, a 'state' comprisedof a number of separate, sovereign-less enclaves, with no resources for self-sustenance." In 2003, the historian Tony Judt , arguing that the peace process had effectively been killed, leaving "Palestinian Arabs corralled into shrinking Bantustans." Commenting on these plans in 2006, Elisha Efrat, Professor of urban geography at TAU argued that any state created on these fragmented divisions would be neither economically viable nor amenable to administration. In
14586-566: The internal administration of the Strip, as the state of Hamastan , a wordplay on Bantustan and other pejorative uses of the suffix -stan to describe a place populated by Muslims. At the same time, according to Akiva Eldar , the Sharon plan to apply the same policy of creating discontinuous enclaves for Palestinians in the West Bank was implemented. In his Sadat lecture of 14 April 2005, former United States Secretary of State James Baker said that "Finally,
14729-525: The issue of settlement in the conquered territories since 1973, and his map of settlement, outlined in 1978, had not essentially changed by the time he implemented the Separation Barrier . In September 1977, in the first Likud government, Ariel Sharon took over the Ministerial Committee for Settlement and announced the first in a series of plans for new settlements. This was to be organized via
14872-707: The land, implemented the land tenure laws in Palestine, which it had inherited from the Ottoman Turks (as defined in the Ottoman Land Code of 1858 ), applying these laws to both Arab and Jewish legal tenants or otherwise. In 1947 the UN General Assembly recommended that the area that became the West Bank become part of a future Arab state, but this proposal was opposed by the Arab states at the time. In 1948, Jordan occupied
15015-494: The land." Indor stated that in his opinion, "If it were possible to make a hafrada , it would have been done a long time ago." He also noted that, " Binyamin Ben Eliezer himself said hafrada is impossible to implement." In 2002, Rochelle Furstenberg of Hadassah Magazine reported that the concept of "unilateral disengagement" had been unknown to the public eight months previous, but that the notion had gained momentum. In 2002,
15158-475: The law of the international community . The territory first emerged in the wake of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War as a region occupied and subsequently annexed by Jordan. Jordan ruled the territory until the 1967 Six-Day War , when it was occupied by Israel . Since then, Israel has administered the West Bank as the Judea and Samaria Area , expanding its claim into East Jerusalem in 1980 . Jordan continued to claim
15301-455: The municipal boundaries of West Jerusalem so as to include approximately 70 km (27.0 sq mi) of West Bank territory today referred to as East Jerusalem , which included Jordanian East Jerusalem (6 km (2.3 sq mi)) and 28 villages and areas of the Bethlehem and Beit Jala municipalities (64 km (25 sq mi)). The master plan set the objective of ensuring
15444-412: The northwestern quarter of the Dead Sea. Hafrada Hafrada ( Hebrew : הפרדה , lit. 'separation, disengagement') is the policy of the government of Israel to separate the Israeli population from the Palestinian population in the occupied Palestinian territories , in both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip . Yitzhak Rabin , Israeli Prime Minister from 1992-1995,
15587-673: The opinion that despite an undertaking to withdraw from most of their territory, the resulting entity would still have consisted of several bantustans. Israeli journalist Ze'ev Schiff argued that "the prospect of being able to establish a viable state was fading right before [the Palestinians] eyes. They were confronted with an intolerable set of options: to agree to the spreading occupation... or to set up wretched Bantustans, or to launch an uprising." Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter wrote about The Clinton Parameters in his widely publicized Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid : The best offer to
15730-553: The possibility of registering one's title with the Jordanian Land Register. Ian Lustick states that Israel "virtually prevented" Palestinian investment in local industry and agriculture. At the same time, Israel encouraged Arab labour to enter into Israel's economy, and regarded them as a new, expanded and protected market for Israeli exports. Limited export of Palestinian goods to Israel was allowed. Expropriation of prime agricultural land in an economy where two thirds of
15873-526: The rest of the West Bank to "be gradually transferred to Palestinian jurisdiction" by 1997, no such transfers were ever made. The Oslo map has been called the "Swiss cheese" map, in reference to the multiple holes ("eyes") in Emmental cheese . The Palestinian negotiators at Oslo were not shown the Israeli map until 24 hours before the agreement was due to be signed, and had no access to maps of their own in order to confirm what they were being shown. Yasser Arafat
