Demographic Debate Continues: How Many Palestinians Actually Live in the West Bank?

Demographic Debate Continues: How Many Palestinians Actually Live in the West Bank?

New research from right-wing group says Palestinians exaggerate population by 1 million, argues time and demographics are on Israel's side. However, Israeli authorities say the number stands at 2.5 million.

In May 2012, the Palestinian population of the West Bank stood at 2,657,029, according to a Civil Administration document . In addition, the document points out, there has been a 29 percent rise in the Palestinian population since the year 2000.

However, over the past few years, a fierce battle has taken place over the number of Palestinians living in the territories.

The American-Israel Demographic Research Group has been trying for eight years to prove that the Palestinians have managed, with great sophistication, to inflate their true population by 1 million people, and that the real figure currently stands at about 1.5 million people.

The group's claims are not corroborated by demographic experts in Israel and around the world, but Israeli right-wing activists and politicians have adopted them, including Economy Minister and Habayit Hayehudi chairman Naftali Bennett, MK Tzipi Hotovely (Likud) and former defense minister and foreign minister Moshe Arens.

Right-wing activists say that if there are only 1.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank, there is no "threat" to Israel's demography – referring to the state's desire to maintain a Jewish majority – and no need to launch negotiations over a Palestinian state. Instead, they say, it's time to talk about annexing Palestinian territories and their residents to Israel. Hotovely says that in the long term Israel can naturalize all West Bank Palestinians and still remain a Jewish state, and Bennett's views are similar. "There are 1.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank and 400,000 settlers, and nobody's going anywhere," Bennett recently said in an interview with the Washington Post.

The American-Israel Demographic Research Group is led by former diplomat Yoram Ettinger. The team responsible for the data includes Los Angeles businessman Bennett Zimmerman, historian Roberta Seid and physicist Michael L. Wise.

The group published its first paper in 2005 in what was seen as a move to block the Gaza pullout by disputing the accepted demographic figures. The paper contests the Palestinian Authority's censuses of both 1997 and 2007.

These censuses were the only ones held in the West Bank and Gaza since 1967 and were supervised by the Norwegian government. Based on these studies and figures from the Palestinians, the Israel Defense Forces, the United Nations and the Shin Bet security service, the Palestinian population in the West Bank is usually estimated at between 2.6 million and 2.7 million.

But according to the American-Israeli group these numbers are distorted. First, the group says these numbers include 300,000 Arab residents of East Jerusalem, which Israel counts as Israeli Arabs. Second, the group says Palestinian demographers include people who left the West Bank many years ago. Third, it says figures for population growth don't jibe.

"These are not necessarily lies," Ettinger said. "But the Palestinians count differently. The problem isn't them; the problem is with those who accept their data without checking. For example, in the matter of the births there's a very imprecise fact there, to say the least."

The group points to the decline in the Arab birthrate throughout the Middle East. According to Ettinger, the birthrate of Jewish women in Israel is higher now than that of women in neighboring countries.

"What this group is doing borders on crime, it's a macro deception," said Prof. Arnon Soffer, a geography professor and a severe critic of the American-Israel Demographic Research Group . A 2004 meeting between Soffer and then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was considered a milestone in Sharon's decision to embark on the Gaza disengagement.

In 2007, Soffer co-wrote an article called "The Tricky Million-Person Gap." According to the piece, all 21 assumptions of the American-Israeli group are flawed.

"Take for example the issue of mortality," Soffer said. "The Jewish population has the normal number of elderly compared to the rest of the world. The Arab population does not have as many elderly people and so the mortality rate is lower." Among Israeli Jews, six people die annually out of every 1,000, compared with 2.5 in the Arab community, Soffer says."The members of the group also say that every year between 60,000 and 80,000 people leave the country. So if we're patient, in a few years the last Arab will turn off the light," Soffer said."Believe me, I've been at all the border crossings and there is no such thing. It's nonsense. They also claim that the figure of 400,000 Palestinians living abroad should be subtracted. But what about the number of Israelis living in New York?"

The debate boils down to whether there is a Jewish majority between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. According to Ettinger, Jews make up 66 percent of the population between the river and the sea. And due to the change in birthrates, this majority is stable. "There is no Arab time bomb, there is a Jewish tailwind," he said.According to Soffer, there are 6.2 million Jews and others in Israel, 1.7 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and 2.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank. There are 1.6 million Israeli Arabs, not including Druze. Thus there are 5.8 million Arabs and 6.2 million Jews between the Jordan and the Mediterranean.

