Palestinian enclaves

The official Israeli government map of the Oslo II Accord, highlighting the Palestinian enclaves in yellow
Area A and B under the Oslo II Accord
The official United States government map of the Trump peace plan, highlighting the Palestinian enclaves and the proposed transport corridors in green. (The tunnel to Gaza and proposed lands in the Negev Desert are not shown.)
Proposal in the Trump peace plan (including a tunnel to Gaza and parts of the Negev Desert)

The Palestinian enclaves are areas in the West Bank designated for Palestinians under a variety of unsuccessful U.S. and Israeli-led proposals to end the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.[1] The enclaves are often compared to the nominally self-governing black homelands created in apartheid-era South Africa,[a] and are thus referred to as bantustans.[b][c] They have been referred to figuratively as the Palestinian archipelago,[d] among other terms. The de facto status in 2024 is that Israel controls all area outside these enclaves.

The "islands" first took official form as Areas A and B under the 1995 Oslo II Accord. This arrangement was explicitly intended to be temporary, with Area C (the rest of the West Bank) to "be gradually transferred to Palestinian jurisdiction" by 1997; however, no such transfer was made.[4][5][e] The area of the West Bank currently under partial civil control of the Palestinian National Authority is composed of 165 "islands".[f] The creation of this arrangement has been described by Israeli journalist Amira Hass as "the most outstanding geopolitical occurrence of the past quarter century".[g]

A number of Israeli-U.S. peace plans, including the Allon Plan, the Drobles World Zionist Organization plan, Menachem Begin's plan, Benjamin Netanyahu's "Allon Plus" plan, the 2000 Camp David Summit, and Sharon's vision of a Palestinian state have proposed an enclave-type territory – i.e. a group of non-contiguous areas surrounded, divided, and, ultimately, controlled by Israel;[h][i] as has the more recent Trump peace plan.[6][7] This has been referred to as the "Bantustan option".[j]

The consequences of the creation of these fragmented Palestinian areas has been studied widely, and has been shown to have had a "devastating impact on the economy, social networks, [and] the provision of basic services such as healthcare and education".[k]

  1. ^ Chaichian 2013, pp. 271–319.
  2. ^ Yiftachel 2016, p. 320.
  3. ^ Boyle 2011, pp. 13–17, p.60.
  4. ^ Niksic, Eddin & Cali 2014, p. 1.
  5. ^ Harris 1984, pp. 169–189.
  6. ^ Srivastava 2020.
  7. ^ UNHRC 2020.


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