Disengagement Plan
Document:
http://electronicintifada.net/bytopic/historicaldocuments/264.shtml
Problems:
The disengagement document states:
“Israel will guard and monitor the external land perimeter of the Gaza Strip, will continue to maintain exclusive authority in Gaza air space, and will continue to exercise security activity in the sea off the coast of the Gaza Strip.”
Thus Israel continues to control who enters the Strip, Palestinians continue to need Israeli permission to enter or leave their own territory, and Palestinian imports and exports (and hence a great proportion of the Gaza Strip’s economy) remain subject to Israeli dictates, ensuring that the Palestinian population remains a captive market for Israeli goods that are not subject to the same restrictions.
Israel continues to control the Strip’s air space (hindering import and export of goods, mobile phone services, satellite technology etc.), sea space (including natural resources such as natural gas and fish stocks) and international relations.
As such, Gaza is occupied territory under international law, so Israel’s obligations to Palestinians as an Occupying Power continue (though it does not fulfill them), and individual third-party states cannot by themselves relieve Israel of its obligations toward the occupied population. Disengagement is actually “occupation by remote control,” says Amir Oren, a columnist for Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
The World Bank states:
“The Plan’s assertion that Israel is no longer responsible for the population of Gaza will not resonate. Nor would donors appreciate the implication that they must bear the humanitarian consequences of this style of disengagement.”
An Israeli government study states:
“We must be aware that the disengagement does not necessarily exempt Israel from responsibility in the evacuated territories.”
International envoy James Wolfensohn states:
“The government of Israel…is loathe to relinquish control, almost acting as though there has been no withdrawal, delaying making difficult decisions and preferring to take difficult matters back into slow-moving subcommittees…Until the movement issues are resolved…we will be hard-pressed to convince governments or investors that anything much has changed, and that this is truly a bankable part of the world once again.”
Human Rights Watch states:
“The disengagement plan provides that Israel is going to maintain the right to re-enter the territory at will, continue to control the borders, the air space, the sea, and all movement of people into and out of Gaza. These are all the characteristics of military control, and if Israel remains in effective military control in Gaza, then it remains an occupying power under law. The only thing that you can really call this is a plan to withdraw Jewish settlers…The Israeli government’s plan to remove troops and Jewish settlements from the Gaza Strip would not end Israel’s occupation of the territory…As an occupying power, Israel will retain responsibility for the welfare of Gaza’s civilian population…under international law, the test for determining whether an occupation exists is effective control by a hostile army, not the positioning of troops…Whether the Israeli army is inside Gaza or redeployed around its periphery and restricting entrance and exit, it remains in control.”
The Hague Regulations state:
“Territory is considered occupied when it is actually placed under the authority of the hostile army.”
The Gaza Strip is to be demilitarised, but under the disengagement plan, Israel reserves the undefined right to “self-defense, both preventative and reactive, including…the use of force.” What of Gazan self-defense? Also, the plan says Israel will continue to conduct “military activities” in Palestinian sovereign coastal waters, and:
“…no foreign security presence may enter the Gaza Strip or the West Bank without being coordinated with and approved by Israel.”
The withdrawal from the Gaza Strip represents just 1% of historic Palestine, and the number of settlers being removed (around 9,000) is about 2% of the total (over 400,000).
Israel intends to strengthen its grip on the much larger West Bank, evacuating only 4 small settlements (total estimates range from almost 150 to over 300) with around 500 settlers.
The rest of the settlements (which continue to expand), and areas surrounding them, will be annexed to Israel. Settlers from Gaza are allowed to move to the West Bank, and so far several hundred have done so. According to Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, settlements control almost half of the West Bank.
Israel retains control over the perimetre of the evacuated West Bank area and its air space. The area will be demilitarised, but Israel reserves the right to “self-defense, both preventative and reactive, including…the use of force.”
What of Palestinian self-defense in the West Bank? Israel’s barrier, which according to some estimates will result in the annexation of half the territory, is to be completed. The plan states:
“In the West Bank, there are areas which will be part of the State of Israel, including cities, towns and villages, security areas and installations, and other places of special interest to Israel…Current security activity will continue.”