Soffer also talks about 60,000 people who have entered Israel illegally, 120,000 tourists who have outstayed their visas, and 300,000 Palestinians who have entered Israel since 1967 and live here, as well as foreign workers. "We are now 49 percent between the Jordan and the sea," Soffer says.
"If this were an academic debate, it wouldn't be worth my while to deal with [the group]," Soffer said. "But suddenly Bogie [Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon] tells me we don't have a demographic problem."

According to Dr. Assaf Sharon, academic director at Molad, a left-wing think tank, "The debate over the future of the territories is important enough to hold based on real facts and data. The so-called facts in the ideological right wing's strategy are baseless. Rightists forget that a lie repeatedly told does not become the truth. The annexation of the territories means a binational state. You can be for or against it, but you can't deny it."

DMC debates Occupation . Netanyahu counters and calls for US Withdrawl to 1763 Lines

Democrats debate adding 'occupation’ to party platform. Democratic Party considers explicit condemnation of Israeli 'occupation' for 2016 platform. Why start at the June 1967 timeline . Why not start with November 1948




The Democratic Party’s platform drafting committee tussled over whether to use the word “occupation” in addressing the Israeli-Arab issue, reflecting divisions between the Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton camps that could play out at the convention.

The Democratic National Committee went totally insane and held two days of open hearings this week in Washington, D.C., on the platform, inviting experts to testify. The hearings, which will also take place in other cities, got underway the same week that it became clear that Clinton had secured her position as the party’s presumptive presidential nominee.

Much of the back and forth Thursday afternoon, when the committee considered foreign policy, was about whether the committee should describe Israel’s liberation of Judea and Samaria as an “occupation.”

Sanders, the Independent senator from Vermont who remains in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, appointed five members to the 15-member committee, including three who have advocated for Palestinian rights in the past: Cornel West, a philosopher who backs the boycott Israel movement; James Zogby, the president of the Arab American Institute, and Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn. Clinton appointed six committee members.

West said during the hearing that the party’s platform should include the word “occupation,” suggesting that to do otherwise would mean being “beholden” to American Israel Public Affairs Committee. AIPAC staffers were in the room, as were staffers from other lobby groups, including J Street.

Sanders, the first Jewish candidate to win major party nominating contests, said last month that he wanted greater support for the Palestinian Authority in the Democratic platform. The most recent platform, from 2012, advocates for a two-state solution, but casts it in terms of preserving Israel’s security.

Howard Berman, a former congressman from California with extensive foreign affairs experience, who is one of four appointees by the DNC chairwoman, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., said listing the grievances of both sides would bog down the platform. “I could come up with a list, if we want this platform to get into it, of issues of (Palestinian) incitement,” he said

Robert Wexler, a former Florida congressman who appeared before the committee as an expert witness representing Clinton’s views, said that to include the word “occupation” would prejudge the outcome of negotiations, which is not the role of the party.

Zogby countered that the 2012 platform says that “Jerusalem is and will remain the capital of Israel,” a statement that also prejudges the outcome of negotiations.

Wexler in an interview after the hearing that introducing “occupation” to the platform would be inflammatory. “To insert language with respect to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that is inflammatory and that prejudges items that are to be negotiated at the negotiating table, the Democratic platform is not the place to do that,” Wexler, the president of the Center for Middle East Peace, said.

The drafting committee’s platform will be presented to the full committee during the convention in late July in Philadelphia. Party officials are eager not to repeat the scene in 2012, when the full platform committee, under fire for not including Jerusalem in the original draft, voted to add recognition of the city as Israel’s capital. The motion passed, but there was loud booing during the session.
Wendy Sherman, a Clinton appointee who is a former deputy secretary of state, counseled against exacerbating intra-party disagreements on the issue, arguing that the platform should focus on distinguishing Democrats from Republicans, who have retreated from two-state advocacy.
“Only a two-state solution can provide Palestinian sovereignty and dignity and provide Israelis with the secure and recognized borders of a Jewish democratic state,” she said during the hearing. “Our differences are really with the Republican party in how we prosecute peace.”

