A Two-State Solution? Just Not According to the Clinton Parameters

A Two-State Solution? Just Not According to the Clinton Parameters
By Maj. Gen. (res.) Gershon Hacohen, January 30, 2017

BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 401

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: With the start of a new era in the White House, Israel
must let go of the two-state solution as defined by the Clinton Parameters.
It is time for a reassessment of Rabin’s approach, which stressed the
importance of the preservation and development of Area C in Judea and
Samaria under Israeli control as a prerequisite for defensible borders.

The entry of President Trump into the White House marks a new era in the US
and around the world, giving rise to crises and upheavals as well as new
opportunities. The demands of the State of Israel, in the context of its
overall vital interests in the region, will be reviewed and reassessed. It
is imperative that Israel formulate a clear stand on central issues based on
wide public support. As a first step, Israel must let go of the two-state
solution as laid out in the Clinton Parameters.

The time has come to inquire what Prime Minister Netanyahu means when he
speaks of his commitment to a two-state solution. When even the leaders of
the Zionist Left agree that settlement blocs should remain under Israeli
sovereignty, it must be clarified for the public what these blocs actually
mean. Do they contribute anything towards Israel’s need for defensible
borders?

The course Israel has taken since the signing of the Oslo Accords requires
critical examination, regardless of the essential reassessment in
anticipation of the Trump era. Since the autumn of 1993, almost everything
has changed. Above all, new threats have emerged with a previously unknown
military logic of their own.

The Israeli-Palestinian issue, too, has undergone significant changes. The
Oslo idea, in its quest to end Israeli control over Palestinian citizens,
was largely realized. It was already complete in January 1996, when Israel
concluded the withdrawal of its forces from the populated territories of the
West Bank. The Palestinian population living in Areas A and B, or
approximately 90% of the total Palestinian population of the West Bank, has
been controlled since then by the Palestinian Authority (PA). How can this
be described as “apartheid”?

In the summer of 2005, the Israeli presence in the Gaza Strip ended (control
over the Palestinian population in the Strip had already been transferred to
the PA in May 1994). Gaza has been a sovereign entity controlled by Hamas
since its seizure of power in the summer of 2007. East Jerusalem and Area C
in the West Bank remain in dispute, including settlements, army bases, major
roads, vital commanding areas, and the open expanse towards the Jordan
Valley.

These areas, held by Israel, are the minimum required for the conservation
of a defensible territory. They fill two necessary conditions for a secure
Israel. The first is the buffer area of the Jordan Valley, without which it
would be impossible to prevent the quick arming of Palestinian terrorists in
Judea and Samaria. The second is the advantage of Israeli control over the
main longitudinal and lateral routes, which, together with the hold over the
commanding areas, enables speedy access of IDF operational forces deep into
Palestinian concentrations. Relinquishing these prerequisites in the Gaza
Strip enabled the emergence of the Hamas military threat.

UN Security Council Resolution 2334 and the Paris Conference further
solidified the notion of ​​two states as requiring a complete overlap of two
not-necessarily congruent trends: the ending of Israeli control over the
Palestinians, and the establishment of a Palestinian state based on the 1967
borders and a full Israeli withdrawal. Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was
disinclined towards this overlap, as expressed in his last speech in the
Knesset (October 1995). He was resolute on Jerusalem and emphasized the
crucial hold by Israel of the Jordan Valley and the lateral routes leading
to it.

The Clinton Parameters for conflict resolution, laid out in December 2000,
were a step back from Rabin’s position. The turnaround was summed up in two
premises not held by Rabin. The first was that the solution required the
establishment of a continuous, fully sovereign Palestinian state, whereas
Rabin envisaged a political entity short of a fully-fledged state. The
second was that the border between Israel and Palestine should be based,
with minor changes, on the 1967 borders in Judea and Samaria and the Gaza
Strip.

These premises left very little room for negotiation. Some clarification is
required on how the Israeli position pulled away from the Rabin solution and
towards the Clinton solution, which, in all likelihood, Rabin would not have
accepted.