Israel intends to reduce the number of Palestinian workers entering Israel until it ceases completely.
Evacuated settlements were destroyed rather than being left for Palestinian use. The World Bank stated that Gaza settlements “have considerable economic value.”
Gaza is forced to continue the use of Israeli currency.
Israel continues to provide, at full price, electricity (among the most expensive in the world), water, gas and petrol to the Palestinians.
Israel’s continued control of offshore natural gas reserves means Palestinians are unable to develop an electricity infrastructure or export the gas.
Israel continues to divide the West Bank from the Gaza Strip, as it refuses a territorial link.
Nowhere does the document speak of ending military occupation. In fact, the word “occupation” is not mentioned at all.
The World Bank states:
“Israel’s Disengagement Plan will have very little impact on the Palestinian economy and Palestinian livelihoods, since it only proposes a limited easing of closure. Indeed, were it accompanied by the sealing of Gaza’s borders to labor and trade or by terminating supplies of water and electricity to Gaza, disengagement would create worse hardship than is seen today…As long as the web of Palestinian economic transactions remains shredded by closures, investors will stay away, and short-term gains will not be sustainable…Disengagement will remove internal movement restrictions in Gaza and in part of the northern West Bank, but Palestinian economic recovery depends on a radical easing of internal closures throughout the West Bank, the opening of Palestinian external borders to commodity trade, and sustaining a reasonable flow of Palestinian labor into Israel.”
Human Rights Watch states:
“Israel will continue to wield overwhelming power over the territory’s economy and its access to trade.”
The plan is not part of a larger process, but is deemed a final proposal. Ariel Sharon, the plan’s architect, states:
“In the unilateral plan, there is no Palestinian state…When you fence areas and communities in the West Bank, you end a lot of their dreams…My plan is tough on the Palestinians. A mortal blow…this entire package that is called the Palestinian state will disappear from our agenda for an unlimited period of time. Settlement is a serious programme that will continue and develop. We will build as much as we need.”
Dov Weisglass, chief advisor to Sharon, states:
“The significance of the plan is the freezing of the peace process…It supplies the amount of formaldehyde that is necessary so there will not be a political process with the Palestinians…When you freeze [the peace] process, you prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state, and you prevent a discussion on the [Palestinian] refugees, the borders and Jerusalem. Effectively, this whole package called the Palestinian state, with all that it entails, has been removed indefinitely from our agenda. And all this with authority and permission. All with a [US] presidential blessing and the ratification of both houses of Congress.”
Ehud Olmert, former deputy Israeli prime minister, states:
“[The] formula for the parameters of unilateral solution are: To
maximize the number of Jews; minimize the number of Palestinians; not to withdraw to the 1967 border and not to divide Jerusalem.”
Limor Livnat, Israeli education minister, states:
“We must take advantage of the exceptional situation that has presented itself to strengthen the settlement blocs.”
Ephraim Sneh, a member of Israel’s Knesset (parliament) and chair of its Subcommittee on Defense and Planning, states:
“The goal of the disengagement plan is to perpetuate Israeli control in most of the West Bank, and to repel any internal or external pressure for a different political solution. Sharon is consistently trying to realize his vision: Israeli control over the eastern and western slopes of the West Bank, and maintaining traffic corridors along its length and breadth. The Palestinians will be left with seven enclaves connected by special highways for their use. The disengagement plan will facilitate the realization of this vision, at a bargain price from his point of view: He is giving up the Gaza Strip, where 37 percent of the Palestinians live, but whose area is only 1.25 percent of the Land of Israel. Anyone touring the West Bank will have no doubts regarding the hidden agenda of the disengagement plan. Building in the settlements…is proceeding at full speed. About 4,000 housing units are now under construction. When they are populated, the number of settlers in the West Bank will grow by approximately 10 percent…Anyone who supports a unilateral step and prefers it to a serious attempt at rapprochement, is accepting Sharon's basic assumption that ‘there is no partner’ - an assumption that he has made every effort to ensure: Anyone who was likely to be a partner received nothing from him, with the exception of harmful compliments. It's true that there is no Palestinian partner to the seven-enclave plan, nor will there be…The real choice is between an end to the war and a continuation of the settlements.”