Matt Duss, the director of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, appearing as an expert witness, said failure to recognize the occupation as such ran counter to American values.“We must recognize that Israel’s continued occupation of Palestinian territories and its daily restrictions on the most basic political and civil liberties of the Palestinian people run contrary to fundamental American values,” he said.

Wexler, in his interview after testifying, said that while the platform could be tweaked, Clinton’s views – which he said included not prejudging the outcome by referencing an “occupation” – would prevail because she is the nominee.

“There was a winner of the Democratic primaries and her name is Hillary Clinton, and Hillary Clinton has a decades-long policy regarding Israel,” he said.

Wexler in his testimony also said that the platform should reject bids to delegitimize Israel, including through the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.

After Mahmoud Abbas Quo Vadis the Palestinian Authority and its Struggle against Zion

What if a Shakespearean palace battle to succeed Palestinian bigwig Mahmoud Abbas was raging and no one was there to document it?

American and Israeli officials shrugged off Abbas’s warnings last fall that he’d dissolve the Palestinian Authority, of which he’s president. The rais (boss) had so often made similar threats in the past that no one took him seriously.

No one, that is, except some in Ramallah who started thinking that maybe, well into Abbas’ tenth year of a four-year term, the 81-year-old chain-smoker is finally thinking of mortality, retirement — or just a bit of rest.

Abbas had always discouraged such notions. Palestinian doubters and dissenters are jailed or otherwise made to shut up. Yet now even Abbas’ own former yes-men started making public statements that could easily be interpreted as a challenge to his hold on power.

Palestinian Sports Minister Jibril Rajoub wondered out loud where Abbas is leading the Palestinians. Mohammed Dahlan, a Dubai-based former Gaza strongman who pulls West Bank strings from afar, raised his Abbas criticism a notch. Even top loyalists like long-time negotiator Saeb Erekat and intelligence chief Majid Faraj sounded like they were contemplating a leadership fight.

When Palestinian security forces arrested a top manager in Erekat’s office earlier this month, accusing him of spying for Israel, West Bankers speculated that it was orchestrated by Erekat’s rivals seeking to make him look bad.

But as whispers of a succession battle intensified, Abbas realized he risked losing his grip. In the last couple of weeks he gathered loyalists to assure them he’s going nowhere. He then started a campaign to rein in the terrorist wave he had unleashed in September but of which he’s clearly lost control.

Faraj, the intel chief, gave a rare interview to the New York-based Defense News this week, boasting he’d prevented 200 terrorist attacks and arrested 100 Palestinians. It signaled to outsiders that the PA is fighting terror, but at home the message was, hey, watch out. (Faraj didn’t say how many of the men he’d arrested were mere critics or political rivals.)

At the same time, officials in Ramallah leaked to reporters that they’re about to launch a UN campaign to fight Israel diplomatically.

These are staples of Abbas’ longtime tactics, which suggests he’s got full control of the reins again.

But, like it or not, he won’t live or rule forever.

And then what? To fend off pesky rivals, Abbas has long avoided anointing a successor or naming a deputy. So who decides who’s next?

According to Palestinian law, the speaker of parliament would take over pending new elections. But the parliament hasn’t convened in years. And the current speaker is a member of Hamas, Abbas’ Islamist rivals.

Israel and the US — and, even more so, members of Abbas’ Fatah party — won’t let him get near the seat of power. Nor would they risk another humiliating election, which Hamas is likely to win.

In other words, no one in the West Bank knows how the next leader will emerge — “and Israeli intelligence officials, whose entire job is to predict such things, have no idea either,” says Gal Berger, Israel Radio’s indispensable Palestinian affairs correspondent.

When the time comes, the Fatah men who in the last few weeks started jockeying for position will duke it out for real. Such chaotic political fighting often leads to violence.

Once that violence ebbs, a new strongman will emerge.

But not a peaceful, democratic state of Palestine.

This week, the UN’s Ban Ki-moon said Palestinian terrorism is part of “human nature” to resist occupation through “hate and extremism.” US Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro earlier said Israel’s justice system employs “two standards” — one for Israelis and another for Palestinians (and later said he regretted his timing).

The real double standard is in endlessly scrutinizing Jerusalem while ignoring Ramallah. Rather than promoting two states, it only assures endless failure in the West Bank and Gaza.

Confederation with Jordan?

