Correcting Oppression: Volume 2 - Areas A, B, & C
The West Bank is broken up into three “areas”:
These Areas were put into effect after the Oslo Accords in 1993. Israeli Settlements were withdrawn from Gaza in 2005. Gaza is a completely Palestinian area with no Israelis living in it whatsoever. These three areas I am talking about here are specific to the West Bank.
Area A - This area is under Palestinian civil and military control. It’s a totally Arab territory. It is illegal for Israeli citizens to enter it - except for Jewish Hebron. Hebron is an Arab city in the West Bank that has a Jewish settlement in the middle of it. As you can imagine, tensions are high in that city. The Jewish Hebron Settlement is not under Palestinian civil and military control, but under Israeli civil and military control as are all settlements. Area A makes up only 18% of the West Bank. I lived in Area A.
Area B - This area is under Palestinian civil control and Israeli military control. It is a shared space and less built up. Israel has jurisdiction over the Jewish inhabitants and military control over both Jews and Arabs. The Palestinian Authority has political, administrative, and police control over the Arab inhabitants. Area B makes up about 22% of the West Bank.
Area C - This area is under full Israeli civil and military control - it makes up 60% of the West Bank and, according to the Oslo Accords, was supposed to be gradually handed over to the Palestinians but is still in Israeli control to this day. This makes up the majority of the West Bank and it is under full Israeli control. Illegal Israeli settlements sweep across this area. There are roughly 300,000 Palestinian Arabs and 350,000 Israeli Jewish settlers living in this area. This means that the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank has no authority over these 300,000 Palestinians. Instead, Israel has civil and military control over all of the Palestinians living in this area. This is where the term “occupation” comes from. Occupation is defined as the holding and control of an area by a foreign military force. By definition Israel is the occupying force in the Land by controlling these areas by military force. The Israeli military has control of civilians who are not citizens of their country. These Palestinians do not have the rights of an Israeli and are yet governed and policed by Israel.
Life is especially tense and hard in Area C. Jewish settlements and Arab cities are right next to each other and there are hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Arabs that are being governed by their oppressors.
Area C is also what connects the small islands of areas A and B. So, the fact that some of those roads are restricted in Area C means that for Palestinians getting from area B to area A is very difficult. Many Palestinians have families living all across the West Bank. In order to get to them they must go through Israeli checkpoints set up all throughout the West Bank and can be denied access at any of these checkpoints. These checkpoints are inefficiently run and, at times, take hours to go through. Many Palestinians are denied access arbitrarily to what is supposed to be their own territory. Even in Area A, that is under full Palestinian control (military and civil), there are still Israeli checkpoints. I lived in area A - full Palestinian control - and I was stopped by Israeli “pop-up” checkpoints more than once. At the end of the day Israel has military control of the entire land from the Jordan river to the coast. They enter and exit whenever and wherever they want.
All of this means that in the area allocated to the Palestinians (the entire West Bank), Israel has control over 82% of it (areas B and C). And in the 18% that the Palestinians have control over (area A), the Israeli military makes its presence known by frequent raids, pop-up checkpoints, and Israeli controlled roads sweeping throughout the entire West Bank.
So, though the West Bank is considered Palestinian Territory, only 18% of it is self-governed. This is military occupation. This also means that the Jewish people living in Settlements in the West Bank are citizens of Israel and can vote for its government, have free movement, and have due process. The Palestinians living in the West Bank have none of those Israeli rights, yet they live under Israeli military and civil law.
For the two people groups living in the West Bank, there are two different systems of law given by the same government and military. This is where the term apartheid comes form. Apartheid means “apartness” and has been historically used to describe the racist law system that was in South Africa until the 90s. Many activists and Palestinians liken the Israeli law system to the apartheid in South Africa. It was defined by intentional racial segregation with one law system for black people and another for white. The likeness is pretty clear for those living in the West Bank who are ruled by a country that they have no rights in.
To explain more of the Palestinian life in Area C read:
https://www.btselem.org/.../201306_acting_the_landlord
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