The Harsh Reality of the Middle East Conflict
By Dan Lieberman

A century old conflict between the state of Israel and stateless Palestinians, many of whom have been disposed from lands that created the Israel state, has precipitated a argument: Is it preferable to have two states living side by side or have one state from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River that includes Jews and Palestinians without prejudice and with equal rights for all?

Those who propose a single-state do so because they sense the two-state solution is nonviable and those who propose two-states do so because they sense the one-state solution is unacceptable. The argument is doomed to irresolution because Israel has overwhelming military power, faces no countervailing power, doesn't intend for the Palestinians to have a viable state and won't approve a single state for all.  If Israel intended to allow a viable Palestinian state, would the Israeli government proceed in the continuous construction of West Bank settlements? Would the present Israeli government demand recognition as a Jewish state and then concede to evolve into a multi-ethnic state? The endless debate concerning the shape of a Palestinian state allows Israel to comfortably proceed with its own agenda - seizing most of the West Bank, populating desirable lands with its own citizens, capturing aquifers and reducing the Palestinians to impoverishment.

Israel proceeds with a "we must have all or we will someday have nothing" program, which insinuates Israel will be destroyed unless it destroys all of its antagonists. The Palestinians react with a "if we lose, we lose everything" program, which insinuates they will be destroyed unless they stop Israel. The two antagonists have succeeded in establishing a "no win-no win situation" that affects the security and stability of the world and must be resolved by the world's institutions. Starting with more salient arguments might provide an approach that turns minds to a solution. If the arguments seem to favor one side it is only because oppression and threat favor one side; the side of the oppressed and the threatened.

(1) Is Israel proceeding with an agenda that ignores destruction of the Palestinians?

(2) Is this agenda part of a larger agenda that intends to reshape the Middle East regardless of the destruction committed against Arab people?

(3) Will these policies threaten the peace and security of the entire world?

(4) If the threat is real should the world's international institutions, including the European Union, take immediate measures and force a solution.

Engaging in these arguments stimulates a dialogue that exposes the dangerous trajectory of the situation, and is preferably resolved before other arguments can be entertained and for a corrective solution to be learned and applied.

Is Israel proceeding with an agenda of oppression that ignores destruction of the Palestinian people? United Nations resolution 181 created an Israeli state which the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) sized at 498,000 Jews, many of whom were more recent immigrants to the region, and 407,000 indigenous Arabs. During the 1948 war, Israel captured territory, by which the new nation grew to an area that had contained 650,000 Jews and 900,000 Palestinians. After hostilities ceased, the population of the expanded Israel state, due to added Jewish immigration and Palestinian population transfer, contained 1,013,900 Jews and only 159,100 Palestinians.  Regardless of the reasons for the dispossession of the 750,000 Palestinians, illegal dictates allowed few Palestinians to return to their legally owned lands. The Ben-Gurion government succeeded in creating an almost all Jewish state from lands in which Jews had been less than 40% of the population, and in which almost all Jews had arrived or been born in Palestine in the previous twenty seven years. Jewish population is given at only 83,790 in 1922 when Arab population reached 668, 258.

After the 6-day war in 1967, all Israeli administrations constructed settlements in the West Bank. The settlements, combined with bypass roads, checkpoints, guard posts and a separation wall have completely strangled the Palestinian economy and social fabric. The post 1967 history with reference to a map below describes the catastrophic situation.

(1) Israeli military seized the Jordan valley and hills in the West Bank.

(2) The Israeli government destroyed forests and agricultural lands to clear land for settlements. These actions desecrated a Biblical landscape, supposedly treasured by those who desired the new housing. West Bank Palestinian life received its initial confrontation and deterioration.   

(3) All Israeli governments constructed settlements with permanent infrastructure for settlers regardless of hindrance to Palestinians. The settlements, which are declared illegal in UN Security Council Resolution 446 and by Article 49 of the 4th Geneva Convention, encroached upon the physical, social and economic well being of the Palestinians. Derogatory effects on their life angered the populace, motivated it to protective actions and impelled the more desperate to terrorist attacks

(4) Israel constructed roads in order to enable settlers to bypass Arab villages. 

(5) Israeli military blockades many Palestinian village roads to prevent their interchange with Israeli only highways. These impediments hinder Palestinian exchanges and shipments of goods to markets. Palestinians who resist have been violently subdued. The subjugation prompted retaliation in form of more suicide attacks against Israeli military and civilians.

(6) The Israeli military, citing a need to prevent additional suicide attacks, instituted checkpoints to secure use of all roads. The maneuver choked Palestinian movements and incited still more suicide attacks.

(7) The Israeli government, beginning in 2002, and despite an International Court of Justice ruling on July 9, 2004, that declares Israel's Separation Wall to be illegal under international law and demands that it be dismantled and all victims compensated, constructs the wall. The given reason for the wall is prevention of all suicide attacks. Nevertheless, the routing departs the Green Line, expropriates Palestinian land and aquifers deep in the West Bank, separates the Palestinian population into several fenced enclaves and detours the wall so that major West Bank settlements are included in Israel. The plan incorporates the Jordan valley into Israel, enables Israeli forces to surround the West Bank cities of Jericho, Hebron, and Ramallah, and completely encloses the West Bank cities of Qalqiliya and Tulkharm, forcing inhabitants to enter or leave by only a guarded gate and at prescribed times. All of this occurs while Israel destroys the only airport in Gaza, consistently bombs Gaza factories and strangles Gaza commerce and links with the world by controlling airspace, sea lanes and passage to neighboring Sinai.

Israel must have planned the barrier long before starting construction in 2002.

It takes years, possibly decades, to propose, discuss, design, ratify, develop, gather materials, allocate resources, budget (done in secret), pour concrete and construct a barrier of this enormous size; estimated at a final length of  703 KM. The route and shape of the "Separation Barrier," its passage around Israeli settlements together with a network of roads, separates West Bank cities into enclaves. The complementary activities heighten the suspicions that the settlements, roads, checkpoints and the wall constitute a unified agenda. The agenda leads to a question: Is the barrier construction the final contributor to the economic and social destruction of the Palestinian people?