While in part 1 we looked at the geostrategic problems of Israel, in P.2 we continued
with the same for Palestine.
Palestinian
nationalism’s first enemy is Israel, but if Israel ceased to exist, the
question of an independent Palestinian state would not be settled. All of the
countries bordering such a state would have serious claims on its lands, not to
mention a profound distrust of Palestinian intentions. The end of Israel thus
would not guarantee a Palestinian state. One of the remarkable things about
Israel’s Operation Cast Lead in Gaza was that no Arab state moved quickly to
take aggressive steps on the Gazans’ behalf. Apart from ritual condemnation,
weeks into the offensive no Arab state had done anything significant. This was
not accidental: The Arab states do not view the creation of a Palestinian state
as being in their interests. They do view the destruction of Israel as being in
their interests, but since they do not expect that to come about anytime soon,
it is in their interest to reach some sort of understanding with the Israelis
while keeping the Palestinians contained.
The emergence of a
Palestinian state in the context of an Israeli state also is not something the
Arab regimes see as in their interest, and this is not a new phenomenon. They
have never simply acknowledged Palestinian rights beyond the destruction of
Israel. In theory, they have backed the Palestinian cause, but in practice they
have ranged from indifferent to hostile toward it. Indeed, the major power that
is now attempting to act on behalf of the Palestinians is Iran, a non-Arab
state whose involvement is regarded by the Arab regimes as one more reason to
distrust the Palestinians.
Therefore, when we
say that Palestinian nationalism was born in battle, we do not mean simply that
it was born in the conflict with Israel: Palestinian nationalism also was
formed in conflict with the Arab world, which has both sustained the
Palestinians and abandoned them. Even when the Arab states have gone to war
with Israel, as in 1973, they have fought for their own national interests, and
for the destruction of Israel, but not for the creation of a Palestinian state.
And when the Palestinians were in battle against the Israelis, the Arab
regimes’ responses ranged from indifferent to hostile.
The Palestinians are
trapped in regional geopolitics. They also are trapped in their own particular
geography. First, and most obviously, their territory is divided into two
widely separated states: the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Second, these two
places are very different from each other. Gaza is a nightmare into which
Palestinians fleeing Israel were forced by the Egyptians. It is a social and
economic trap. The West Bank is less unbearable, but regardless of what happens
to Jewish settlements, it is trapped between two enemies, Israel and Jordan.
Economically, it can exist only in dependency on its more dynamic neighboring
economy, which means Israel.
Gaza has the military
advantage of being dense and urbanized. It can be defended. But it is an
economic catastrophe, and given its demographics, the only way out of its
condition is to export workers to Israel. To a lesser extent, the same is true
for the West Bank. And the Palestinians have been exporting workers for
generations. They have immigrated to countries in the region and around the
world. Any peace agreement with Israel would increase the exportation of labor
locally, with Palestinian labor moving into the Israeli market. Therefore, the
paradox is that while the current situation allows a degree of autonomy amid
social, economic and military catastrophe, a settlement would dramatically
undermine Palestinian autonomy by creating Palestinian dependence on Israel.
The only solution for
the Palestinians to this conundrum is the destruction of Israel. But they lack
the ability to destroy Israel. The destruction of Israel represents a
far-fetched scenario, but were it to happen, it would necessitate that other
nations hostile to Israel, both bordering the Jewish state and elsewhere in the
region, play a major role. And if they did play this role, there is nothing in
their history, ideology or position that indicates they would find the creation
of a Palestinian state in their interests. Each would have very different ideas
of what to do in the event of Israel’s destruction.
Therefore, the
Palestinians are trapped four ways. First, they are trapped by the Israelis.
Second, they are trapped by the Arab regimes. Third, they are trapped by
geography, which makes any settlement a preface to dependency. Finally, they
are trapped in the reality in which they exist, which rotates from the
minimally bearable to the unbearable. Their choices are to give up autonomy and
nationalism in favor of economic dependency, or retain autonomy and nationalism
expressed through the only means they have, wars that they can at best survive,
but can never win.
The present division
between Gaza and the West Bank had its origins in the British mandate.
Palestine was partitioned between Jews and Arabs. In the wake of the 1948 War,
Arabs lost control of what was Israel; the borders that emerged from this war
and lasted until 1967 are still recognized as Israel’s international boundary.
The area called the West Bank was part of Jordan. The area called Gaza was
effectively under Egyptian control. Numbers of Arabs remained in Israel as
Israeli citizens, and played only a marginal role in Palestinian affairs
thereafter.
