2004 Diplomatic Briefing Papers - 2004 New Land for Peace - The Macro Center

Macro Projects and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict The Negev Desert Who are the Settlers? Connecting the West Bank and Gaza Strip Economic Transformation and Development Home, Home Again Israeli Politics The political Struggle for Gaza Palestinian Terrorist Organizations

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Diplomatic Briefing Papers

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The Demand for Macro Projects and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
Mark Sawoski

Once again, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is at a turning point. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s plan unilaterally to withdraw from the Gaza Strip and part of the West Bank, while on the surface an act of frustration born of the perceived absence of a genuine negotiating partner, is effectively breaking the stalemate that has existed between the parties since January 2001. At that time, Israeli and Palestinian negotiators, meeting at Taba, Egypt, came closer than ever before to a settlement. Yes, there were still some substantial disagreements, including legitimate reasons for the Palestinians to turn down the proposed “deal.” ...

On Feb. 9, 2004, Israeli Infrastructure Minister Yosef Paritzsky suggested that the 7,500 Israeli settlers who are to be removed from the Gaza Strip under Prime Minister Sharon’s disengagement plan could be housed in the 13,000 empty apartments available in the Negev Desert. Paritzsky remarked that this would not only be a cheap and effective solution, but would also appeal to the “pioneering and settlement values in which [the settlers] believe.” This plan was met with ridicule by the Yesha Council, a settler advocacy body, which suggested that Paritzsky move to the Negev himself if he considers it an “important national mission.” ...

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Who are the Settlers?
Ethan Fine Maron

Above all else, the settlers are numerous and well-connected politically. There are roughly 7,500 of them in Gaza and 187,000 in the West Bank (if we take the West Bank to not include East Jerusalem), composing 0.6% and 17% of the populations in these regions, respectively. They have strong connections to the Sharon government – of the four parties in the governing coalition, only one (Shinui) does not have a strong ideological commitment to the preservation of the settlements. The settlers are also represented by the Yesha Council, a body whose purpose is to lobby the Israeli government on settler issues, and to assist in the implementation of security policies in the settlements. ...

The idea of a “safe-passage” for Palestinians looking to travel between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip was part of the 1995 Oslo II Interim Agreement. The concept behind the provision rests on the premise asserted in the 1993 Declaration of Principles that “[the Government of Israel (GOI) and the Palestinian Authority (PA)] view the West Bank and Gaza Strip as a single territorial unit .” Given this, the time elapsed since Oslo II has produced very little progress on the “safe-passage” issue, as more immediate concerns such as Palestinian terrorism, Israeli retribution, and Israeli settlement policies have dominated the agenda. ...

Since the creation of Israel and the conflict that followed, the Palestinian economy has largely been dependant on Israel as its premier economic trading partner and important source of day-labor. This source of employment has been the life-force of the Palestinian economy, with the number of day-worker Palestinians in Israel in the year 2000 numbering approximately 128,000 Palestinians. In contrast, after the start of the al-Aqsa Intifada, the number was cut by three-quarters, to only 32,000 work permits. Without this key element of the Palestinian economy, the effect of this decrease has been a collapse of the Palestinian economy, increased unemployment, and a generally deteriorating quality-of-life for most Palestinians. ...

As of 2000, there are 3,737,494 Palestinian refugees in the occupied territories, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon. 1,211,480 of them live in refugee camps, over 450,000 in the Gaza Strip alone . In other words, a third of the Palestinians just in Gaza are living in refugee camps. The scale of this problem, and its impact on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, cannot be overstated. The disposition of these refugees, and the Palestinian assertion of a “right of return” to Israel is a hugely contentious issue. There is no one solution for this problem, and a discussion of all possible solutions is impractical to address in a short paper. However, the possibility of “land swaps” in an eventual peace agreement – in which Israeli retention of some settlement blocs in the West Bank would be offset by giving the Palestinians small pieces of Israeli territory – presents an interesting set of options when viewed from a macro projects perspective. In particular, the Palestinian acquisition of the Halutza sand dunes through land swaps could confer a great deal of benefit regarding the refugee issue and others. ...

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Israeli Politics - What's Ahead?
Ethan Fine Maron

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has proposed a plan for separation between Israel and the Occupied Territories that, while not new to the Israeli political discourse, is a novel one for a right-wing Israeli politician to support. The late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin had been perhaps the strongest advocate for a barrier solution as a supplement to peace talks, but he was a member of the Labor Party. Right-wing governments have traditionally been reluctant to adopt a barrier that would serve as a de facto border, because it would almost certainly require some settlements to be abandoned. ...

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Who Speaks for Palestine? The Political Struggle for Gaza
Adam Maust, Mark Sawoski (editor)

The struggle for Palestinian power is likely to reach a new, higher level when Israel withdraws from Gaza and Israel completes the security fence separating it from Palestinians from living in the West Bank.

The struggle is apparent in recent power play moves in the Gaza between Mohammad Dahlan (former Palestinian Authority [PA] security chief in Gaza) and General Jabril Rajoub (the PA’s current national security advisor). In February, 2004, notably, armed agents of the PA’s Preventive Security Service (PSS), apparently acting on behalf of Dahlan, stormed the Gaza City headquarters of the Palestinian police and beat up Major General Ghazi al-Jabali, the police commander and an associate of Rajoub who was personally appointed by Arafat. ...

There are several organizations within Palestine that are labeled terrorist groups by international governments. The largest and most influential terrorist organization is Hamas. There is also the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Al-Aqsa Brigades. This paper is going to act as a source of information on Hamas and its relationships with the other groups, as well as provide evidence for the prominent role of Hamas in the future of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Hamas was founded in 1987 primarily by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. The word Hamas is the Arabic acronym for “The Islamic Resistance Movement” and means zeal. The group stems from the Egyptian terrorist organization, the Muslim Brotherhood, which is the largest Islamic movement in modern times. ...

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