Summary
The formula proposed by deputy prime minister Yigal Allon in July 1967, in Makdisi’s account the standing template of Israeli policy in the occupied territories: permanent Israeli control of the Jordan Valley and the territory’s external spaces, with limited autonomy for isolated Palestinian enclaves — “the Whole Land [of Israel] strategically, and a Jewish state demographically” (Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation, PDF p.123-124).
Details
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Allon proposed that Israel retain permanent control over the Jordan Valley and grant limited autonomy to isolated Palestinian enclaves in the West Bank; the result would be “the Whole Land [of Israel] strategically, and a Jewish state demographically” (PDF p.123-124).
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The plan resolved the conundrum that Israel wanted the land but not the people: granting citizenship to all Palestinians under Israeli control would leave the population at most half Jewish, so the land would be controlled and settled without citizenship for its Palestinian residents (PDF p.124).
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Makdisi argues the Oslo Accords repackaged the plan’s principles: Palestinians treated as not a single people, the territory fragmented into discrete units separated by Israeli control, day-to-day administration transferred to a limited Palestinian government, and Israel keeping all external borders, airspace and territorial waters (PDF p.128-129).
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The same proportions recur at Camp David in 2000 and in Sharon’s disengagement plan: Israel retaining about half of the West Bank, the remainder handed in discontinuous pieces to some form of Palestinian self-rule (PDF p.140).
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The U.N.’s May 2007 map, as reported in the Financial Times and quoted by Makdisi, shows what remains for Palestinians “remarkably close to territory set aside for the Palestinian population in Israeli security proposals dating back to postwar 1967” (PDF p.140-141).
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In part 3 the plan is the template of the settlement programme’s first phase: under the Labor governments of 1967 to 1977, settlement concentrated on the Jordan Valley and followed the Allon Plan’s principles; Allon insisted, “We have never held territory,” “without settling it.” The Drobles Plan of 1978 then revised it, proposing settlement of the mountain ridge Allon had suggested avoiding (Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation, PDF p.171).
Related pages
Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation, Yigal Allon, Oslo Accords, Demographic problem, Transfer