It is noteworthy that Rabin exploited the implementation of the Oslo accords
to reshape the area as delineated by Israeli security interests. As part of
this effort, he led a drive to construct a network of bypassing roads in
Area C, without which the IDF would have had great difficulty advancing its
forces to the deployment areas during Operation Defensive Shield (2002). The
IDF could not, for example, have transferred a tank division hauled on tank
transporters from the Anatot Base to Nablus if its route had passed through
Police Square in Ramallah.

The fast, advanced road network outlined by Rabin gave Israel control over
routes and flexibility in operating IDF forces, and demonstrated during
Operation Defensive Shield the operational significance of utilizing to the
full an area that is defensible. Rabin’s expanse-shaping moves were
conducted concurrently with progress on the implementation of the Oslo
Accords, and the international community made no claims that he was
misleading it.

By contrast, any advance, however small, made in building up Jerusalem
raises the suspicion that Netanyahu may not be sincere in his intentions
about two states. There are many reasons for this difference, one of the
most important being that Rabin did not commit to a continuous Palestinian
state in the form of the Clinton Parameters. Netanyahu, especially during
his term after 2009, found himself tied to that frame of reference.

At the strategic crossroads where we now stand, the Israeli government must
re-clarify the complex of security interests inherent in Israel’s control
over Area C. In this reexamination, Israel must depart from the idea of
two states as interpreted, for example, by Maj. Gen. (res.) Yaakov Amidror,
former head of the National Security Council. He has argued and continues to
argue that while current circumstances do not allow the reaching of a
permanent agreement, and it is dangerous to rush towards unilateral
withdrawal, the idea of ​​dividing the area into two states on the basis of
the 1967 borders, with amendments made for “settlement blocs,” is
nevertheless the only reasonable option by international standards.
Therefore, according to his understanding, settlement activity in all
remaining areas that might someday be included in a Palestinian state should
be avoided. Statements along these lines and in this spirit have also been
made by Dennis Ross. Herein lies the main disagreement on what to do in Area
C.

An Israeli reassessment has the potential to introduce a change in Jerusalem’s
position by renewing its demand for the preservation of a defensible area,
which depends on consistent Israeli hold over Area C.

The Israeli and international dominant discourse puts the State of Israel at
an imaginary crossroads with only two options: preserving the democratic
Jewish state by retreating to the 1967 areas, or becoming trapped in a
conflicted binational state in which apartheid is inevitable. This is a
conceptual trap not devoid of manipulation, as a crossroads allows more than
two directions. The Israeli discourse, caught between these two dichotomous
choices, ignores the potential security threat stemming from loss of control
over the depth of the area and the Jordan Valley.

Senior security officials who support withdrawal assure the public that the
army would be able to meet the country’s security challenges even with
withdrawal to the 1967 lines. Their position ignores important changes that
have taken place. If, after the withdrawal, the West Bank is taken over by
an organization similar to Hamas in Gaza – Hezbollah, in all likelihood –
the IDF would struggle to provide an adequate response to the possibility of
simultaneous attack on Israel on several fronts.

These officials claim that even after uprooting the Jewish residents, the
IDF would be able to operate throughout the area. But they ignore the level
of forces that would be required for this undertaking. Without the mass
presence of a Jewish population, the IDF will be defeated, and will withdraw
as it did from south Lebanon in May 2000.

In the new war, under the new logic, citizens have a significant role to
play in the general fighting effort. This was visible in the fighting in
Donetsk, Crimea, and Abkhazia, as well as in the Chinese expansion into the
China Sea via thousands of civilian fishing boats. It is a familiar
necessity resonating from the early days of Zionism: to maximize the
civilian presence together with a military foothold.

In short, without a constant hold on the whole of Area C, Israel has no
defensible borders. The way Rabin delineated the expanse of Area C
demonstrates his farsighted understanding of the importance of those areas
beyond the 1967 borders, which must be in Israel’s full control.

It is time to emphasize that there is more than one way to realize the
two-state logic. It is in Israel’s security interests that it embark on
full-scale construction in Area C.

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Maj. Gen. (res.) Gershon Hacohen is a senior research associate the
Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies. He served in the IDF for 42 years,
commanding troops in battle on the Egyptian and Syrian fronts. He was a
Corps commander, and commander of the IDF Military Colleges.

This is an edited version of an article that appeared in Makor Rishon on
January 20, 2017.

BESA Center Perspectives Papers are published through the generosity of the
Greg Rosshandler Family