The obstacle of land swaps

By Zalman Shoval, ISRAEL HAYOM

Negotiations between Palestinian and Israeli representatives are starting this week. It is unclear how long they will last, or whether they will even last at all.

After all, as of now, there is no sign that the Palestinians will stray from their intention of sabotaging any progress that would require compromising on core issues. Commentators in Israel and abroad have tediously repeated the mantra that “all the components for peace are well-known” based on the “Clinton parameters,” and all that’s left to do is decide. But the truth is different.

Delving further, it turns out that nothing is settled — nothing regarding borders, not regarding which restrictions to Palestinian sovereignty and security would be imposed, nothing regarding Jerusalem and “the refugees,” and nothing regarding whether the Palestinians are ready to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his negotiating staff, including our friend Martin Indyk, apparently intend to focus on borders and security at the outset of negotiations. But this approach ignores the reality that the two issues are mutually dependent. In other words, marking future borders, such as those defined in U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, must reflect Israel’s security needs.

Not only can the “Green Line” not remain the only reference point for demarcating the future border (even U.S. President Barack Obama during his AIPAC appearance in 2011 said that the Israelis and Palestinians would have to conduct negotiations over borders, which would inevitably end up different than the ones that existed prior to June 4, 1967), but negotiations must also set rules granting Israel the freedom to carry out security operations within territories belonging to the Palestinian entity (including a permanent IDF presence on the Jordan line).

The mutual dependence of security and borders was an issue that the administration of former U.S. President George W. Bush had to consider when it proposed the “road map for peace.” In the second stage of that plan, “a Palestinian state with provisional borders” would be created. But that definition is irrelevant now. Instead, we must adopt the principle of “conditional sovereignty,” or sovereignty that is implemented “gradually,” because under full sovereignty the Palestinian entity could renounce all previous obligations.

And what about land swaps? This plan is sometimes seen as a key to resolving the problem of borders. The Obama administration mentions it from time to time and Kerry called a special press conference to gleefully announce that the Arab League had agreed to the proposal.

However, it’s doubtful whether the proposal can be justified either morally or in principle. It is doubtful whether it is tangible at all (not to mention that this would also mark the first time in history that the aggressor would be compensated for a loss of territory by receiving land from the victim of its aggression).

All over the world (and in Israel) people have intentionally forgotten how the war in 1967 transpired, who attacked whom, and why Israel, in a defensive war, captured territories from its aggressors. Those who worded U.N. Resolution 242 were well aware of the facts (which is why they opposed an Israeli retreat to the ’67 lines).

Former U.S. President Ronald Reagan was also aware of the facts, which is why he decided unequivocally that Israel should not be made to return to the dangerous armistice lines from before the war. President George W. Bush conjured the idea of “settlement blocs” not only because of “demographic changes” that had taken place since 1967, but also, and especially, because of Israeli security needs. It is possible the following hypothetical is too extreme, but imagine if Poland, the victim hardest hit by German aggression in World War II, had been asked to compensate Germany with the German territory annexed to it after the end of the war.

Even from a practical standpoint, it seems as if “land swaps” are an impossible solution. Little Israel does not have the practical means to donate land to the Palestinians — especially if (as noted by leftist Shaul Arieli in his Haaretz column) Israel does not want to “damage the fabric of life for more than 20 communities within its borders, both agriculturally and communally.”

This, of course, is just one reason. There are other reasons both strategic and otherwise. These ideas aren’t just for the sake of being contrary. Rather, when everything is “so understood and simple,” so to speak, sometimes we need to raise the more troubling, uncomfortable questions. That way, perhaps, we can identify the obstacles and overcome them, moving forward on a better path, however restrictive it may be, toward viable solutions.