A recent New York Times news article featured an anecdote related by Samir al-Mashharawi, a Fatah leader, in which he describes how, during his imprisonment in an Israeli jail, the Palestinian inmates demanded tables and chairs. The Israeli prison authorities responded by taking away their mattresses, leaving their cells bare. The prisoners were then obliged to agitate for the reinstatement of their mattresses. “After a month, they returned the mattresses, and we felt very happy we achieved something,” said al-Mashharwi, observing that "Israeli diplomacy is based on this idea."
Al-Mashharwi’s evaluation of Israeli diplomatic strategy is spot on. From its inception, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been marked by a consistent Israeli policy of “take-and-take.” The cycle has been drearily predictable: Every time the Palestinians concluded a concession to give up territory, the subsequent round of peace negotiations would be marked by an offer of even less land. Their original state destroyed, Palestinians today are left fighting for a mere 9 percent of their land, and being asked – nay, demanded – to accept this pitiful offer. This is how it happened:
After receiving 55 percent of Palestine from the UN Partition Plan of 1947, Israel violently seized an additional 23 percent of the land. Less than twenty years later, Israel conquered the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem in its pre-emptive war of 1967 – that’s another 22 percent. This left the Palestinians with sovereignty over a grand total of 0 percent of their original land. As soon as Palestinians accepted Resolution 242 to return to the 1967 borders – thereby effectively rescinding their right to dispute the mammoth chunk of their land signed away without their consent in ’47 and confiscated in ‘48 – the criteria for peace changed. Ostensibly intending to create a viable state for the Palestinians, the Oslo peace accords in the 1990s denied them the chance to recover that 22 percent. Instead, Palestinian “control” was divided into 200 separate land areas, amounting to a paltry 9 percent of their original territory. Finally, in spring 2002 Israel re-occupied several cities under Palestinian control. Therefore today, with the advent of the road map, Palestinians find themselves negotiating simply to recover control of that 9 percent of their original land.
Despite all this, Ariel (“the Bulldozer”) Sharon has effectively promoted the myth of Israeli “painful concessions.” In truth, no more painful compromise has been made in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict than the Palestinian concession to give up 78 percent of its territory. Its pain derives from the fact that Palestinians agreed to put behind them the traumatic confiscation of their homeland, which they had inhabited for centuries, and the violent uprooting of some 700,000 innocent Palestinian civilians. Nearly every family living in Palestine in 1948 suffered the injury of lost land, homes, livelihoods, family, friends, and possessions. To come to terms with dispossession on this scale can only be done by a people with an incredible respect for the virtue of conciliation. By this act, the Palestinian people have demonstrated understanding, generosity, and a reverence for fairness. They approach the negotiation table as proven partners for reconciliation. In contrast, Israel has not shown a shred of comparable generosity.
1946-1949: From 100 Percent to 22 Percent
First let us see how the 100 percent was cut to less than a quarter of its original size. Up through 1946, the Mandate of Palestine as administered by the British existed on 100 percent of what is now commonly referred to as “historic Palestine.” With the creation of the state of Israel on Palestinian land pursuant to the 1947 UN partition plan, the Jewish settlers in mandate Palestine were awarded a total of 55 percent of Palestine, leaving the native Palestinians with 45 percent for their own state. The so-called “generous offer” made by Barak to Arafat at Camp David was in reality most parsimonious. However, this is a proposal that could truthfully sport that label. The UN offered the Jewish settlers in mandate Palestine the opportunity to form a state on more than half the territory of another people’s country – while they were still living there. Now that is generosity.
What followed was an event that is identified by the emotive Arabic word “Nakba,” (meaning “catastrophe”). Aptly named, the 1948 killing and confiscating campaign by murderous Zionist gangs that followed the UN’s generous offer and resulted in the dispossession of an additional 23 percent of Palestinian land and the expulsion of more than half a million people, is the stuff of tragedy. The Nakba was the first, and by far the most, physically and psychically damaging in the series of Israel’s “take-and-take” policies. It was responsible for slashing Palestinian land to just 22 percent of the original state, and it also lies at the core of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The response by Palestinians of disbelief and anger was accompanied by a justifiable lack of acceptance.
1967: From 22 Percent to 0 Percent
Now we shall examine how the 22 percent left after the ‘48-‘49 land seizures was reduced to zero and how Israeli “mattress diplomacy” started to take shape. It was not until 1967 that a tragedy nearly equivalent to the Nakba hit the Palestinians. That year, Israel’s pre-emptive war resulted in the occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem (later illegally annexed) and created another mass of 400,000 displaced peoples. With that, Israel sucked up the remaining 22 percent of Palestinian land into its clutches. Immediate response by the international community came in the form of Resolution 242, calling for a withdrawal from “territories occupied in the recent conflict.”
