The fallacy of parity, or ‘What’s mine is mine, and what’s yours will be mine’
defense minister benny Gantz recently announced his intention to approve construction plans for 2,000 housing units in judea and samaria, alongside approval of plans for 800 units in the arab villages of area C.
In a parallel development, prime minister naftali bennett prefaced his recent White house visit with a New York Times interview in which he declared that “Israel will continue the standard policy of [allowing construction to accommodate] natural [population] growth” in the jewish communities.
While these pronouncements were swirling through the Israeli and international media, the staff of the Civil administration, the authority responsible for carrying out government policy in area C, announced a work dispute, and suspended all committee hearings, proving that as far as the wonders of our bureaucracy are concerned, there is no doubt that Israeli “sovereignty” is deeply entrenched in area C.
beyond that, though, it is worth taking a moment to bring the larger picture into focus – and to get a clear understanding of what’s wrong with this picture, as it were. the facts indicate that the recent pronouncements by Gantz and bennett are nothing more than a smokescreen.
since the ratification of the oslo accords, the palestinian authority has been in control of areas a and b; this includes the authority to grant building permits as it sees fit. as of this writing, 70% of the territory under pa jurisdiction remains completely empty. the pa has the right, the obligation and the means to plan and build, to utilize this territory as it chooses, without any Israeli involvement whatsoever, and without any expectation of commensurate approval of jewish construction in pa-administered areas a and b – which are judenrein.
the fact that the pa chooses not to build in the areas under its own jurisdiction, and instead pours all of its resources into illegal construction in area C, is a choice – with very clear motivations. this very simple fact makes the current government’s capitulation to the biden administration’s demand for “construction parity” a dangerous precedent.
just as the americans have no expectation that the palestinian authority will match every construction permit issued in areas under pa jurisdiction with a commensurate approval for jewish construction, so too can there be no justification for the demand that every construction project approved by the state of Israel for jewish residents of the areas under Israeli jurisdiction be matched with projects for arabs.
to make matters worse, the asymmetry extends beyond the issue of demography, into the realm of geography. the area taken up by residential structures in the jewish sector, numbering about half a million residents (again, limited to area C) is only 3.5% of the total area under Israeli jurisdiction, whereas the area taken up by arab settlement in area C, which numbers about 200,000 people according to recent estimates, currently takes up more than double that area.
rather than counting the number of housing units approved for jewish versus arab residents of area C, the question we should be asking about the new construction projects is how many more square meters will this add to the area taken up by jewish settlement as opposed to the area that will be ceded to arab settlement in area C?
If these new projects will not add any area for jewish settlement, we’re being hoodwinked. and so it is: all of the projects that have been approved for the jewish sector are within the municipal lines of existing communities – in other words, land that has already been included in the calculation of jewish settlement, land that has already been slated for expansion of existing communities, and not one inch of actual growth of the jewish presence in judea and samaria. the majority of the projects involve urban-style construction – multi-story units that preserve land resources.
on the other hand, the projects for the arab sector, almost without exception, involve land that will be removed from Israeli jurisdiction and placed under palestinian authority control, adding new territory to the already-outsized tally of arab settlement.
another point that should be considered: the plans for the arab sector are based on “legalizing” existing illegal structures, coupled with plans to double or even triple the current “footprint.” Compare this with the “standard policy of allowing for natural growth” in the minuscule areas designated by law for jewish settlement.
It’s time to call a spade a spade: the plans under discussion are a wholesale whitewash of illegal arab outposts. If the dangerous equation between construction plans in the jewish and arab sectors is to be made, it should at the very least be a real and accurate equation: If the Israeli government intends to launch a new policy of wholesale legalization of arab outposts, it should treat illegal Israeli outposts with the same largesse.