Allon Plan

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The Allon Plan (Hebrew: תָּכְנִית אַלּוֹן) was a political proposition that outlined potential next steps for Israel after the 1967 Arab–Israeli War. It was drafted by Israeli politician Yigal Allon following Israel's seizure of territory from Syria, Jordan, and Egypt; the Israeli military had come to occupy Syria's Golan Heights, the Jordanian-annexed West Bank and the Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip, and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula. Allon advocated a partitioning of the West Bank between Israel and Jordan, the creation of a sovereign state for Druze in the Golan Heights, and the return of most of the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt.

Map showing would-be territorial control under the Allon Plan of 1967

Broader aims of the Allon Plan in partitioning the West Bank were to enable an Israeli annexation of East Jerusalem, the Etzion Bloc, and most of the Jordan Valley (from the Jordan River to the eastern slopes of the hill ridge). All remaining parts of the West Bank, containing the majority of Palestinians, were to be returned to Jordan — connected to the country by a corridor through Jericho — or reorganized as Palestinian autonomous territory. However, the Allon Plan was rejected by Jordanian king Hussein.

Allon died in 1980 and his proposition was never implemented, though the Sinai Peninsula had been returned as part of the Egypt–Israel peace treaty in 1979. In 1981, the Israeli government passed the Golan Heights Law, effectively annexing the territory captured from Syria.

Territorial implications

The Allon Plan was based on the doctrine that Israeli sovereignty over a large part of the

the state's Jewish demographic orientation.[2]

Yigal Allon presented the plan when he served as Minister of Labor under Mapai Prime Minister

Etzion bloc. At the same time, the heavily populated areas of the West Bank hill country, together with a corridor that included Jericho, would be offered to Jordan.[3]

The plan also included the creation of a

Druze state in Syria's Quneitra Governorate, including the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.[4]

Jordanian sovereignty or Palestinian autonomy

After the Six-Day War, Israeli leaders considered two possibilities to end the occupation: either the "

Jordanian option", holding the transfer of control for most of the territory of the West Bank to the Jordanian monarch, or alternatively the "Palestinian option", under which the Palestinians would get autonomy or an independent state.[5]

The majority of the Government, including Yigal Allon, favored the Palestinian option. In June 1967, according to journalist Reuven Pedatzur, writing in 2007 in an article in

a bi-national state, the Arab citizens of the West Bank should be granted a special status. A quasi-independent autonomous region was the first option.[5]

Presentation

On 27 July 1967, Allon presented the first version of his plan based on the Palestinian option, which included Palestinian autonomy in the West Bank. The autonomous region consisted of two large enclaves, separated by the Greater Jerusalem area, from Israel in the west to the Jordan Valley in the east. A vast majority of the ministers rejected the plan when it was brought before the plenary session of the government on 30 July.

At the beginning of 1968, Allon abandoned the Palestinian option and instead adopted the Jordanian option. He adapted the Allon Plan by adding a corridor between the West Bank and Jordan through the Jericho area, proposing that the Jordan Valley remain in Israeli hands along with Gush Etzion, part of the Hebron foothills and East Jerusalem. All the remainder would be handed over to King Hussein. Most of the members of the Government then backed the Allon Plan as the basis of the policy.[5]

Diplomatic efforts

From February to September 1968, Eshkol held secret talks with Palestinian leaders in the Occupied Territories without result.

UN Resolution 242, including the statement that territories cannot be acquired by force.[5] While Israel would remain military control over all of the West Bank and annex about one-third of the territory, Jordan would get political control over the remaining two-thirds. Eventually King Hussein broke off the talks.[6][7] Israel wanted to keep Gaza, but did not rule out discussions on its future. The return of East Jerusalem was not open for discussion.[8]

Basis for Israel's settlement policy

During the first decade of the occupation, the

bypass roads: the Allon Road in the western and Route 90 in the eastern Jordan Valley. The Palestinians see the Jordan Valley, the most fertile part of the West Bank with important water resources, as the breadbasket for the future Palestinian State.[12]

In June 1967, Israel de facto annexed

ring of Israeli settlements
that separates Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank.

During and after the failed 2013-14 Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, renewed discussions appeared in the press about ideas from Israeli politicians to annex Area C.[14] Area C includes the Jordan Valley, but encloses a much larger area.

Corridor to Hebron

While Hebron was predestined in the Allon Plan to be part of the Palestinian autonomous region, in 1968 Israel made it clear to Jordan that apart from the annexation of the Jordan Valley, it also wanted a strip of territory running to the Hebron area.[8] Two years later, the Labor Government approved the building of the Kiryat Arba settlement, just outside the eastern municipality border. Kiryat Arba both marked the western border of the Israeli-claimed territory in the Allon Plan and blocked the Palestinian build-up area of Hebron in the east. In the following years Jewish settlements were established at the southern outskirts of the Old City. In 1994, Israel closed the Palestinian shops in Al-Shuhada Street and prohibited Palestinian access. In the years from 2002, the Worshippers Way from Kiryat Arba to the Cave of the Patriarchs was built. With the creation of a Palestinian-free route between Kiryat Arba and the Shuhada region, the planned strip from the Jordan Valley to Hebron was finished.

