The Israel-Palestine difference and “What do we do
with PEOPLE living in the disputed territories?”
In
order to apply the EGALITARIAN SHARED SOVEREIGNTY to the Israel-Palestine
difference, first we have to comprehend and clearly define what we mean by
“people” in the context of this TERRITORIAL DISPUTE.
In other words: who may be
part of “Israel” as a claiming party and who may be part of “Palestine” as a
claiming party in the negotiations?
Often,
research, the media and people at large refer to the Israel-Palestine
difference as including Israelis and Palestinians. To an extent, the reference
is correct. Yet, this statement is not accurate.
We
may distinguish:
- People living in Israel (a de jure and de facto sovereign state)
- People living in Palestine (a de facto state)
- Diaspora
- Refugees
- Settlers in contested lands
1. People living in Israel
On
Israel's 70th birthday in April 2018, Israel's population stood at a
record 8,842,000.
The
Jewish population makes up 6,589,000 (74.5%); 1,849,000 (20.9%) are Arabs; and,
those identified as "others" (non-Arab Christians, Baha'i, etc.) make
up 4.6% of the population (404,000 people).
In
addition to these numbers, there are approximately 169,000 people living in
Israel who are neither citizens nor permanent residents.
Out
of the 14.3 million Jewish people in the world, 43% reside in Israel.
Of
Israeli Jews, 44% self-identify as secular, 11% simply as religious, and 9% as
ultra-Orthodox. According to the Israel Democracy Institute, the percentage of
ultra-Orthodox is slightly higher.
2. People living in Palestine
4,816,503
Palestinians (2,935,368 in the West Bank, 1,881,135 in the Gaza strip, 426, 533
in Jerusalem, and the rest in other areas).
3. Diaspora (Israel)
In
the context of this blog series TERRITORIAL DISPUTES, diaspora means the Jewish
people living in different parts of the world outside Israel, or the various
places outside Israel in which they live (definition based on the Cambridge
dictionary).
4. Refugees (Palestine)
In
the context of this blog series TERRITORIAL DISPUTES, refugee means a person
who has escaped from their own country for political, religious, or economic
reasons or because of a war (definition based on the Cambridge dictionary).
“The projected number of Palestinians living
in State of Palestine at the end of 2015 is 4.75 million: around 2.90 million
reside in the West Bank and 1.85 million in Gaza Strip. Palestinian refugees
make up 42.8% of the Palestinian population in Palestine: 27.1% of them in the
West Bank and 67.3% in Gaza Strip. Palestine is facing a rapid population
growth and large youthful population with 69% below the age of 29. The
population growth rate stands high at 2.8% and it is expected to remain stable
due to decline in mortality rates while fertility rate remains one of the
highest in the Arab region standing at 4.06, with high disparity between Gaza
and West Bank, 4.5 and 3.6 respectively. Furthermore, the current
population density is a serious concern in Gaza Strip reaching more than 4500
inhabitants per one square kilometer.”
5. Settlers in contested lands
“We define settlement as political action
involving the organized movement of a population belonging to one national
group into a territory in order to create a permanent presence and influence
patterns of sovereignty in the settled territory.”
“Simply stated, in the modern era of
nationalism, settlers and settlements have served as mechanisms of control and
territorial expansion over disputed territories.”
“What has always been important for shaping
the patterns of sovereignty is for the settler population to be identified as
belonging to the racial, ethnic, or national community to which the sending
state belongs, thus boosting the prospect of settler loyalty to the settlement
project. THE PURPOSE OF SETTLERS, THEREFORE, HAS TYPICALLY BEEN TO PERFORM THE
FUNCTION… “RIGHT-PEOPLING” THE TERRITORY.” (my capitalization).
“Jewish Israeli settlers in the West Bank
constitute one of multiple actors with competing visions and priorities.
Interestingly, the lack of unified vision and consistent policy has not
prevented the settlement endeavor from growing.”
“This case is thus an example where conflict
over contested territories cannot be fully understood in terms of relations
between a sending state and an indigenous population. Rather, settlers
configure a third consequential actor within the relationship.”
Quotations
from: Haklai, Oded and Loizides, Neophytos. 2015. Settlers in Contested Lands.
Territorial Disputes and Ethnic Conflicts. Stanford, California: Stanford
University Press.
NOTE:
This post is based on Jorge Emilio Núñez, “Territorial Disputes and State
Sovereignty: International Law and Politics,” London and New York: Routledge,
Taylor and Francis Group, 2020 (forthcoming)
Previous
published research monograph about territorial disputes and sovereignty by the
author, Jorge Emilio Núñez, “Sovereignty Conflicts and International Law and
Politics: A Distributive Justice Issue,” London and New York: Routledge, Taylor
and Francis Group, 2017.
NEXT
POST: The Israel-Palestine difference and the egalitarian shared sovereignty
applied to people
Thursday 16th January 2020
Dr Jorge Emilio Núñez
Twitter: @London1701
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