The real Israel-Palestine story is in the West Bank

Israel's targeting of civilian resistance to the separation wall proves
the two-state solution is now just a meaningless slogan

Ben White, guardian.co.uk, Friday 20 February 2009 , 14.00 GMT

It is quite likely that you have not heard of the most important
developments this week in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In the
West Bank, while it has been "occupation as normal", there have been
some events that together should be overshadowing Gaza, Gilad Shalit
and Avigdor Lieberman.

First, there have been a large number of Israeli raids on Palestinian
villages, with dozens of Palestinians abducted. These kinds of raids
are, of course, commonplace for the occupied West Bank, but in recent
days it appears the Israeli military has targeted sites of particularly
strong Palestinian civil resistance to the separation wall.

For three consecutive days this week, Israeli forces invaded Jayyous, a
village battling for survival as their agricultural land is
lost to the wall and neighbouring Jewish colony. The soldiers occupied
homes, detained residents, blocked off access roads, vandalised
property, beat protestors, and raised the Israeli flag at the top of
several buildings.

Jayyous is one of the Palestinian villages in the West Bank that has
been non-violently resisting the separation wall for several years now.
It was clear to the villagers that this latest assault was an attempt
to intimidate the protest movement.

Also earlier this week, Israel tightened still further the restrictions
on Palestinian movement and residency rights in East Jerusalem, closing
the remaining passage in the wall in the Ar-Ram neighbourhood of the
city. This means that tens of thousands of Palestinians are now cut off
from the city and those with the right permit will now have to enter
the city by first heading north and using the Qalandiya checkpoint.

Finally - and this time, there was some modest media coverage - it was
revealed that the Efrat settlement near Bethlehem would be expanded by
the appropriation of around 420 acres land as "state land". According
to Efrat's mayor, the plan is to triple the number of residents in the
colony.

Looked at together, these events in the West Bank are of far more
significance than issues being afforded a lot of attention
currently, such as the truce talks with Hamas, or the discussions about
a possible prisoner-exchange deal. Hamas itself has become such a
focus, whether by those who urge talks and cooption or those who
advocate the group's total destruction, that the wider context is
forgotten.

Hamas is not the beginning or the end of this conflict, a movement that
has been around for just the last third of Israel's 60 years. The Hamas
Charter is not a Palestinian national manifesto, and nor is it even
particularly central to today's organisation. Before Hamas existed,
Israel was colonising the occupied territories, and maintaining an
ethnic exclusivist regime; if Hamas disappeared tomorrow, Israeli
colonisation certainly would not.

Recognising what is happening in the West Bank also contextualises the
discussion about Israel's domestic politics, and the ongoing question
about the makeup of a ruling coalition. For the Palestinians, it does
not make much difference who is eventually sitting around the Israeli
cabinet table, since there is a consensus among the parties on one
thing: a firm rejectionist stance with regards to Palestinian
self-determination and sovereignty.

During the coverage of the Israeli elections, while it was clear that
Palestinians mostly did not care which of the candidates for PM won,
the reason for this apathy was not explained. Labor, Likud and Kadima
alike, Israeli governments without fail have continued or intensified
the colonisation of the occupied territories, entrenching Israel's
separate-and-unequal rule, a reality belied by the false "dove"/"hawk"
dichotomy.

Which brings us to the third reason why news from the West Bank is more
significant than the Gaza truce talks or the Netanyahu-Livni rivalry -
it is a further reminder that the two-state solution has completed its
progression from worthy (and often disingenuous) aim to meaningless
slogan, concealing Israel's absorption of all Palestine/Israel and
confinement of the Palestinians into enclaves.

The fact that the West Bank reality means the end of the two-state
paradigm has started to be picked up by mainstream, liberal
commentators in the US, in the wake of the Israeli elections. Juan
Cole, the history professor and blogger, recently pointed out that
there are now only three options left for Palestine/Israel:
"apartheid", "expulsion", or "one state".

The path of the wall, and the number of Palestinians it directly and
indirectly affects, continues to make a mockery of any plan for
Palestinian statehood. Jayyous is just one example of the way in which
the Israeli-planned, fenced-in Palestinian "state-lets" are at odds
with the stated intention of the quartet and so many others, of two
viable states, "side by side". As the World Bank pointed out,
land colonisation is not conducive to economic prosperity or basic
independence.

In occupied East Jerusalem meanwhile, Israel has continued its process
of Judaisation, enforced through bureaucracy and
bulldozers. The latest tightening of the noose in Ar-Ram is one example
of where Palestinian Jerusalemites are at risk of losing their
residency status, victims of what is politely known as the "demographic
battle".

It is impossible to imagine Palestinians accepting a "state" shaped by
the contours of Israel's wall, disconnected not only from East
Jerusalem but even from parts of itself. Yet this is the essence of the
"solution" being advanced by Israeli leaders across party lines. For a
real sense of where the conflict is heading, look to the West Bank, not
just Gaza.