Netanyahu Presents His “Allon-Plus” Final Status Map – 1997

At the time of the publication of this article,  U.S. Reaffirms Support for Natural Growth of Settlements was also published. Remember, the Oslo Accords were signed in 1995. Netanyahu was following the course set by both Allon and Sharon. PM Barak violated this Plan at Camp David in 2001 by reducing Israel’s demand to about 6% of the land and offering to share Jerusalem. Three years later when Sharon was maneuvering for Disengagement, he indicated that his preference for Judea and Samaria was as it was. Obviously the Arabs have been very successful in shifting the focus of discussion to the ’67 lines. Ted Belman

Foundations for Middle East Peace 1997

Some weeks ago Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat exclaimed in frustration, “I don’t know what Netanyahu wants.”

Well, now he does. Publication of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “secret” map for the division of the West Bank between Israel and the Palestinians clearly establishes Netanyahu’s preferences as he pushes the Oslo process into addressing the core problems of Jerusalem, settlements, water, and refugees. The map says nothing about the hapless Gaza Strip, where Israel remains in control of 30 percent of the territory.

There are two ways to analyze the publication of the so-called secret map at this time–by assessing the meaning of its publication in the context of current diplomacy and the Israeli preferences that the map reflects.

Whatever the map details, its appearance now is yet more proof that the Oslo process has moved irrevocably away from the framework of the “interim period” reconfirmed by Israel, the U.S., and the Palestinians as recently as the Hebron agreement earlier this year.

Netanyahu is implementing his long-held intention to refashion a process inherited from his predecessors one year ago. He is now focusing on developing proposals for final status issues, directing the momentum of diplomacy and moving the agenda away from “further redeployment” and toward Jerusalem, the settlements, and his “Allon-Plus” plan for territorial compromise on the West Bank. If settlement construction at Jebel Abu Ghneim (Har Homa) was described by Netanyahu as “the beginning of the battle for Jerusalem,” a battle he had no intention of losing, this map signals the beginning of the battle over the borders of “Greater Israel.” (See map page 3.)

“Allon-Plus” Map

Netanyahu’s map maintains fidelity to a number of long-standing Israeli geostrategic principles outlined in the Allon Plan; Ariel Sharon’s “A Vision of Israel at Century’s End,” published in 1977; and the “Peace Map” of the Third Way political party issued last year. According to the principles, “defensible borders” for Israel and its strategic superiority throughout the territory require these factors:

Israeli sovereignty in a 15 km wide belt including the Jordan Valley and its western mountain ridge and in the Judean Desert running west from the Dead Sea (except for a small area running north of Ayn Fashka).

Expansion of the territorial bridge between Jerusalem and the Mediterranean coast by widening Israeli sovereignty northwest of the city to the settlement of Beit Horon and south to the Etzion Bloc.

Expansion of metropolitan Jerusalem by the annexation of territory north to the settlements of Givat Ze’ev and Beit El, east to Ma’ale Adumim, and south to the Etzion Bloc.

Disruption of the territorial continuity of the Palestinian entity in the West Bank by the placement of Israeli settlements under Israeli sovereignty and the creation of four transport “corridors” of indeterminable width running in an east-west direction connecting Israel to the Jordan Valley.

Disruption of the territorial continuity between the Palestinian populations straddling the Green Line border between the western slopes of the West Bank Samarian plateau and the Israeli region between Kfar Kasm and Um el Fahm.

Implementation of this objective requires expanding Israeli sovereignty east from the Green Line.

The proposed map acknowledges that while most of Israel’s 140-odd settlements, with their population of 160,000, will be annexed to Israel, some settlements–and settlers–will find themselves in Palestinian territory. These include fewer than 20 isolated and sparsely populated outposts near Nablus and Jenin. Curiously, Netanyahu’s map also appears to exclude the settlements of Kiryat Arba, with its population of 5,000, and Hebron from annexation by Israel. According to Ha’aretz defense editor Ze’ev Schiff, however, Netanyahu is proposing functional solutions for holy places such as Jerusalem’s Haram as Sharif/Temple Mount and Hebron’s Ibrahimiyya Mosque/Machpela Cave that will preserve Islamic and Jewish rights respectively. Netanyahu, Schiff says, also holds out the prospect of increasing the percentage allocated to the Palestinian entity over time or to reducing it in order to accommodate settler demands.

The requirements reflected in the Netanyahu map demonstrate the time-tested strategic considerations shared by the vast majority of Israelis. Sharon has noted that, “the details may vary but, in principle, the essence [of the Netanyahu map] is very much the same” as one he proposed in 1977.

Netanyahu presented a similar map devised by the Israel Defense Forces to President Bill Clinton during a White House meeting on February 13. According to a report by Schiff, Clinton neither supported nor opposed the map, which proposes Israel’s annexation of more than 50 percent of the West Bank for security reasons. Netanyahu, for his part, did not specify exact borders, nor did Clinton repeat the historical U.S. position regarding changes in the pre-1967 War borders. Less than one week after this meeting, Netanyahu’s foreign policy adviser, Dore Gold, noted that the U.S. no longer insists on a withdrawal to the June 1967 borders.

Arafat’s Strategy

Arafat is no less intent than Netanyahu to move diplomacy to a discussion of final status issues. Since rejecting as inadequate Israel’s plan announced in March, he has all but ignored the issue of further redeployment, the defining hallmark of the interim period. By demanding an end to construction at Jebel Abu Ghneim and an end to Israeli settlement expansion elsewhere, Arafat is attempting to undo past Palestinian concessions as negotiations focus on issues of final status. This strategy includes a return to pre-Oslo positions that established a settlement halt as the key Palestinian demand–positions that were abandoned at Oslo and during the tenure of Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres. A simple replay of a policy once repudiated is unlikely to emerge as the force guiding this emerging new era of diplomacy.

The Netanyahu map is also better understood for what it suggests about the nature and the extent of the territorial demands that Israel is now presenting to Arafat. Much has been made of the map’s reflection of an Israeli demand for 60 percent of the West Bank–about 10 percent more than the plan presented to King Hussein by Yigal Allon more than two decades ago. Perhaps more important that the actual percentage of territory claimed by Israel, however, are the principles underlying those claims. It is far easier for Netanyahu to offer, 10 or even 20 percent more or less of the West Bank than to repudiate the principles on which these offers are made.

Yet Netanyahu has distinguished himself by his inability to act strategically. For him, everything–including this map–is a work in progress. His weakness as a leader and his susceptibility to pressure have not been exploited as effectively by his Palestinian antagonists as they have by his fellow Israeli politicians. So while Palestinians certainly can find much to oppose in the map, they can find some comfort in the fact that it is Netanyahu’s map and not one of his predecessors.