Nusseibeh-Ayalon Plan – September 2002
Document:
http://www.7th-day.co.il/mehumot/ayalon.htm
Problems:
1) The document states:
“The Jewish people has for generations wanted to establish the Jewish State in all the Land of Israel, while the Palestinian people has similarly wanted to establish a state in all of Palestine. The two sides hereby agree to accept a historic compromise based on the principle of two sovereign and viable states existing side by side.”
Who is compromising here? The “Jewish people” are withdrawing from illegally occupied territory, the Palestinians are giving up 78% of their original homeland. The fact that the Palestinians formed an overwhelming majority of the population of Palestine, and had lived in their native land for centuries and longer before Israel’s establishment by a foreign colonial movement, and the fact that three-fifths of the Palestinians were forced out of more than 400 towns and villages destroyed and depopulated by Zionist forces in 1947-48, are simply ignored. Instead, this astonishingly deceptive language treats the Israelis and Palestinians as if they were both equally alien, both came to Palestine from somewhere else with equally legitimate aspirations to settle in a land which neither possessed. This is complete historical amnesia.
2) The plan is “an expression of the will of the majority of the people.” This claim is unsubstantiated. Indeed, it has been condemned by organisations representing Palestinian refugees - who constitute two-thirds of the Palestinian population worldwide – the Palestine Liberation Organisation, the secular Fatah movement and Islamic groups, and large numbers of Palestinians in the occupied territories.
3) The document states:
“Israel is the only state of the Jewish people.”
This seriously jeopardises the rights of Israel’s almost 1.5 million Arab Muslim and Christian citizens, who make up 20% of its population. Their rights are also jeopardised by the plan’s talk of “border modifications” based on “demographic considerations”, implying the incorporation of Israeli-Arab populations and land to the Palestinian state to consolidate Jewish supremacy in Israel over its indigenous inhabitants, compounded by the fact that the plan calls for the continuation of Israel’s “Law of Return” for Jews worldwide. This is only encouraging a theocracy based on the superiority of one religion over others, rather than a democracy for all its citizens.
4) The document states:
“Border modifications will be based on an equal territorial exchange (1:1) in accordance with the vital needs of both sides, including security, territorial contiguity, and demographic considerations.”
A 1:1 exchange does not necessarily mean the territories will be of equal quality – Israel has in the past proposed annexing fertile West Bank land while giving Palestinians arid desert land next to the Gaza Strip. The “vital needs” are extremely vague, and Israel has consistently negotiated on the premise that its security and demographic needs are more important than Palestinians’. In fact, Israel’s desire to maintain Jewish demographic supremacy is not a “need” but a racist policy.
5) The document states:
“Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem will come under Palestinian sovereignty; Jewish neighborhoods under Israeli sovereignty.”
This rewards Israel for illegally colonising East Jerusalem (two-thirds of which is now Jewish, as opposed to being 100% Palestinian before 1967), because those areas that have become Judaised will become part of Israel. Also, Israel has expanded the Jerusalem municipality eastward to cover a large chunk of the West Bank (up to 10% according to some estimates) and fragment Palestinian territorial continuity, so this plan effectively allows Israel to annex and divide a significant proportion of Palestinian West Bank land. Furthermore, there is no question of the Palestinians regaining any of their lands and rights in West Jerusalem, from which more than 30,000 were expelled in 1947-48.
6) The document states:
“Recognizing the suffering and the plight of the Palestinian refugees, the international community, Israel, and the Palestinian State will initiate and contribute to an international fund to compensate them.”
No mention of who has caused this suffering and plight. The Palestinian state did not create the refugee problem, and in fact was the victim of it at the hands of Israel, so why should it contribute to a compensation fund? This implies that Palestinians, the ethnically cleansed, share with Israel, the ethnic cleanser, responsibility for the plight of refugees.
7) The document states:
“Palestinian refugees will return only to the State of Palestine; Jews will return only to the State of Israel.”
This misleadingly portrays some kind of equality between the legal right of millions of Palestinian refugees to return home, and the “return” of any Jew, even converts or people with one Jewish grandparent, to a country with which they may have no link. This also effectively rewards Israel for its ethnic cleansing and drops the right of return, as Palestinians who were expelled from what is now Israel will not be able to return to their homes, villages, towns or cities of origin. This is denial of an inalienable, fundamental, individual and universal right that is enshrined in international law. If millions of refugees went to the West Bank and Gaza Strip, it would mean a heavily over-crowded and impoverished state. Palestinian refugees are not even consulted about their fate.
8) The document states:
“The Palestinian State will be demilitarized and the international community will guarantee its security and independence.”
The international community has totally and consistently failed to provide security and independence to Palestinians. Why should it be trusted now, and why shouldn’t Israel also be demilitarised? Who is the aggressor, the occupier, the ethnic cleanser? Why should the oppressed by demilitarised and the oppressor allowed to keep the tools of its oppression?