Convergence Plan

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Olmert's peace plan

The Convergence Plan ( Hebrew תוכנית ההתכנסות Tochnit haHitkansut ) was a proposal by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to resolve the Middle East conflict , which was presented by Olmert in various interviews as part of his election campaign for the parliamentary elections in Israel in 2006 . The plan was not implemented and is no longer being pursued. According to Olmert's plan, Israel's borders were to be consolidated and, for this purpose, some Israeli settlements in the West Bank were to be grouped into larger areas, while others were to be abandoned. The Palestinians could then, if they wanted to, proclaim a state on their side of the barricades. In the future, an adjustment of the border should then be negotiated in peace negotiations. The schedule that Olmert originally specified provided for a period of four years. With the convergence plan, Olmert explicitly followed up on the decoupling plan of his predecessor Ariel Sharon , who u. a. resulted in the unilateral withdrawal from Gaza .

Although the Hebrew name for the plan has not changed, in English-speaking countries the name was changed from convergence to consolidation and finally to realignment .

target

In order to “preserve the essential: a stable Jewish majority in our state”, Ehud Olmert renounces the dream of an Israel that includes both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, in order to “at some point separate from the Palestinians and secure borders to establish which are recognized by the international community ”. He also wants to do this single-handedly, since one cannot wait forever for Hamas .

There were no details on the part of the Israeli government, called for that reason, to the protest of Jewish settlers from the to-clearing settlements postpone in order to have a better negotiating position with the Palestinians and also internationally for the most extensive territorial claims on land of the West Bank not to to be criticized early on.

The intention of the plan was to unite the most important settlement areas into three large areas near the Green Line (armistice line 1949) in order to be able to (later) merge them with the Israeli heartland. In the three blocks around Ariel (in the north between Qalqiliya and Nablus ), Ma'ale Adumim (in the center east of Jerusalem ) and Gush Etzion (south of Bethlehem ), settlement has been intensified since the 1990s.

All three areas were already largely separated from the rest of Palestine by the Israeli barriers . Israel continued to build these barriers against international resistance, as the International Court of Justice had ruled in July 2004 in a non-binding legal opinion that the course of the barrier fence and wall was illegal.

The then Israeli Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin had already made it clear in October 1995 (one month before his assassination by a radical settler ): “After the permanent solution [the border question], the borders of the State of Israel will be beyond the lines that existed before the Six Day War . ”He had further emphasized,“ [Israel] will not return to the June 4, 1967 borders. ”

When the border fence is completed, 76 percent of the Jewish settlers (over 170,000) in the West Bank will live between the Wall and the Green Line, and a further 170,000 settlers around East Jerusalem . These areas correspond to a little more than 10% of the West Bank.

Furthermore, according to the Allon Plan of 1970 , the Israeli government claimed the entire western Jordan Valley as a safety buffer against Jordan , as it is officially called, but probably also because of the increasingly important water supplies. This would permanently secure the 90% of the region's underground water resources, which is already under control. It was still open whether Israel wanted to lease or annex the Jordan Valley. These are “some of the most fertile and water-rich regions of the West Bank, in which over 49,000 Palestinians currently live in 38 localities. Their existence is endangered to the greatest extent by the barriers, their future completely uncertain. "

development

It is feared that the continued Israeli settlement as a result of the creeping but still visible further settlement construction could lead to the radicalization of broad sections of the population and bring further influx of Hamas . B'Tselem (an Israeli non-governmental organization ) claims that the Israeli governments took advantage of the lack of modern legal documents for the formerly communal land of the Palestinians to appropriate it. Taken together, according to B'Tselem in 2006, around 42% of the West Bank is still under Israeli control.

After the situation in the Palestinian Autonomous Areas had escalated in a manner similar to a civil war since the Hamas election victory (see Middle East conflict ) and Ehud Olmert had developed an internationally controversial unilateral approach, he offered talks to Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas on the basis of his convergence plan, "that the Palestinians the on the condition terrorism give up the terrorist infrastructure resolve accept all previous agreements and obligations and the right of Israel to acknowledge." Abbas and the PLO recognize this nominally for some time to, but that was still not in of the Charter of Fatah. However, Hamas , which was represented in the government until June 2007, strictly rejects Israel's right to exist. This is a violation of the agreements in the final peace plan (" Road Map "), which is why Israel rejected the agreed bilateral peace talks with the Palestinians up to this point in time. By continuing to build settlements and practicing targeted killings of Palestinians, Israel is also violating the “roadmap”.

Israeli critics believe that the convergence plan is not a peace plan, but "a plan to perpetuate the occupation - only under conditions more suitable for Israel."

After the escalation of the conflict in Lebanon in summer 2006, Ehud Olmert announced that the plan would not be implemented in the near future. In the 2009 elections , a right-wing government led by Benjamin Netanyahu replaced Olmert's ruling coalition, which is no longer pursuing the convergence plan and is instead promoting the expansion of the settlements in the West Bank. Similar plans to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are represented today by the liberal parties Kadima , Hatnua and Yesh Atid .

See also

Israeli peace diplomacy

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Olmert asks for a word with Bush . Washington Times, 2006. William Safire : Diplolingo . NYTimes, June 11, 2006
  2. tsarchive.wordpress.com (tagesschau.de archive)
  3. Aluf Benn: The State Says, Enough! In: Haaretz. July 14, 2006, accessed December 10, 2019 .
  4. quoted from Defensible Borders for a Lasting Peace , accessed on August 10, 2006
  5. Map ( Memento from July 10, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  6. Klaus Polkehn: The water and the question of Palestine . Retrieved August 9, 2006
  7. ^ Peace advice of the University of Kassel. , accessed July 31, 2006
  8. ^ Politics of the held up hand . Friday June 26, 2006; Retrieved August 1, 2006
  9. see list of Palestinian National Covenant in the English language Wikipedia
  10. Gideon Levy in Ha'aretz. ( Memento from September 12, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) quoted. according to ZNet Germany, May 28, 2006