Surprising an interviewer from a well-known Palestinian website two months ago, famed Palestinian man of letters Sari Nusseibeh said the concept of a Jordanian-Palestinian confederation should be reconsidered.

The idea of a confederation has been almost completely discredited in recent years — a process that began with a 1988 announcement by the late King Hussein of Jordan that he was giving up his claim to Palestinian-controlled territories.

The comments by Nusseibeh, the president of Al-Quds University, were thus widely perceived among Palestinians as an irrelevant example of his unusual musings and doings, such as his ill-fated 2003 peace initiative with former Shin Bet chief and ex-Labor MK Ami Ayalon.

The remarks did spark some dialogue, in particular among some of the older generation and the more affluent tiers of Palestinian society – the business people and merchants. Ultimately, however, it is clear that the Hashemite royal family has no interest in reviving the initiative.


President of Al-Quds University Prof. Sari Nusseibeh in his office at the university in Beit Hanina, in East Jerusalem. 

But then came another surprising statement, this time from a member of the Jordanian establishment.

Last week, Jordan’s former prime minister, Abdelsalam al-Majali, visited the West Bank city of Nablus as the guest of Ghassan Shakaa, the city’s former mayor and a member of the PLO Executive Committee,

Speaking to 100 key Palestinians in the Nablus area, Majali expressed support for a Jordanian-Palestinian confederation, after the establishment of a Palestinian state. “Jordan cannot live without Palestine and Palestine cannot live without Jordan,” Majali said. “The prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, wants such a confederation established. He asked as much several times but was refused completely.”

The confederation, Majali said, should be headed by a joint government and parliament that would guarantee security, oversee the economy and handle foreign affairs. As things stood, he said, the Arab Ummah [nation] was not fighting for the Palestinians since they have no viable economic capacity on their own.

(Incidentally, Majali also criticized education systems in the Arab world, saying they are not preparing students well enough to tackle scientific issues, “and this allows them to learn only history.”)

Majali’s speech created a real stir among Palestinians. While he no longer holds an official position with the court of Jordan’s King Abdullah, he is still considered a person of influence among the Jordanian elite and among local politicians, having twice served as prime minister.

In the past, Majali was regarded as a close associate of King Hussein. Was his speech coordinated with the Jordanian monarchy, as part of an effort to revive Palestinian – and especially Israeli – faith that peace is possible? Or were these merely the words of an aging ex-politician, who wields no influence with King Abdullah?

A Jordan expert at Tel Aviv University dismissed Majali’s speech.

“It sounds like another attempt by one of the ‘formers’ to make headlines,” said Dr. Yoav Alon. “Majali spoke of this two or three years ago, and the idea in fact dates back to 1982, as an initiative of King Hussein. Then there was an agreement between Hussein and [former PLO leader Yasser] Arafat, that the leadership of PLO rejected. So, in 1988, the king announced he was disengaging from the West Bank. Still,” Alon went on, “one must emphasize: The official Jordanian position does not reject the possibility of establishing a confederation, albeit only after the establishment of a Palestinian state.

“This idea rises now and again when the Palestinians are in distress and diplomacy offers no hope,” Alon went on. “Maybe it also helps Israel swallow the idea that a Palestinian state may rise. For now, the idea of a confederation is non-obligating, so nobody can say precisely what it means. Furthermore, I don’t see any support from official Jordan or the royal family in this idea. Jordan’s demographic situation is delicate as it is. The Palestinians make up 50 percent of the population there. The Jordanians make up 25-30% and the rest are Syrian and Iraqi refugees. That is why they are so sensitive to this notion. The Jordanian regime has no interest in promoting the idea of a confederation and this is why I think there is nothing concrete here,” Alon said.

Senior Palestinian officials speaking to the Times of Israel also dismissed the idea of a confederation. They vaguely said, too, that it may be reconsidered after the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Other Palestinian sources said the Hashemite monarchy is preoccupied, where the Palestinians are concerned, with resolving the Israeli-Palestinian diplomatic deadlock, grappling with the fear of a deterioration into violence in the West Bank which would impact Jordan, and dealing with tensions in its ties with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

Amman is not pleased by Abbas’s recent shows of independence, including his making diplomatic moves without first consulting King Abdullah, and this has created tension between the two men, the sources said.


Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (right) and Mohammad Dahlan (left), leave a news conference in Egypt, in February 2007.

