Even though it hasn't been made public (and even the Palestinians say they haven't seen such a "peace plan" committed to writing), I know - and can reveal exclusively for the readers of Lawrence of Cyberia - what exactly is in the Olmert Plan, whose details were "leaked" to Ha'aretz yesterday.
There are two reasons that I know the contents of this Israeli plan.
1. Israel has, and has only ever had for the past 40 years, one plan for the Occupied Territories. The plan is to control permanently the whole West Bank, but to avoid annexing the people who live there (and who would simply vote Zionist control over them out of existence if they ever enjoyed equal rights) by forcing them to leave or - for the really stubborn ones - by confining them in impoverished reservations and calling this "Palestine".
The key to creating these impoverished reservations is that Israel must directly annex those parts of the West Bank that - if relinquished to the Palestinians - would make their state a viable concern. In practical terms, that means:
- severing Arab East Jerusalem entirely from the Palestinians of the rest of the West Bank (because East Jerusalem is the economic powerhouse of the Occupied Territories, generating more than one-third of GDP, and is the key to economic viability for a Palestinian state). You do this by building a "Jerusalem envelope" or ring of settlements around the eastern edge of Arab East Jerusalem - like Gilo, Har Homa, East Tapiyot, Ramat Eshkol, and more than a dozen others - so that when you magnanimously declare you will settle for annexing "only" the settlement blocs you also happen to be entirely severing East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank. You didn't really think the location of the major settlement blocs was decided by chance, did you?)
- annexing the Jordan Valley, which ensures the West Bank has no land border with the outside world, leaving it entirely dependent on Israeli largesse. (And seeing as the Jordan Valley is the breadbasket of the West Bank, annexing it also leaves the Palestinian reservations entirely dependent on Israel even for food).
- annexing those parts of the West Bank that control the Palestinians' water supply (you do this by building major Israeli settlements - like Ariel in the northern West Bank - on key points for dominating the West Bank acquifer, so that when you magnanimously declare you will settle for annexing "only" the settlement blocs you also happen to be annexing the water supply they control; you didn't really think the location of the major settlement blocs was decided by chance, did you?
- annexing those parts of the West Bank that allow the Palestinians meaningful territorial contiguity (you do this by building major Israeli settlements - like the largely empty but super-sized Maale Adumim, which extends from East Jerusalem almost to Jericho - at the narrow point of the central West Bank, so that when you magnanimously declare you will settle for annexing "only" the settlement blocs you also happen to be cutting the West Bank in two; you didn't really think the location of the major settlement blocs was decided by chance, did you?)
What this all looks like on the ground was first mapped out immediately after the Occupation began, with the
Allon Plan of 1967 (click all maps to enlarge):
Now take a look at maps showing the outlines of "Palestine" that Israel has been trying to impose on the Palestinians throughout the "peace process" years:
The BBC map of 2006, showing the Palestine borders that
the Olmert govt was building at that time:
...which was first published in a
Financial Times article, with the accompanying text:
A new map of the West Bank, 40 years after its conquest by Israel in the Six Day War, gives the most definitive picture so far of a territory in which 2.5m Palestinians are confined to dozens of enclaves separated by Israeli roads, settlements, fences and military zones.
Produced by the United Nations’s Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs, it is based on extensive monitoring in the field combined with analysis of satellite imagery. It provides an overall picture officials say is even more comprehensive than charts drawn up by the Israeli military.
The impact of Israeli civilian and military infrastructure is to render 40 per cent of the territory, which is roughly the size of the US state of Delaware or the English county of Norfolk, off-limits to Palestinians.
The rest of the territory, including main centres such as Nablus and Jericho, is split into isolated spots. Movement between them is restricted by 450 roadblocks and 70 manned checkpoints.
The UN mapmakers focused on land set aside for Jewish settlements, roads reserved for settler access, the West Bank separation barrier, closed military areas and nature reserves.
What remains is an area of habitation remarkably close to territory set aside for the Palestinian population in Israeli security proposals dating back to postwar 1967....
Well, how about that. They are rather similar aren't they? If I were a cynical person, given to doubting Israel's devotion to a peaceful solution arrived at through good faith negotiations, I might even conclude ... They're all the same plan!
That's how I know what Olmert is offering, even though he won't write it down, or offer a map. He's offering his own slight variant of what every other Israeli PM has offered his own variant of. Because since 1967 Israel has been working single-mindedly to illegally establish control of the West Bank without having to respect the rights of the people who live there, who will be controlled by being forcibly penned in reservations. It has never had any other plan for the Occupied Territories, certainly not one that involves getting out of the West Bank and allowing Palestinian self-determination there through a genuinely sovereign independent state.
2. The other reason I know what Olmert's plan entails is that it "offers" the Palestinians 92.7 per cent of the West Bank, but requires that Israel annex the remaining 7.3 per cent. That 7.3 per cent is a dead giveaway.
(As a quick aside here, I should mention that what Israel refers to as the "West Bank" in its final status offers, is not the West Bank as it is internationally understood. When Barak, Sharon and Olmert talk about relinquishing x per cent of the "West Bank", they mean that part of the West Bank which is left when you have removed in advance from the equation Jerusalem in the West and the Jordan Valley in the East. Sharon and Olmert proceed from the assumption that those two areas will be annexed to Israel - Barak talks about the Jordan Valley remaining under long-term, "temporary" Israeli control, which amounts in practice to the same thing - and are not up for discussion. So when they talk about "giving" to the Palestinians 93 per cent of the West Bank, they really mean 93 per cent of that 80 - 85 per cent of the occupied West Bank that they are even willing to negotiate over).
Just recall how much of the West Bank recent former Israeli PMs insisted on holding on to in their version of a "two state solution".