During the 1967
Arab-Israeli war, Israel occupied both Gaza and the West Bank, taking direct
military and administrative control of both regions. The political apparatus of
the Palestinians, organized around the PLO, an umbrella organization of diverse
Palestinian groups, operated outside these areas, first in Jordan, then in
Lebanon after 1970, and then in Tunisia after the 1982 invasion of Lebanon by
Israel. The PLO and its constituent parts maintained control of groups
resisting Israeli occupation in these two areas.
The idea of an
independent Palestinian state, since 1967, has been geographically focused on
these two areas. The concept has been that, following mutual recognition
between Israel and the Palestinians, Palestine would be established as a
nation-state based in Gaza and the West Bank. The question of the status of
Jerusalem was always a vital symbolic issue for both sides, but it did not
fundamentally affect the geopolitical reality.
Gaza and the West
Bank are physically separated. Any axis would require that Israel permit land
or air transit between them. This is obviously an inherently unstable
situation, although not an impossible one. A negative example would be Pakistan
during the 1947-1971 period, with its eastern and western wings separated by India.
This situation ultimately led to the 1971 separation of these two territories
into two states, Pakistan and Bangladesh. On the other hand, Alaska is separate
from the rest of the United States, which has not been a hindrance. The
difference is obvious. Pakistan and Bangladesh were separated by India, a
powerful and hostile state. Alaska and the rest of the United States were
separated by Canada, a much weaker and less hostile state. Following this
analogy, the situation between Israel and the hypothetical Palestine resembles
the Indo-Pakistani equation far more than it does the U.S.-Canadian equation.
The separation
between the two Palestinian regions imposes an inevitable regionalism on the
Palestinian state. Gaza and the West Bank are very different places. Gaza is
about 25 miles long and no more than 7.5 miles at its greatest width, with a
total area of about 146 square miles. According to 2008 figures, more than 1.5
million Palestinians live there, giving it a population density of about 11,060
per square mile, roughly that of a city. Gaza is, in fact, better thought of as
a city than a region. And like a city, its primary economic activity should be
commerce or manufacturing, but neither is possible given the active hostility
of Israel and Egypt. The West Bank, on the other hand, has a population density
of a little over 600 people per square mile, many living in discrete urban
areas distributed through rural areas.
In other words, the
West Bank and Gaza are entirely different universes with completely different
dynamics. Gaza is a compact city incapable of supporting itself in its current
circumstances and overwhelmingly dependent on outside aid; the West Bank has a
much higher degree of self-sufficiency, even in its current situation. Under
the best of circumstances, Gaza will be entirely dependent on external economic
relations. In the worst of circumstances, it will be entirely dependent on
outside aid. The West Bank would be neither. Were Gaza physically part of the
West Bank, it would be the latter’s largest city, making Palestine a more
complex nation-state. As it is, the dynamic of the two regions is entirely
different.
Gaza’s situation is
one of pure dependency amid hostility. It has much less to lose than the West
Bank and far less room for maneuver. It also must tend toward a more uniform
response to events. Where the West Bank did not uniformly participate in the
intifada, towns like Hebron were hotbeds of conflict while Jericho remained
relatively peaceful, the sheer compactness of Gaza forces everyone into the
same cauldron. And just as Gaza has no room for maneuver, neither do
individuals. That leaves little nuance in Gaza compared to the West Bank, and
compels a more radical approach than is generated in the West Bank.
If a Palestinian
state were created, it is not clear that the dynamics of Gaza, the city-state,
and the West Bank, more of a nation-state, would be compatible. Under the best
of circumstances, Gaza could not survive at its current size without a rapid
economic evolution that would generate revenue from trade, banking and other
activities common in successful Mediterranean cities. But these cities have
either much smaller populations or much larger areas supported by surrounding
territory. It is not clear how Gaza could get from where it is to where it
would need to be to attain viability.
Therefore, one of the
immediate consequences of independence would be a massive outflow of Gazans to
the West Bank. The economic conditions of the West Bank are better, but a
massive inflow of hundreds of thousands of Gazans, for whom anything is better
than what they had in Gaza, would buckle the West Bank economy. Tensions
currently visible between the West Bank under Fatah and Gaza under Hamas would
intensify. The West Bank could not absorb the population flow from Gaza, but
the Gazans could not remain in Gaza except in virtually total dependence on
foreign aid.
