The original blueprint for Israel’s indigenous restoration project in Judea and Samaria was drawn up as beginning in 1977 with the founding of Israel’s Deep State which was tasked with centuries-scale national planning. The underlying plan can be studied through the strategic locations of restored indigenous communities and recurring patterns in the Oslo map.
The Oslo map is essentially politically flexible in the sense that it both prevents and enables the emergence of a Palestinian state, whichever is currently preferred. The archipelago structure of Area A/B islands in a sea of Area C effectively pacified the Palestinians and the Palestinian movement by making them fully dependent on Israel for transportation between Area A/B enclaves while Israel remained in control over all strategic aspects.
The Oslo map is intended to become permanent with some minor modifications. The many enclaves are intended to eventually be connected with each other through territorial intersections as in the 1947 UNGA partition map and the two archipelagos of small islands, one east of Givat Ze’ev and south of the Talmonim bloc and another west of Ariel, including Qalqilyah, will be merged into larger areas. The territorial intersections will mutually optimize both Palestinian contiguity and Israeli contiguity and allow unhindered Palestinian transportation across the Palestinian areas without Israeli checkpoints. Most territorial intersections will have four sections – two Palestinian and two Israeli – while some territorial intersections will have six or eight sections – half of them Israeli and half of them Palestinian meeting at different levels across the very same point. The E1 project is typical of how the world does not understand the indigenous restoration project in Judea and Samaria as a four-way territorial intersection will ensure mutual territorial contiguity for Palestine and Israel alike, North-South contiguity for Palestine and East-West contiguity for Israel.
The plan is based on maintaining Israeli strategic military control over Judea and Samaria through East-West corridors and North-South corridors, planned Israeli extraterritorial tunnels under Palestinian areas, planned Palestinian extraterritorial tunnels under Israeli areas as well as blocs of restored indigenous communities while simultaneously permitting a contiguous Palestinian state to emerge alongside Israel while Israel maintains overarching strategic control, including control of the airspace and the electromagnetic spectrum. The underlying concept is to maintain Israeli strategic control while allowing Palestinian self-determination in approximately 45% of Judea and Samaria while later offering Palestine to annex the three Palestinian regions (Central Galilee, the ”Triangle” towns bordering Samaria and the Bedouin region of Northeast Negev) of Israel as part of an eventual peace agreement. An interesting aspect is that the plan does not maximize Israeli territorial control but only retains territory that is necessary for maintaining Israeli security. The project has always been promoted to the public as if spearheaded by grassroots activists when in fact it was the result of prior strategic central planning since 1977.
The map is designed primarily for Israel to ensure rapid Israeli victory in any war between Israel and Palestine. Hence has Israel established communities overlooking all Palestinian cities to be able to quickly cut them off in case of war. The strategic purpose of the map is to make sure that the Palestinian state is strategically deterred from launching war or terrorism against Israel as Israel can temporarily end Palestinian territorial contiguity across territorial intersections and close Palestinian extraterritorial tunnels under Israeli territory in times of war.
A war between Israel and the Palestinian state would have calamitous consequences for the Palestinians who would flee Israeli bombardment of terrorist targets in the millions eastward across the Jordan Valley to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. While not expelled to Jordan, no Israeli government would ever allow them to come back. The planners of the map thus prepared for war but were also quite confident that the architecture of the map would deter irredentist war and keep the peace. Importation of foreign troops (e.g. from Pakistan or Malaysia) would be a casus belli for Israel and the Palestinian state would be demilitarized. The Israeli permanent status plan is to apply sovereignty in the approximately 55% of Judea and Samaria while effectively allowing a Palestinian state to emerge in the remaining 45%.
Israel has planned for two and a half Palestinian corridors connecting Palestinian territory with Jordan in the Jordan Valley. In the north the ”half-corridor” connects the Palestinian Nablus-Jenin region with the Bardala Palestinian area in the northern Jordan valley with a planned extraterritorial tunnel continuing to the Jordanian border. The central Palestinian territorial corridor in the Jordan Valley contains the Jiftlik region Palestinian communities and connects Tammun with Jordan. The southern Palestinian territorial corridor starts southeast of the Shilo bloc and runs eastward towards Fasayil where it turns southwards to al-Auja where it is connected with Jordan. The southern extension of the southern corridor is already established in the Oslo map between al-Auja and Jericho and will be extended to connect Jericho with the Betlehem-Hebron region across the Judean Desert. In addition the Bedouin region in Northeastern Negev would be territorially connected with Jordan north of the Dead Sea works and south of the remaining Dead Sea.