Remember Camp David, where Barak "offered them everything but they refused"? Well, even in his most generous moment, he didn't offer everything. He offered about 92 per cent of the West Bank (less Jerusalem, less the Jordan Valley), but insisted on annexing about 8 per cent:
And at Taba, where the official Israeli and Palestinian positions came closer than they have ever been, Barak still insisted that Israel hold on to about 6 per cent:
Then, when Palestinians watched the planned route of the Wall and expansion of settlements in the Sharon era, it became apparent how much of the West Bank (less Jerusalem, less the Jordan Valley) Sharon was ultimately planning to annex:
The Palestinians aren't counting on Sharon. Nazmi Jubeh, one of the Palestinian signatories on the Geneva understandings and close to the PA leadership, was in a Netanya living room meeting on Sunday with Yossi Beilin, and explained what the prime minister looks like as seen from Ramallah.
In fluent Hebrew, Jubeh said that "under cover of the disengagement from Gaza, Sharon will complete the separation fence and expand settlement construction in the West Bank, west of the fence. He will say that Israel is only taking 8 percent of the West Bank and that we should establish our state in temporary borders on the remaining land, without East Jerusalem and without a solution to the refugee problem."
Jubeh says that he does not know a single Palestinian leader who would buy that merchandise, and warns that if Israel doesn't reach a deal with Abu Mazen in the next four years on the basis of the Geneva accords, the Israelis won't have anyone to talk to about a two-state arrangement.
-- Apres disengagement, le deluge; Ha'aretz, 24 March 2005.
And now we hear that the Olmert Plan is to get out of the West Bank (less Jerusalem, probably less the Jordan Valley)... except for a mere 7.3 per cent of the West Bank, which Israel will annex.
Have you noticed how remarkably consistent that figure is, that successive Israeli PMs insist on annexing from the West Bank? Barak insists on 6 - 8 per cent. Sharon wanted 8 per cent. Now Olmert wants 7.3 per cent. If Israeli governments are willing to give up more than 90 per cent of the West Bank (less the Jordan Valley, less East Jerusalem) for a Palestinian state, what is that last 6 - 8 per cent that they can't let go of? It seems such a small amount to stall on, if you're already offering 93 per cent.
The answer of course is that the percentages themselves are not significant. It's not so important that Israel wants to keep 6 - 8 per cent, what is significant is where that 6 - 8 per cent is, and what purpose does it serve Israel to hold on to it. Look back to what I wrote under point one of this post, about how the unchanging Israeli plan for the West Bank over the last 40 years is to control the West bank by cutting off the Palestinians from Jerusalem, from the outside world, from their arable and water resources, and from each other. That is where the significance of the last 6 - 8 per cent lies.
Even after removing Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley from the equation, Barak, Olmert and Sharon know that the implementation of that plan - cutting off West Bank Palestinians from Jerusalem, from meaningful access to the West bank acquifer and arable land, from a land border with Jordan, and cutting them off from each other by Israeli territorial "fingers" that break Palestine into non- or barely-contiguous islands - still requires the annexation of about 6 to 8 per cent of what remains. That carefully chosen 6 to 8 per cent of the West Bank is the difference between a viable Palestine and an impoverished and chronically-dependent "Palestine".
That explains how I knew the essential elements of the Olmert peace plan, as soon as I read the story he leaked to an Israeli paper about making a remarkably generous offer to the Palestinians that requires the annexation of "only" that same-old-same-old 6 - 8 per cent of the West Bank.
It also explains why the differences between the two negotiating teams are much more intractable than they sound. Seven per cent of the West Bank is only a small amount. You'd think that with one per cent here, and one per cent there, you could soon bridge the gap. But for Israel, that last seven-or-so per cent isn't really about acreage, it's the key to making its entire strategy for the West Bank work. That seven per cent (plus Jerusalem, plus the Jordan Valley) is the minimum Israel needs to keep the nominally "independent" Palestinians under its control. Offering 93 per cent to the Palestinians is as much as Israel can offer without finally giving up control over them and finally allowing a genuinely independent, sovereign and viable Palestinian state in the Occupied Territories. So the gap that has to be bridged is not a matter of small territorial percentages, but the huge gap in the Israeli mindset that still thinks the purpose of negotiations with the PLO is to find new ways to configure Israeli control over the Palestinians, rather than to renounce the unsuccessful and bloody attempt to control them, and allow them a self-determination, independence and sovereignty that is in every way equal to what Israelis demand for themselves.
One final word on why Olmert is leaking his "peace plan" now. Well, it's clearly not intended as a serious offer to the Palestinians. You put serious offers down on paper and discuss them in the intense negotiations that have been going on out of the public eye since Annapolis, you don't launch them by leaking them to Ha'aretz. Olmert is talking to Ha'aretz, not the Palestinians; and he's talking about his own legacy, not about making peace.
Olmert is coming to the end of his time in office, and his legacy will be to have achieved nothing that was hoped for when Kadima won the election. He wasted that huge wave of support for "disengagement" from the West Bank that brought him into office through his weakness for dollar-stuffed envelopes, through a stupid (and failed) war against Hizbullah, and through his own cowardice in dealing with the settlement project and with his own coalition partners who made him pretend Jerusalem wasn't a final status issue. And now, he's doing what earlier "peace" Prime Ministers did when they too failed to find the courage to tackle settlements and Jerusalem - he's trying to deflect the blame onto the eternal punching bag that is the Palestinians by claiming: "I offered them everything, but they refused!" Well, nearly everything anyway. So long as no-one mentions Jerusalem, the Jordan Valley, and why exactly Israel needs that 7.3 per cent, maybe he too can get away with calling it a generous offer.
