Palestine -- Dismantling the Matrix of Control

Jeff Halper, professor of anthropology at Ben Gurion University, is coordinator of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions.

East Asians have a game called "Go." Unlike the Western game of chess, where two opponents try to "defeat" each other by taking off pieces, the aim of "Go" is completely different. You "win" not by defeating, but by immobilizing your opponent by controlling key points on the matrix. This strategy was used effectively in Vietnam, where small forces of Viet Cong were able to pin down and virtually paralyze some half-million American soldiers possessing overwhelming fire-power.

In effect, Israel has done the same thing to the Palestinians on the West Bank, in Gaza, and in East Jerusalem. Since 1967 it has put into place a matrix, similar to that of the "Go" board, that has virtually paralyzed the Palestinian population. The matrix is composed of several overlapping layers.

First is the actual physical control of key links and nodes that create the matrix of control: settlements and their extended "master plans"; a massive system of highways and by-pass roads (including wide "sanitary" margins); army bases and industrial parks at key locations; closed military areas; "nature preserves"; control of aquifers and other natural resources; internal checkpoints and control of all border crossings; areas "A," "B," "C," "D," "H-1," "H-2"; Israeli-controlled holy places in key locations; and much more. These define the matrix of constricted Palestinian enclaves and effectively divide them from one another. They also give Israel control of key "nodes."

The second layer of the matrix is bureaucratic and "legal:" all the planning, permits, and policies that entangle the Palestinian population in a tight web of restrictions. These include political zoning of land as "agricultural" in order to freeze the natural development of towns and villages; a politically motivated system of building permits, enforced by house demolitions, designed to confine the population to its constricted enclaves; land expropriation for (solely Israeli) "public purposes"; restrictions of planting and the wholesale destruction of Palestinian crops; licensing and inspection of Palestinian businesses; closure; restrictions on movement and travel; and more. Although Israel is careful to present its policies as "legal," in fact they are not. The failure to guarantee Palestinians the basic human rights provided by the Geneva Convention and other international covenants--which Israel has signed--is patently illegal. The extensive use of the Israeli court system, which invariably rules against Palestinians, as a means of controlling the local population, makes a mockery of the link between law and justice. All these confine Palestinians to isolated cantons, control their movement, and maintain Israeli hegemony.

The third layer of the matrix involves the use of violence to maintain control over the matrix: the military occupation itself, including massive imprisonment and torture; the extensive use of collaborators to control the local population; pressures exerted on families to sell their lands; the undemocratic, arbitrary, and violent rule of the Military Commander of the West Bank and the Civil Administration. What Israelis know of this system they justify in terms of "security."

The average Israeli has no concept of this matrix, and so for most Israelis "peace" means simply giving up the minimum territory that would "satisfy" the Palestinians, and ending "terrorism." Palestinians are highly attuned to the presence of the matrix, since they hit up against it every time they move, but they must comprehend it as an integrated system of control if they hope to dismantle it. Netanyahu often justified his "haggling" over this or that percentage of land by pointing out that 1% of the West Bank equals the size of Tel Aviv. It is crucial that the Palestinians realize this as well, for they can wrest 99% of the Occupied Territories from Israel and still fail to dismantle the "matrix of control." An area the size of Tel Aviv divided into ten or twenty small points of control will rob the Palestinian state of its viability. It is not territory alone that is important, although contiguous territory is essential for a viable state. Eliminating the key nodes of control is no less crucial.

The structure and workings of the matrix are extremely subtle, however, and knowing how to dismantle it requires careful analysis. Some control points are obvious. The settlement of Ma'aleh Adumim plays a key role in creating a "Greater Jerusalem" and preventing territorial contiguity. The "E-1" area of 13,000 dunums that Israel annexed after the elections brings Ma'aleh Adumim all the way to Jerusalem. Among the developments that Israel plans for that crucial "hole" are ten hotels, tourist facilities, an entertainment and sports center, office complexes, an extension of the Hebrew University, industrial parks, a regional parking facility, a waste-disposal facility, a cemetery, and 1500 housing units for Israelis, all connected to Jerusalem, Modi'in, and Tel Aviv by major highways. "Greater Jerusalem" (extending from Modi'in and Givat Ze'ev in the west almost to the Jordan River in the east) effectively cuts the West Bank in two. Moreover, the system of Israeli roads on the West Bank converges in Ma'aleh Adumim. Israel only has to declare Ma'aleh Adumim a "closed military area," as it has done in the past, and it can paralyze movement throughout the West Bank and Jerusalem. Even if the Palestinians gain control of the surrounding region, leaving only that one settlement fully preserves the matrix of control.

Indeed, settlements are crucial to preserving the matrix not so much because of the land they occupy, but because of the control mechanisms that surround them. Only 1.5% of the West Bank is taken up by settlements, but their master plans cover more than 6% (15-20% if we add in Greater Jerusalem and--a new concept--"metropolitan" Jerusalem). But every settlement brings with it other mechanisms of control: a supporting infrastructure of roads, industrial areas, military installations, "security" arrangements such as checkpoints, and much more. Whether the settlements are "consolidated" into "blocs" or remain isolated (yet strategically-located), the effect is the same: the neutralizing of any territorial gain achieved by the Palestinians.

Other nodes of control are much less obvious, however. The narrow strip of "Area C" on the road between Ramallah and Bir Zeit, just wide enough for one Israeli military jeep, is sufficient for controlling movement in that area. A narrow Israeli strip between Bethlehem and Beit Sahour, as well as other slivers like it all over the West Bank, similarly preserves the matrix of control. Even access roads are crucial. The Israeli road being built around Anata will effectively block that community's growth if no access is provided. If an access road is built, Anata is free to expand to the east and south (thus potentially blocking the encirclement of southwest Jerusalem by Pisgat Ze'ev and Ma'aleh Adumim, essential for isolating East Jerusalem from the West Bank).

The only way to really dismantle the matrix is to eliminate it completely, although a "security timetable" probably must be agreed upon to address Israeli concerns. In the end, however, true dismantling means removing all barriers to territorial contiguity and freedom of movement from Palestinian territory: settlements, by-pass roads, checkpoints, "security areas," and all the other ingenious obstacles to viability. It means complete Palestinian control of border crossings with the surrounding Arab states, and replacing closure and checkpoints into Israel by normal (and minimal) border arrangements agreed upon by both sides. (Israel's present construction of a massive Erez-type crossing point between Bethlehem and Jerusalem, which only strengthens Israel's military besiegement of the Palestinian city and conveys a hard-line policy of "separation" rather than neighborly interaction, does not bode well in this regard.)

If, for insurmountable reasons, some Israeli presence is allowed to remain in Palestine, it is imperative that it not constitute an instrument of control. Understanding the matrix and its workings is critical if Palestine is not to become merely a bantustan. Defining what a viable peace means to the Palestinians and then developing their own program to achieve it; bringing to the negotiations their own agendas, their own maps, their own vision, accompanied by an analysis of the matrix of control and how to dismantle it--only all this will bring the just and viable peace upon which the future of our peoples depends.