16016-486: The secrecy of the tacit alliance between Israel and South Africa, were familiar with ongoing arrangements between the two in military and nuclear matters, though the thriving cooperation between Israel and the Bophuthatswana Bantustan themselves was a subject that remained neglected until recently, when South Africa's archives began to be opened up. By the early 1970s, Arabic -language magazines began to compare
16159-496: The settlements to one another and to Jerusalem, and 'life arteries' that provide the settlers with water, sewage, electricity, and communications. These range in width from five hundred to four thousand meters, and Palestinians cannot use or cross many of these connecting links. This honeycomb of settlements and their interconnection conduits effectively divide the West Bank into at least two noncontiguous areas and multiple fragments, often uninhabitable or even unreachable, and control of
16302-463: The size of New York's Central Park ). These areas, composing what is known as Area A ( c. 1,005 km (388 sq mi); 17.7% of the West Bank) and Area B ( c. 1,035 km (400 sq mi); 18.3% of the West Bank), formalized the legal limitation to urban expansion of Palestinian populated areas outside of these fragments. While these arrangements were agreed at Oslo to be temporary, with
16445-526: The slogan of "Us here. Them there," was Ehud Barak . In the U.S.-based journal Policy Review , Eric Rozenman writes: "Barak explained hafrada – separation – this way in 1998: 'We should separate ourselves from the Palestinians physically, following the recommendation of the American poet Robert Frost , who once wrote that good fences make good neighbors. Leave them behind [outside] the borders that will be agreed upon, and build Israel.'" The adoption by
16588-435: The splitting of the British Mandate into a Jewish state , an Arab state, and an internationally administered enclave of Jerusalem . A broader region of the modern-day West Bank was assigned to the Arab state. The resolution designated the territory described as "the hill country of Samaria and Judea ", the area now known as the "West Bank", as part of the proposed Arab state. Following the 1948 Arab–Israeli War , this area
16731-632: The standard usage for this geopolitical entity in English and some of the other Germanic languages since its inception following the 1948 Jordanian capture. The analogous Transjordan ( lit. ' over the River Jordan ' ) was historically used to designate the region now roughly comprising the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, which lies to the east of the Jordan River. Canaan State of Israel (1948–present) From 1517 to 1917,
16874-454: The state without discrimination. Agriculture remained the primary activity of the territory. The West Bank, despite its smaller area, contained half of Jordan's agricultural land. In 1966, 43% of the labor force of 55,000 worked in agriculture, and 2,300 km were under cultivation. In 1965, 15,000 workers were employed in industry, producing 7% of the GNP. This number fell after the 1967 war and
17017-715: The term bantustans to describe the Palestinian areas has been traced back to the 1960s including by Israeli military leader and politician Moshe Dayan, who reportedly suggested bantustans as an explicit model for the Palestinian enclaves. Other Israelis and Americans who have used similar terminology in various contexts include Ariel Sharon (reportedly), Colin Powell , James Baker , John Dugard , Martin Indyk , Daniel Levy , Amos Elon , Yigal Allon , I. F. Stone , Avi Primor , Ze'ev Schiff , Meron Benvenisti , Yuval Shany , Menachem Klein , and Akiva Eldar . The verbal noun "bantustanization"
17160-520: The territory as its own until 1988. The mid-1990s Oslo Accords split the West Bank into three regional levels of Palestinian sovereignty, via the Palestinian National Authority (PNA): Area A (PNA), Area B (PNA and Israel), and Area C (Israel, comprising 60% of the West Bank). The PNA exercises total or partial civil administration over 165 Palestinian enclaves across the three areas. The West Bank remains central to
17303-453: The territory in Romance languages , e.g. Spanish : Cisjordania , Portuguese : Cisjordânia , French : Cisjordanie , Italian : Cisgiordania , and Romanian : Cisiordania , and in some others, e.g. Basque : Zisjordania , Breton : Sisjordania , Hungarian : Ciszjordánia , Guarani : Sihorytáña , and Esperanto : Cisjordanio . The name West Bank , however, has become