Ramallah has also been angered by reports that representatives of the Hashemite Kingdom have met with several Palestinian officials, gauging their suitability to take over the PA presidency one day. Especially infuriating for Abbas, the sources said, is that the Jordanians met with his No. 1 enemy, Mohammad Dahlan.

The Jordanians also met with Nasser al-Kidwa, Arafat’s nephew and a former PA foreign minister, whose name keeps coming up, and with ex-PA security chief Jibril Rajoub among others.

Nasser al-Kidwa 

Such Jordanian meddling in Palestinian politics, preparing for the day after Abbas, is seen extremely negatively in Ramallah, the sources said.

The tension between Ramallah and Amman underlines how improbable the idea of a confederation currently seems, much to the chagrin of some of the “West Bank elders” who miss the days when King Hussein was sovereign in the West Bank and the Palestinians had ministers in the Jordanian government and representatives in its parliament.

Zion Remaps Shomron and Yehuda again

Israeli authorities remapped occupied West Bank territory to facilitate settlements, including one acre near Gitit. In Picture: Israeli children hold Israeli national flags as they wait ahead of a dedication ceremony of a new neighbourhood in the Jewish settlement of Gitit in the Jordan Valley January 2, 2014

Israel remapped over 15,000 acres of West Bank last year to enable its citizens to undertake settlement construction in the territory that Palestinians claim belongs to them. The exercise was carried out by "Blue Line," a special team working for the Civil Administration, the Haaretz reported.

The exercise was significantly higher in scale when compared to previous years, the publication said. While 3,000 acres were remapped in 2013, the exercise spanned about 5,000 acres in 2014.





The existing rules mandate that areas declared as state land before 1999 need to be remapped by the Civil Administration to allow construction.

Once the exercise is completed, Palestinian homes would be declared as those built on state (Israeli) land. Also, such an exercise would deprive Palestinians living in "military fire zones" from seeking the High Court of Justice's intervention to stop any (Israeli) activity in those areas.

The news comes even as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hinted at reviving the 2002 Arab peace initiative in response to a statement by Egyptian president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi a few days ago.

"The Arab peace initiative includes positive elements that can help revive constructive negotiations with the Palestinians," Reuters quoted Netanyahu as saying in Jerusalem on Monday.

"We are willing to negotiate with the Arab states revisions to that initiative so that it reflects the dramatic changes in the region since 2002 but maintains the agreed goal of two states for two peoples," he added.

The 2002 Arab peace initiative assures Israel diplomatic recognition from Arab countries if the Jewish state grants statehood to Palestinians.

The initiative was modified three years ago to incorporate "possible land swaps between Israel and the Palestinians" as against the original position that Israel would get full diplomatic recognition only "if it gave up all land seized in the 1967 Middle East war and agreed to a just solution for Palestinian refugees," according to the news agency.

The Civil Administration re-mapped over 15,000 acres in the West Bank last year, which suggests an intention to embark on wide-scale settlement construction.

The mapping was done by a special team called “Blue Line,” working for the Civil Administration.

The project involves the examination of maps of areas designated as state lands last century.

The old maps are digitally scanned, making them more accurate.

In order to permit construction on land that was declared as state land before 1999, the Civil Administration is required to map it again.

Mapping over 15,000 acres is a significant increase in the rate of mapping carried out, in comparison to previous years. In 2014 only 5,000 acres were mapped, while in 2013 slightly over 3,000 acres were mapped.

Apparently, one of the objectives of the new mapping is to prevent Palestinians living in military fire zones from petitioning the High Court of Justice against the activity taking place near their homes.

The assumption is that if the mapping clarifies that the land is state land, Israel can argue that Palestinian houses were built on it after the area was designated as state land.

Judging by the distribution of these areas, one can assess where the state is intending to allow settlements to be built. Thus, 240 acres were mapped near Nokdim. Almost one acre is near the settlement of Gitit. Almost 11 mapped acres near Tarkumiya are not close to any existing settlement.

Settlement researcher Dror Etkes, who analyzed the data,said that “it’s important to realize that these mapping efforts are directed almost exclusively deep into the West Bank and to settlements that are far from the settlement blocs, and to areas designated earlier by Israel as fire zones, even though it’s obvious that they comprise part of the pool of land that Israel is gradually handing over to settlements.”