The Yatir corridor would extend from north of Rahat through Arad, along the shores of the Dead Sea all the way to the restored indigenous community of Naomi east of Jericho. The Central Galilee Palestinian region would have access to the Mediterranean Sea through the old city of Acre. Furthermore, the Halutza dunes have been assigned in Israeli planning for close settlement in skyscrapers of hundreds of thousands or even millions of descendants of Palestinian refugees. The Halutza region would be connected with Gaza and the Bedouin Palestinian region through extraterritorial tunnels and similarly would the Central Galilee Palestinian region and the Bedouin Palestinian region be connected with the West Bank through extraterritorial tunnels. There would be an extraterritorial tunnel between Gaza and the city of Rahat in the Bedouin region. The ”Triangle” towns would be merged with the West Bank Palestinian areas. All Druze and Christian villages/neighborhoods would be part of Israel.
In East Jerusalem, the southern and northern Palestinian neighborhoods would be part of Palestine while the Old City, Silwan, A-Tur, Ras al-Amud and Sheikh Jarrah neighborhoods would remain part of Israel. Ethnically Christian descendants of Palestinian refugees would possibly be allowed entry into Israel but no one else among descendants of Palestinian refugees would be allowed to settle in Israel but would instead be offered to settle in a major urban area with skyscrapers in the Halutza dunes which are currently part of Israel. All Jewish and partly Jewish communities would be part of Israel.
The result is a fully contiguous Palestinian state without enclaves encompassing most Palestinians in the Western Land of Israel. All parts of the Palestinian state would be contiguous with either Jordan or Egypt with the exception of the Central Galilee which would be connected with the Mediterranean Sea.
Israeli strategic West-East Corridors from north to south:
Upper Galilee corridor
Karmiel corridor
Haifa-Kinneret corridor
Nof Hagalil corridor
Lower Galilee corridor
Hadera-Mehola corridor (with two planned tunnels under Area A)
Kfar Saba-Elon Moreh corridor (with one planned tunnel under Area B)
Kfar Saba-Itamar corridor (with one planned tunnel under Area B)
Ariel corridor (with two openings to the Jordan valley through an 8-section territorial intersection)
Ateret corridor (with two openings to the Jordan valley through a 6-section territorial intersection)
Talmonim-Kokhav Hashachar corridor (with one planned tunnel under Area B)
Givat Ze’ev corridor (with one tunnel under construction)
Jerusalem corridor
Gush Etzion corridor
Adora-Asfar corridor
Yatir corridor
Yeruham corridor
The seventeen West-East corridors are primarily for the transfer of troops and military hardware from the coastal plain where most of the Jewish population lives to the eastern borders were the Eastern front to be reactivated. Many restored indigenous communities are situated in corridors. The restored indigenous communities in and around metropolitan Jerusalem including the Etzion bloc (Hebrew: Gush Etzion) are intended to provide strategic depth to the city of Jerusalem, the capital of Israel. The Talmonim bloc and the Karnei Shomron bloc similarly are intended to provide strategic depth to Gush Dan, i.e. metropolitan Tel Aviv. The Central Jordan Valley bloc is the eastern end of the Ariel corridor, the Kfar Saba-Itamar corridor, the Kfar Saba-Elon Moreh corridor and the Shilo exit of the Ateret corridor. The Itamar, Yitzhar, Har Bracha and Elon Moreh fingers as well as the Shilo bloc provide strategic depth to the highly strategic Central Jordan Valley bloc itself. The Hadera-Mehola corridor connects the coastal plain with the Northern Jordan Valley bloc. The Southern Jordan Valley bloc is part of greater Jerusalem and the Ofra finger provides it with strategic depth. The Kadim finger connects Afula with the Hadera-Mehola corridor. The Hinanit-Katzir bloc straddles the Green line and is intended to assure strategic depth where the narrow waist is at its most narrow in replacing the strategic Palestinian Wadi Ara area inside pre-1967 Israel which is ceded to Palestine.
North-South Corridors:
Mevo Dotan-Ariel corridor
Har Bracha-Ma’aleh Adumim corridor
Halamish-Arad corridor
Telem-Negohot corridor
Hagai-Shima corridor
Eastern Gush Etzion corridor
Afula-Kfar Saba corridor
Most of the corridors, both West-East corridors and the North-South corridors are intended also for future railway traffic which would substantially increase military transportation capacity in wartime, particularly when facing an invasion from the east. It is particularly important for troops and military hardware to reach the eastern borders as quickly as possible and using both trucks and trains increases that capacity substantially. The planners of the renewed indigenous communities have prioritized establishing many small communities (villages) some of which over the years grow into large towns. Establishing cities have not been a priority although this is intended to change in the future, particularly as most privately owned land in areas where Israel applies sovereignty is expropriated for construction of restored indigenous communities, including cities. Israel intends for the restored indigenous population of Judea and Samaria to grow into several millions and so cities are necessary to accommodate that.
The partition plan has three stages of implementation beyond construction of roads, railways, tunnels, territorial intersections and restored indigenous communities. First Israel applies sovereignty to most of Area C and the Jewish community of Hebron. Second Israel disengages from areas of Judea and Samaria to which it has not applied sovereignty. Third, if the situation remains peaceful for a number of years, Israel offers the internationally recognized Palestinian state to annex the three Palestinian regions of Israel as well as the Halutza dunes as part of a permanent status agreement. The third stage depends on the Palestinian willingness to end the conflict and sign end of claims and it may take decades until Palestine becomes ready for peace.