17446-529: The territory situated on the western side of the Jordan River that was occupied in 1948 and annexed in 1950 by the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan . This annexation was widely considered to be illegal, and was recognized only by Iraq , Pakistan , and the United Kingdom . Variations on the neo- Latin name Cisiordania ( lit. ' on this side of the River Jordan ' ) are the usual names for
17589-405: The vote. In 2020, President Donald Trump unveiled a peace plan , radically different from previous peace plans. The plan failed to gain support. West Bank was ranked 10th most electoral democracy in the Middle East and North Africa according to V-Dem Democracy indices in 2024 with a score of 0.254 out of one. Palestinian public opinion opposes Israeli military and settler presence on
17732-410: The war, American Jewish intellectual I. F. Stone wrote that giving the West Bank back to Jordan would be better than creating "a puppet state — a kind of Arab Bantustan". In early 1968, Yigal Allon , the Israeli minister after whom the 1967 Allon Plan is named, proposed reformulating his plan by transferring some Palestinian areas back to Jordan . According to the plan, Israel would annex most of
17875-485: The word "fragmentation" in its analysis as of 2006. The process of creating the fragmented enclaves has also been described as " encystation " by international relations scholar Glenn Bowman and as " enclavization " by geographer Ghazi Falah . According to a report commissioned for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Israel has systematically segregated Palestinians communities into
18018-477: The workforce had farmed is believed to account for the flight of labourers to work in Israel. As much as 40% of the workforce commuted to Israel on a daily basis finding only poorly paid menial employment. Remittances from labourers earning a wage in Israel were the major factor in Palestinian economic growth during the 1969–73 boom years. The migration of workers from the territories had a negative impact on local industry, by creating an internal labour scarcity in
18161-609: Was a new experience for me. I did not have experience of mapmaking before. I of course used many different civilian and military organizations to gather data on the infrastructure, roads, water pipes, etc. I took out what I thought important for Israel. The islands isolate Palestinian communities from one another, while allowing them to be well guarded and easily contained by the Israeli military. The arrangements result in "inward growth" of Palestinian localities, rather than urban sprawl . Many observers, including Edward Said , Norman Finkelstein and Meron Benvenisti were highly critical of
18304-464: Was an ambassador and vice president of Tel Aviv University at the time of writing in 2002, in the top echelons of the Israeli security establishment in the 1970s and 1980s there was widespread empathy for South Africa's apartheid system and it was particularly interested in that country's resolution of the demographic issue by inventing bantustan "homelands" for various groups of the indigenous black population. Pro-Palestinian circles and scholars, despite
18447-452: Was applying that model to the West Bank. This in turn was taken to signal that the same model would be applied in the future to the West Bank, as with Jericho . The 1995 Oslo II Accord formalized the fragmentation of the West Bank, allotting to the Palestinians over 60 disconnected islands; by the end of 1999 the West Bank had been divided into 227 separate entities, most of which were smaller than 2 km (0.77 sq mi) (about half
18590-451: Was captured by Transjordan . During the 1948 war, Israel occupied parts of what was designated in the UN partition plan as "Palestine". The 1949 Armistice Agreements defined the interim boundary between Israel and Jordan, essentially reflecting the battlefield after the war. Following the December 1948 Jericho Conference , Transjordan annexed the area west of the Jordan River in 1950, naming it "West Bank" or "Cisjordan", and designated
18733-509: Was caused when the Israeli settlement of Ariel in the West Bank paired itself as a sister city with Bisho , the capital of the ostensibly independent Bantustan of Ciskei . Shortly afterwards, Shimon Peres , the new Prime Minister of a Labour - Likud national coalition government , condemned apartheid as an "idiotic system". In 1984 elections, Labor and Likud, on opposite sides of the debate over territorial compromise, were forced into coalition and any thought of land for peace tabled. In
18876-401: Was first used by Azmi Bishara in 1995, though Yassir Arafat had made the analogy earlier in peace talks to his interlocutors. Many researchers and writers from the Israeli left used it in the early 2000s, for example with Meron Benvenisti referring in 2004 to the territorial, political and economic fragmentation model being pursued by the Israeli government. After the 1967 Six-Day War ,