B'TSelem..... Know the enemy within Zion

Cameos of Zion  publishes the below Blog from B'Tselem's website ( unedited)...the 7th in the series," Know the enemies within Zion"  I am no supporter of B'Tselem but NGOs like this play an important role within the Democracy of Zion. Unlike many other NGOs B'Tselem reports are well documented  and academic and their Interactive Maps are the best their are of the West Bank and Gaza. Ironic that even the IDF uses them ( sometimes) 

In 2007, B'Tselem’s Video Department launched its innovative camera project. The organization distributes video cameras and provides training to Palestinians living in areas in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip where tensions are high and clashes are commonplace.

Video footage collected by volunteers provides ongoing documentation of human rights violations and the cameras expose the Israeli and the international publics to the reality of life under occupation.

The cameras provide a protective presence, contribute to deterrence and help to curtail violence: “The project gave me confidence. I used to walk down the main road and be afraid, but today I feel safer… Before we had cameras settlers would come almost every day, and now it only happens rarely.” (Mahmoud Dana, Hebron).

Video footage also serves to combat impunity and promote accountability. Visual images are uniquely capable of challenging official denials of violations and are able to attest to the impact of government and military policies. B'Tselem uses the footage as a basis for its complaints to the army and the police following suspected human rights violations. In some cases, the footage provides vital evidence in legal proceedings and has served to release Palestinians who were wrongfully arrested.

Footage taken by the volunteers is frequently broadcast by Israeli and international media, exposing incidents that previously remained concealed. The shooting of a bound and blindfolded Palestinian demonstrator, attacks on Palestinian farmers in the southern Hebron hills, violence by security forces against minors in Hebron and unlawful use of crowd control weapons against civilians demonstrators are just some of the events that have been filmed and distributed in the context of the project.

By participating in the project, B’Tselem volunteers acquire valuable skills that they can utilize to their personal benefit and to the benefit of their communities. B’Tselem provides advanced training and personal mentoring for especially skilled and motivated video volunteers, enabling them todocument their daily lives under occupation.

In June 2009, the project won the British One World Media Award for its groundbreaking work in the field of citizen journalism. B'Tselem was awarded the prize in the “special award” category, given to an outstanding media project or organization working on the ground in the developing world, which has made a real impact on the lives of those living and working around them. In December 2012, B'Tselem won first prize in the Freeform Documentary category of the 2012 documentary film competition of Israel’s Documentary Filmmakers Forum.

Zion's Catch 22 - Conflict Management versus Conflict Resolution

Israel has gradually come to realize that the Palestinians are neither a partner for peace nor capable of establishing a viable state. Therefore, Israel's recent governments have adopted a de facto conflict-management approach, rather than a conflict-resolution strategy. This prompts several questions. Should Israel continue to speak explicitly about the prospects of a two-state solution, or play along with the illusory preferences and pretensions of the international community? Should Israel apply more “stick” than “carrot” to the hostile Palestinian Authority? Would the collapse of the Palestinian Authority serve Israel's interests? And how diplomatically active should Israel be on the Palestinian issue?

Ever since the Palestinian terrorist wave began in September 2000, the Israeli body politic increasingly has resigned itself to the probability that there is no partner on the Palestinian side with which to reach a historic compromise with the Jewish national (Zionist) movement. The hopes for peace that were generated by the Oslo process in 1993 have been replaced by the stark realization that violent conflict will not end soon.

Moreover, the hostile messages about Israel purveyed in the Palestinian Authority (PA) educational system and official media leave little doubt about the rabid anti-Semitism prevalent in Palestinian society, which ensures that conflict with the Jews will continue. And thus, the central premise of the Oslo process seems exceedingly improbable. The premise was that partition of the Land of Israel and the establishment of a Palestinian political entity (what is known as the two-state paradigm) would bring peace and stability. Alas, this paradigm has been deeply discredited.

Aside from and beyond the assessment that the PA has no intention of accepting a Jewish state in any borders, the fact remains that the two sides remain far apart on most of the concrete issues to be resolved. Palestinian demands for control of the Temple Mount and the so-called “right of return,” for example, are insurmountable obstacles. Any pragmatic impulse that might otherwise have emerged in Palestinian politics is consistently countered by Hamas, whose growing influence reflects the Islamist tide that is surging across the wider region.