The only conceivable
solution to the economic issue would be for Palestinians to seek work en masse in more dynamic economies. This would mean either
emigration or entering the work force in Egypt, Jordan, Syria or Israel. Egypt
has its own serious economic troubles, and Syria and Jordan are both too small
to solve this problem, and that is completely apart from the political issues
that would arise after such immigration. Therefore, the only economy that could
employ surplus Palestinian labor is Israel’s.
Security concerns
apart, while the Israeli economy might be able to metabolize this labor, it
would turn an independent Palestinian state into an Israeli economic
dependency. The ability of the Israelis to control labor flows has always been
one means for controlling Palestinian behavior. To move even more deeply into
this relationship would mean an effective annulment of Palestinian
independence. The degree to which Palestine would depend on Israeli labor
markets would turn Palestine into an extension of the Israeli economy. And the
driver of this will not be the West Bank, which might be able to create a
viable economy over time, but Gaza, which cannot.
From this economic
analysis flows the logic of Gaza’s Hamas. Accepting a Palestinian state along
lines even approximating the 1948 partition, regardless of the status of
Jerusalem, would not result in an independent Palestinian state in anything but
name. Particularly for Gaza, it would solve nothing. Thus, the Palestinian
desire to destroy Israel flows not only from ideology and/or religion, but from
a rational analysis of what independence within the current geographical architecture
would mean: a divided nation with profoundly different interests, one part
utterly incapable of self-sufficiency, the other part potentially capable of it,
but only if it jettisons responsibility for Gaza.
It follows that
support for a two-state solution will be found most strongly in the West Bank
and not at all in Gaza. But in truth, the two-state solution is not a solution
to Palestinian desires for a state, since that state would be independent in
name only. At the same time, the destruction of Israel is an impossibility so
long as Israel is strong and other Arab states are hostile to Palestinians.
Palestine cannot
survive in a two-state solution. It therefore must seek a more radical outcome,
the elimination of Israel, that it cannot possibly achieve by itself. The
Palestinian state is thus an entity that has not fulfilled any of its
geopolitical imperatives and which does not have a direct line to achieve them.
What an independent Palestinian state would need in order to survive is:
· The recreation of
the state of hostilities that existed prior to Camp David between Egypt and
Israel. Until Egypt is strong and hostile to Israel, there is no hope for the
Palestinians.
· The overthrow of
the Hashemite government of Jordan, and the movement of troops hostile to
Israel to the Jordan River line.
· A major global
power prepared to underwrite the military capabilities of Egypt and those of
whatever eastern power moves into Jordan (Iraq, Iran, Turkey or a coalition of
the foregoing).
· A shift in the
correlation of forces between Israel and its immediate neighbors, which
ultimately would result in the collapse of the Israeli state.
Note that what the
Palestinians require is in direct opposition to the interests of Egypt and
Jordan, and to those of much of the rest of the Arab world, which would not
welcome Iran or Turkey deploying forces in their heartland. It would also
require a global shift that would create a global power able to challenge the
United States and motivated to arm the new regimes. In any scenario, however,
the success of Palestinian statehood remains utterly dependent upon outside
events somehow working to the Palestinians’ advantage.
The Palestinians have
always been a threat to other Arab states because the means for achieving their
national aspiration require significant risk-taking by other states. Without
that appetite for risk, the Palestinians are stranded. Therefore, Palestinian
policy always has been to try to manipulate the policies of other Arab states,
or failing that, to undermine and replace those states. This divergence of
interest between the Palestinians and existing Arab states always has been the
Achilles’ heel of Palestinian nationalism. The Palestinians must defeat Israel
to have a state, and to achieve that they must have other Arab states willing
to undertake the primary burden of defeating Israel. This has not been in the
interests of other Arab states, and therefore the Palestinians have
persistently worked against them, as we see again in the case of Egypt.
Paradoxically, while
the ultimate enemy of Palestine is Israel, the immediate enemy is always other
Arab countries. For there to be a Palestine, there must be a sea change not
only in the region, but in the global power configuration and in Israel’s
strategic strength. The Palestinians can neither live with a two-state
solution, nor achieve the destruction of Israel.
Today Though
Palestinian rocket fire continued at a rate of approximately 20 per day on Jan.
12, only seven rockets have been tallied thus far on Jan. 13. Israel Defense
Forces advanced farther into the outskirts of Gaza City today, but the Israeli
government has not yet authorized the third stage of Operation Cast Lead.
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