19019-504: Was forthcoming in avowing that it informed his plan to construct a "map of a (future) Palestinian state". Not only was the Gaza Strip to be reduced to a bantustan, but the model there, according to Meron Benvenisti , was to be transposed to the West Bank by ensuring, simultaneously, that the Separation Wall itself broke up into three fragmented entities: Jenin - Nablus , Bethlehem - Hebron and Ramallah . Avi Primor in 2002 described
19162-408: Was given the power and authority to block any construction if, in his evaluation, the building might pose a danger to Israel's security. The overall effect was to obstruct manufacturing development and subordinate any local industrial activity to the exigencies of Israel's economy, or to block the creation of industries that might compete with Israel's. For example, entrepreneurs were denied a permit for
19305-569: Was made. The area of the West Bank currently under partial civil control of the Palestinian National Authority is composed of 165 "islands". The creation of this arrangement has been described by Israeli journalist Amira Hass as "the most outstanding geopolitical occurrence of the past quarter century". A number of Israeli-U.S. peace plans, including the Allon Plan , the Drobles World Zionist Organization plan, Menachem Begin 's plan, Benjamin Netanyahu 's "Allon Plus" plan,
19448-451: Was marked by intensive and numerous Palestinian suicide bombings, the majority of which were directed towards Israeli citizens. Between 2001 and 2005, these suicide bombs killed 491 Israeli citizens, turning civilian life into a battleground. As a result, the Israeli government abandoned hopes for a diplomatic resolution to the conflict and embraced a strategy of unilateral disengagement. In February 2001, Meir Indor, lieutenant colonel in
19591-530: Was not surpassed until 1983. The tourism industry played an important role. 26 branches of 8 Arab banks were present. The Jordanian dinar became legal tender and remains so until today. 80% of Jordan's fruit-growing land and 40% of its vegetables lay in the West Bank. With the onset of the occupation, the area could no longer produce export earnings. On the eve of occupation, the West Bank accounted for 40% of Jordanian GNP, between 34% and 40% of its agricultural output and almost half of its manpower, though only
19734-426: Was quoted by Uri Savir , the Israeli chief negotiator at Oslo, as follows: "Arafat glared at [the map] in silence, then sprang out of his chair and declared it to be an insufferable humiliation. 'These are cantons! You want me to accept cantons! You want to destroy me'!" Professor Shari Motro, then an Israeli secretary in the Oslo delegation, described in 2005 part of the story behind the maps: Some people claim that
19877-490: Was reported to be the reason that he abstained on the United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 which condemned the settlements. According to Haaretz 's Chemi Shalev , in a speech marking the 50th anniversary of the Six-Day War, "Netanyahu thus envisages not only that Palestinians in the West Bank will need Israeli permission to enter and exit their 'homeland', which was also the case for
20020-625: Was serving as Foreign Minister for the Netanyahu government , that he believed the apartheid-era Bantustan provided "an ideal solution to the dilemma of Palestinian statehood". When Massimo D'Alema recalled the discussion during which Sharon explained his preference for Bantustan-like Palestine, one of the guests, who attended a private dinner the Italian Prime Minister hosted for Israelis in late April 2003, countered by suggesting that D'Alema's recollections must be an interpretation rather than
20163-492: Was subsequently adopted by Israel's National Security Council , where Schueftan has also served as an advisor. According to Gershon Baskin and Sharon Rosenberg, Schueftan's book appears to be "the working manual for the IDF and wide Israeli political circles" for the implementation and "unilateral construction of walls and fences." The Second Intifada , a large Palestinian uprising against Israel, lasted from 2000 to 2005. This period
20306-423: Was the first to advocate for the construction of a physical barrier between Israelis and Palestinians. Following the 1995 Beit Lid suicide bombing that killed 22 Israelis, Rabin stated that separation is necessary to protect the majority of Israeli Jews from Palestinian terrorism . Ehud Barak , Prime Minister from 1999 to 2001, stated that "good fences make good neighbors." Since its first public introductions,
20449-569: Was what had been agreed to at Oslo. Subsequently, on 4 May 1994, Israel and the PLO signed the Gaza–Jericho Agreement that stipulated arrangements for the withdrawal of Israeli troops from both named areas. Azmi Bishara commented in 1995 that the model envisaged for Gaza was a Bantustan, one even more restrictive in its implications and scope than the ones existing in South Africa, and that Oslo
#268731