From this moment on, the focus of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict became Resolution 242 – at least for the international community. Occurring just 20 years earlier, the Nakba remained in the Palestinian collective memory of the past as well as a collective experience of the present. It was living history. But Israel’s 1967 war forced the international community to attend to the brand new occupation at hand. Now, the Palestinians would find themselves struggling for the return to 1967 borders, much like Al-Mashharwi’s prisoners had fought for the return of their mattresses, while the crisis of 1948 (much like their original bid for tables and chairs) was relegated to ancient history.
But at first, the Palestinians rejected the resolution, refusing to accept the feeble offer to reclaim their “mattresses.” Despite the fact that it was based on the idea of the "inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war," Palestinians did not appreciate the fact that 242 made no direct mention of Palestinian nationhood, requiring attention only to what it labeled as “the refugee problem.” In retrospect – that is, with 20/20 hindsight – it may be tempting to label the Palestinian authorities belligerent at worst, impractical at best – but at the time, the offer amounted to the equivalent of shabby, soiled mattresses. Twenty-two percent of their original land was a piddling offer.
November 1988 marked a major turning point for both sides. Palestinians accepted Resolution 242. With that declaration, they did not only formally welcome the support of the international community to ensure Israeli withdrawal to pre-1967 borders, but also relinquished claims to any land within Israel’s 1967 border, thus recognizing Israel’s much trumpeted “right to exist.” Their new objective became a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, sharing the capital of Jerusalem with their neighbors. This was a double-edged sword for Palestinians – who were giving up so much – and was only accepted because they believed that the international community would stand by the long-touted Resolution 242 and make good on its promises of a withdrawal-for-peace solution. But the international community did no such thing.
Until that time, a vigorous commitment to the “land-for-peace” deal that 242 promised seemed to be exhibited by the relevant international players. However, upon Palestinian acceptance of 242, the withdrawal portion of the agreement was swiftly swept under the table. “Land for peace” basically disappeared from the lexicon, and withdrawal was no longer a requirement for Israel. The United States, starring as the lead role among the international actors, made no genuine effort to demand Israeli withdrawal. It was a blow that would set up the Palestinians for further loss in the next stage of negotiations.
1993-2000: From 0 Percent to 9 Percent
Now we shall follow how the mattress, or at least a corner of it, moth-eaten now and with most of the stuffing gone, became the new offer to the Palestinians who were by now virtually interned as prisoners under military rule in the Occupied Territories.
Another 20-odd years passed before yet another extreme setback for Palestinian national aspirations occurred. This time it was called Oslo. Where once the 1948 atrocities were relegated to history in exchange for a focus on Resolution 242, now 242 was tossed in the dustbin of history to be replaced by Oslo. By 2000, the hope for a united Palestine had been truncated, chopped, and hacked into a Bantustanized Palestine: Palestinians now were granted control of 200 non-contiguous areas in 40 percent of 22 percent of 100 percent of original Palestinian land; in other words, about 9 percent, or next to nothing. Even that 40 percent was just partially controlled by the Palestinian Authority (PA) – which had both security and civil administration control over just 18 percent (Area A) of the West Bank and Gaza. The security in the other 22 percent (Area B) was controlled by the Israeli military authority, and the PA controlled some of the civil administration.
From the conditions imposed by this latest confiscation – exacerbated by an accumulation of cruel occupation policies such as home demolitions, checkpoints, and closures – sprouted a renewed Palestinian resistance movement. For the second time in a decade and a half, the Israel military responded mercilessly. Israeli invaded Ramallah, Bethlehem, Jenin, Hebron, and Nablus, and attacked Gaza using not just conventional military tactics but also mysterious gasses causing unusually painful effects for the Palestinian civilians who inhaled them. Most towns that were not fully re-occupied were at least sealed by Israeli forces. And once again, Palestinian territorial control was violently shrunk.
………
Today, at the stuttering, sputtering outset of the road map, Palestinians are struggling simply to return to pre-Intifada conditions. The percentages – what remain of them – hardly matter any longer. The chance for a truly viable Palestine, let alone a contiguous one, are basically inconceivable – and not because there remains no Palestinian hope (after all this, it is inspiring to find hope firmly in place, if not colossally flourishing). If Ariel Sharon (the so-called “Man of Peace”) could have his way, no more than 7 percent of original Palestinian land would ever even be considered for a future Palestinian state, and one, “undivided” Jerusalem would remain “the eternal capital of the Jewish people.” For the umpteenth time, Israel’s commitment to peace has revealed itself to be nothing more than a commitment to continue to fulfill its appetite for more land and more control. Israel’s “take-and-take” policy has not abated one whit in the era of the road map, as rapid construction on the menacing, truncating “security wall” indicates, and there is little to suggest that will change any time in the near future.
And so the struggle for the Palestinians’ rightful mattresses goes on.
Leila Saad is a graduate student at Harvard University at the John F. Kennedy School of Government.