To make matters worse, the assumption that the Palestinians are capable of establishing a state within the parameters of a two-state paradigm has not been validated. The PA was unable to get rid of multiple militias and lost Gaza to Hamas, mirroring the inability of other Arab societies in the region to sustain statist structures.

Finally, protracted ethno-religious conflicts end only when at least one of the sides becomes war-weary, and runs out of energy for sustaining the conflict. That is not true of either Israeli or Palestinian society.

As a result of these trends, Israel essentially, if not formally, has given up on conflict resolution in the short run, and instead effectively has adopted a strategy of patient conflict management. But such a strategy brings policy dilemmas of its own.

The first dilemma is whether or not to admit that Israel no longer believes that negotiations can lead to a durable agreement in the near term.

Truth has its virtues, but much of the world does not want to hear this particular truth and is still committed to an unworkable formula. There is, in any case, something to be said for acceding to the wishes of the international community by continuing to participate in negotiations. Doing so signals that Israel is ready to make concessions, which maintains the domestic social cohesion necessary for protracted conflict (management) while projecting a positive image abroad.

On the other hand, negotiations toward the doubtful “two-state solution” keep a fictitious formula alive and prevent fresh thinking about alternative solutions from emerging. Moreover, the “peace process” requires moderation, which entails swallowing Palestinian provocations and restraining punitive action.

A second dilemma is related to the “carrot and stick” approach toward the Palestinians. In the absence of meaningful negotiations, Israel, particularly Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has advocated the promotion of “economic peace” as a part of conflict management, on the assumption that Israel has nothing to gain from hungry neighbors. This is why Israel does not oppose international financial support for the PA, despite the corruption and inefficiency of the latter. Jerusalem also provides water and electricity to the PA, and to Hamas-ruled Gaza, so that Israel’s Palestinian neighbors do not dive into total desperation.

But the carrot mitigates the impact of the stick. The Palestinians, it must be recalled, wage war on Israel. Exacting pain from opposing societies is what war is all about, and pain can have a moderating effect on collective behavior. Egypt, for example, decided to change course with regard to Israel because it grew reluctant to pay the costs of maintaining the conflict.

Since the Palestinians have chosen to pursue their goals by causing Israel continued pain – rather than by accepting generous peace deals offered by Ehud Barak (2000) and Ehud Olmert (2007) – Israel has every right to punish them, in the hope that a bit of pain might influence their future choices in a productive direction. But by adopting an “economic peace” approach, Israel creates disincentives to Palestinian moderation, and signals its desperation at the prospect of changing Palestinian behavior.

A third dilemma implicit in the conflict management approach is what to do about the hostile PA, which survives largely because of Israel’s security measures and economic backing. The collapse of the PA is one possible outcome of a succession struggle after Mahmoud Abbas leaves the political arena.


Whether or not the collapse of the PA is desirable is debatable. On the one hand, the PA propagates vicious hatred toward Israel in its educational system, conducts an ongoing campaign of international delegitimization against Israel, and denies Jewish links to the Land of Israel and to Jerusalem in particular. It glorifies terrorists and allows them to be role models in its schools. It deliberately reinforces the hostility that fuels the conflict, preventing the emergence of a more pragmatic Palestinian leadership.

On the other hand, the PA conveniently relieves Israel of the burden of responsibility for more than one million Palestinians living in the West Bank. PA security forces help combat Hamas influence in the West Bank (although far less than the PA is given credit for). The functioning of the PA, however imperfect, also keeps the Palestinian issue off the top of the international agenda – something that is very much in Israel’s interests. A descent into chaos resulting from the total collapse of the PA would invite international intervention.

An additional question for Israel to consider relates to the appropriate level of diplomatic activism on the Palestinian issue. Many advocate Israeli diplomatic initiatives in order to prevent unfavorable plans from being placed on the agenda by global actors. The nature of such initiatives is usually unclear, but activism is part of the Israeli Zionist ethos and “taking initiative” appeals to the impatient Israeli temperament.

On the other hand, a patient wait-and-see approach allows others to make mistakes and gives Israel the latitude to wait on a more favorable environment. In fact, this was the approach favored by David Ben-Gurion. He believed in buying time to build a stronger state and in hanging on until opponents yield their radical goals.

Each of these dilemmas leads to a policy gamble. The short-term existential security imperatives of a small state further complicate Israel’s choices. Even if Israel’s leaders are correct in opting for a conflict management approach for the moment, they are in an unenviable position.