Arabs in Area C? I thought Area C in Judea-Samaria (aka West Bank) was only Jewish.
The Oslo Accords, that created the Palestinian Authority, divided the land previously under Jordanian occupation until recaptured by Israel into Areas A, B, and C. Oy! What a mess!
In spite of having followed the news for many years, in spite of having taken an interest in the Oslo Accords and its repercussions for Israel and for the residents of the Palestinian Authority, I must admit that it took me a long time to understand the workings of the division of the region into Areas A, B and C. I am likely not alone in being confused. In fact, I asked questions of many people who I thought should be able to answer them and sometimes got an “I don’t know” even from them.
Many understand the divisions A, B, and C (detailed below), but just what does it mean — Arab homes in Area C? I was surprised when I first encountered mention of that. After all, that is the area that is under total Israeli civil and military authority and I understood that Arab population centers were either labelled Area A or Area B. Here is where I had to delve into the subject more deeply. I asked a number of people if there are legal Arab villages in Area C and some people told me there were, others said there are not and others said they did not know. I finally made sense of all of this. And it is a mess!
Understanding Areas A, B, and most especially C
The disputed territories discussed in the context of the Oslo Agreement were divided such that the larger Arab cities and their hinterlands are under the sole jurisdiction of the PA and comprise Area A. The PA is the precursor to what was eventually envisioned as the State of Palestine, a political unit that has never existed in history and still does not exist in spite of claims to the contrary.
Small Arab villages and their surrounding lands, over 400 hundred of them, comprise Area B (under PA civil administration and a conjoint Israeli-PA security arrangement). These villages form a set of isolated islands (or enclaves, as they are sometimes referred to) within a “sea” of land under exclusive Israeli jurisdiction, Area C.
There are no Jewish villages or communities in either Areas A or B.
There are a very few small Arab villages that are classified as being in Area C. Boaz Arazi, Head of the Legal Department at Regavim NGO, told me that we need to distinguish between the land and its residents. In other words, these villages sit on land that is classified as under Israeli control but the residents’ daily lives are run by the PA and not the Israeli Civil Administration. This means that their education, health and other services are provided by the PA.
It also means that the residents of these villages are citizens of the PA and not of Israel. They vote in PA elections (when they have them) and not in Israel’s elections. They have passports issued by the PA. In other words, claiming that the residents of these villages live under apartheid is simply not true.
However, because their village sits on land administered by Israel, they need to apply to the Israeli Civil Administration for building permits. I did warn you that it is a mess!
Why, one might ask, are there any Arab villages in Area C when Areas A and B are supposed to be the categories applicable to Arab populated sites? Arazi said that some, such as Tarqumiyah along Hwy 35 near Hebron, are in Area C for Israeli security reasons (full Israeli security control not shared with the PA as is Area B) and others, such as part of northern Bethlehem, are in Area C because of important religious sites, in this case, Rachel’s tomb. Remember, these designations were arrived at in negotiations and signed by both Israel and the PLO.
The lack of contiguity among Arab villages was intended as only a temporary condition as the final status negotiations were supposed to determine the borders between Israel and the yet-to-be-established Palestinian state. I asked Arazi why the negotiators would even agree to such an apparently irrational division of the land and he replied that the Israeli goal was to have as little control over the Arab population as possible while the PLO goal was to have control over as much of the Arab population as possible.
The fact that negotiations have never continued for various reasons is beyond the scope of this particular article, and it means that the uncomfortable situation is frozen as if in cryonic suspension. This suspension is not true for both sides, however; while Israel is accused by various international bodies of expanding her communities in Area C (perjoratively called “settlements” to correspond with what anti-Zionists erroneously regard as the Jewish settler-colonialist entity) on lands which she controls, by agreement, the Arabs are never criticized for building illegally. In fact, Israel is also accused of making it impossible for the Arabs to accommodate their growing population (so much for the accusation of genocide or ethnic cleansing) by not issuing building permits.
Building permits in Areas A and B are not under Israeli authority so complaints about refusals to approve these should be brought against the PA. Is there no room in Areas A and B to accommodate the growing Palestinian Arab population? The NGO Regavim has done the research and, in their report published in 2019, they show that 70% of the land area covered by Areas A and B are undeveloped, contradicting the claim that they have no room on which to grow. The only places where Israel is responsible for building permits are the small villages that actually are in Area C, but what is happening, in fact, is that the PA is building totally illegal outposts totally unconnected with these these legal sites.
Until when?
There is a contract that was signed between Arafat, on behalf of the Palestinian Arabs, and Peres and Rabin on behalf of Israel; the contract is known as the Oslo Accords. This, and the 1995 Interim Agreement that lays out all the details regarding division of authority created the situation under which both must abide until formally changed in some way.
In a phone conversation, former Israeli ambassador to Canada Alan Baker, who was involved in the Oslo Accords negotiations, told me that:
Any change can only come about as a result of agreement between the two sides, or as a result of a declaration that the [1995 Israeli-Palestinian] Interim Agreement is void and no longer binding, in which case each side would be free to do what it wants.
Until then, we have the absurd situation in which residents of a town are citizens of the PA while building permits must be sought from Israel. This means that construction carried out by the PA in Area C without license is illegal. Can this be considered a breach of contract that would anulment of the Accords? Who would favour anulment? Israel? The PA? Both? That is a topic for another day.
Israel is not supported on the Substack payment platform; therefore, I set up a way to make one-time donations or ongoing subscriptions in your own currency using Paypal (Buy me a Coffee, below) or the Ko-fi payment platform here. Israelis can send me a private message for another option.
Articles will always be free for all subscribers but a paid subscription or donation is a way to help me sustain myself while doing all the work involved in putting these articles together and would be greatly appreciated.
Thank-you to all those who have supported my work by subscribing and/or by donating coffees.
Thank you for this clear explanation. It cuts through the confusion and misunderstandings that plague the issues in Judea and Samaria. Much appreciated
I appreciate the way you get into the nuts and bolts here. Very helpful.