The Oslo process was conceived in the Hobbesian Middle East where two warring parties temporarily had overlapping interests. Yasser Arafat and the rest of the PLO leadership lived in Tunisia since 1983 and were desperate to get a foothold in Judea and Samaria in order to implement the rejectionist Phased Plan (1974 PLO Ten Point Plan) which in Article 2 envisioned the establishment of a ”national authority” in ”liberated territories”. Palestinian National Authority or PNA is not incidentally what the PA officially calls itself. Israel had no illusions about the PLO’s genocidal intentions towards the Jewish people but saw an opportunity to implement a version of Begin’s 1977 Autonomy Plan which was a plan for semi-permanent autonomy which is also what was implemented. The convergence of the two plans provided for temporarily overlapping interests between the two parties. Israel’s full control over Judea and Samaria provided substantial Israeli leverage in the ensuing negotiations in terms of what diplomatic payment Israel could demand in return for handing over particular territories which it anyway did not want to administer since Israel had no interest in administering the Palestinian population, something which it regarded as a burden on its military.
Israel transferred territories to the PA in several stages, yet the Palestinian side, although cognizant that the Oslo map would become semi-permanent, had no idea that the Israelis through the interim map would implement the Israeli vision of permanent partition of Judea and Samaria. Although the Oslo Accords prescribed permanent status negotiations the Israelis with their deep intelligence penetration of the PLO were quite aware that the Palestinian side had no interest in ending the conflict, in fact quite the contrary. The Israelis therefore knew that any ”generous” proposal for final status would be rejected if it involved signing end of claims, including terminating the refugee issue. However, Jerusalem had already transferred the territories it intended to transfer and had thus already implemented its permanent partition map in Judea and Samaria. As a resolution of the conflict was not yet possible due to the PLO rejection of a Jewish state in any borders, both sides sought to maximize its respective interests.
Was the Oslo process a failure? For the Israeli Deep State it was successful because they attained all their intended objectives in turning the PLO into a collaborator militia which obviated the need for Israeli military administration over most Palestinians in Judea and Samaria while the indigenous restoration project continued apace. For the Palestinian side what initially seemed like a victorious homecoming, there was increasing realization that Oslo was an Israeli trap though Palestinian leaders initially thought they were the ones setting a trap for the Israelis in realizing the Phased Plan. The nature of the Israeli partition project with the Area A/B islands in the sea of Area C pacified the Palestinians and prevented the realization of the Phased Plan. Despite official rhetoric the Oslo process was never intended to lead to a two-state solution. The PA would like to see an Israeli withdrawal from Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem but not in return for peace but rather as part of a resumed implementation of the Phased Plan.
What about the future? It is possible and even likely that a future Republican president in the United States, particularly if influenced by Christian Zionism, would approve and recognize an Israeli application of sovereignty in parts of Judea and Samaria. This in turn would pave the way for a disengagement from remaining non-annexed areas in Judea and Samaria. It is unlikely that a disengagement from parts of Judea and Samaria would lead to war considering the immense risks involved for the Palestinians. The IDF would remain present in the Israeli-annexed parts of Judea and Samaria and could thus prevent a Hamas take-over of Palestinian areas. How long time would it take before Palestine becomes ready to let go of the Phased Plan and embrace peace, including territorial compensation in the form of the three Palestinian regions in Israel and the Halutza dunes? It could potentially take decades or even half a century or more.
Two factors would determine whether Palestine would embrace peace or choose continued conflict. First is the assessment whether Israeli Palestinians constitute a demographic challenge against the Jewish majority considering that Israeli Muslims already have a lower fertility rate than Israeli Jews. Considering that there is no “demographic threat” this would incline towards agreed Palestinian annexation of the three Palestinian regions of Israel. The second factor is whether Palestinians are ready to end the conflict and sign end of claims, including giving up demographic demands for mass immigration of millions of Palestinians to Israel. So far that has not been the case but this may change in the future if the conflict is recognized by the Palestinians as a cul-de-sac.
Prevailing interpretations of international law have been developed in ways that systematically discriminate against America and Israel based on double standards and unlegislated law. America and Israel cannot be expected to abide by such prejudice and bigotry as designed to systematically discriminate against Americans and Israelis whereby virtually anything they do would be deemed ”illegal”, ”criminal” etc.
The uninformed view held universally among critics of restored indigenous communities in Judea and Samaria is that these are intended to control Palestinians, oppress Palestinians, prevent a Palestinian state, permanently fragment the Palestinians and keep them indefinitely under Israeli military rule. The international community needs to revise its uninformed view of the indigenous restoration project in Judea and Samaria and understand that it actually advances peace and prevents genocide. There will be no return to the Auschwitz lines, never again!