Israeli political opinions

On 18 May 1973, the American Embassy in Israel sent a diplomatic cable to the Secretary of State in Washington DC on the subject of then-Defence Minister "Dayan's Thinking on Possible Peace Arrangements with Jordan and Egypt". The cable contained accounts of discussions with Dayan's close political ally, Deputy Transportation Minister

better source needed] According to Yaacobi, Dayan was "preparing" for a greater "degree of autonomy for West Bank municipalities", while Dayan envisaged the "rest of the West Bank population though living under Israeli sovereignty as being fullfledged Jordanian citizens", with the exception of Ramallah's and Bethlehem's inhabitants, "who would become Israeli citizens."[16] Yaacobi further stated that the media had misrepresented Dayan as being prepared to return most, if not all, of the West Bank to Jordan; he was not. Dayan felt it was important for Israelis to settle outside the lines of the Allon Plan, though not within Arab municipalities. The Greater Jerusalem area should be expanded to include Ramallah and Bethlehem, with Israeli citizenship granted its Arab inhabitants. Dayan envisaged a metropolitan Nablus-Jenin complex under the sovereignty of "the Arab nation east of the Jordan", an enclave smaller than the one outlined in the Allon Plan, and, unlike the provisions of the Allon Plan, internal security responsibilities would fall on the Israeli military in cooperation with Arab police.[17]

Gaza Strip under Israel or Jordan/Palestine

In the initial version of the Allon Plan, he envisioned the Gaza Strip being annexed to Israel. In a subsequent revision of the plan, however, Allon conceived of Gaza as part of a Jordanian-Palestinian state.[18]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d Yigal Allon (Peikowitz) (1918 – 1980). Knesset website. Accessed May 2014
  2. ^ a b c d What was the 1967 Allon Plan. ProCon. Accessed May 2014
  3. ^ Ian S. Lustick, For the land and the Lord: Jewish fundamentalism in Israel, chapter 3, par. Early Activities of Gush Emunim. 1988, the Council on Foreign Relations
  4. ^ Akiva Eldar, A matter of a few dozen meters. Haaretz, 1 June 2008
  5. ^ a b c d e f g Reuven Pedatzur, The 'Jordanian option,' the plan that refuses to die. Haaretz, 25 July 2007
  6. ^ a b Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Volume XX, Arab-Israeli Dispute, 1967–68. Volume Summary, par. The Search for Other Peace Prospects. Accessed May 2014
  7. ^ a b 353. Telegram From the Embassy in Jordan to the Department of State, par. 3.C and note 5 to par. 3.E; FRUS 1964–1968 Volume XX, Arab-Israeli Dispute, 1967–68. Accessed May 2014
  8. ^ a b 373. Telegram From the Embassy in Jordan to the Department of State, par. 7-8; FRUS 1964–1968 Volume XX, Arab-Israeli Dispute, 1967–68. Accessed May 2014
  9. ^ Separate and Unequal, Chapter IV. Human Rights Watch, 19 December 2010
  10. ^ Gush Emunim. Knesset website. Accessed May 2014
    ″Gush Emunim was active first in attempts to establish Jewish settlements in areas outside the zones discussed in the "Allon Plan" (see Yigal Allon), from which the settlement policy of Yitzhak Rabin’s first government was derived.″
  11. ^ Dispossession and Exploitation: Israel's Policy in the Jordan Valley and Northern Dead Sea, pp. 5-6. B'Tselem, May 2011. On [1]
  12. ^ Israeli annexation policies in the Jordan Valley Archived 7 November 2013 at the Wayback Machine. PLO-NAD, September 2013
  13. ^ Jerusalem Syndrome—The Palestinian–Israeli Battle for the Holy City, pp. 53-54. Mosheh ʻAmirav, Sussex University Press, 2009
    On 10 July 1967, Foreign Minister Abba Eban explained to the UN Secretary General: ″The term 'annexation' which was used by supporters of the vote is not accurate. The steps that were taken [by Israel] relate to the integration of Jerusalem in administrative and municipal areas, and served as a legal basis for the protection of the holy places of Jerusalem.″
  14. ^ In wake of talks' collapse, Bennett to present PM with proposal to annex Area C. Herb Keinon, Jerusalem Post, 15 May 2014
  15. ^ "Leaked Cable: Dayan's Thinking on Possible Peace Arrangements with Jordan & Egypt (May 1973) | Jewish Virtual Library". www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org.
  16. ^ May 1973 cable, Summary
  17. ^ May 1973 cable, paragraphs 2, 3c, 4a
  18. ^ The Palestinian People: A History, p. 287. Baruch Kimmerling and Joel S. Migdal; Harvard University Press, 2009

Further reading

  • Bregman, Ahron (2002). Israel's Wars: A History Since 1947. London: Routledge.

External links

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