The city planner and one of the first residents of Samaria, Avraham Shvut, analyzes the Trump map against the Oslo map and states: the Trump map is worse.
Urban planner and one of the first residents of the renewed settlement in Judea and Samaria, Avraham Shvut analyzes the map of the Trump plan compared to the Oslo map and determines: The Trump map is worse and actually more dangerous for the settlement enterprise.
Shvut presented his conclusions in a lecture that he gave at the Oz veGaon preserve, during which he emphasized the importance of preparing a long-range plan for building and settlement.
In his lecture, Shvut presented the key points of the TAMA 100 National Outline Plan, in which he participated as one of the designers, the main point of which is planning for the State of Israel in the hundredth year since its establishment and as of now, the only plan that views Judea and Samaria as an integral part of the State of Israel.
“Maps and plans determine reality”, states Shvut, relating from past experience how, in places where plans were drawn, whether by the Right of the Left, things became the primary basis for execution in the field.
This is how it is with the Geneva Initiative today, he reminds us, and this is how it was with Menahem Begin’s rise to power, when the Gush Emunim’s contingency plans filled the planning vacuum that Begin encountered as he took office.
Thus, within a few months of his declaration that many more communities like Elon Moreh would arise, it was possible to implement it.
Shvut, who is an urban planner and expert in lands usage, presented the absurdity of the Trump map, which leaves Jewish communities as isolated islands in corridors engulfed in the Arab entity to be established. All of this is beyond the very agreement entailed in the Trump plan for establishing a Palestinian state, which would mean multiplying eight-fold the situation that exists in the Gaza Strip, with all that this entails from the point of view of security.
“Even without addressing the ideological matter this is totally absurd from the settlement enterprise’s point of view. It cannot be”, he stated.
Shvut mentions that in the Oslo Accords the term “Palestinian state” is not mentioned at all, while such terminology is included as the end purpose of the Trump plan, a fact which also makes this plan worse than the Oslo plan.
“There is no such thing in the world as ‘sub-sovereignty’. There is no such thing as a state-minus. Such a state will eventually become a state in every way, with the world’s encouragement”, claims Shvut, stating that a feasible plan is one that involves the application of Israeli sovereignty over the entire territory and then grants local municipal autonomy under Israeli sovereignty centering around the large cities, and based on the tribal pountbof view. Shvut remibds his listeners how the Arab culture is a tribal one . Arabs from Schem (Nablus) will not marry Arabs from Hebron because of this. Shvut also emphasizes that there cannot be any territorial contiguity between theese municipal autonomies, because such a contiguity would result in the future demand to establish a state.
As to the question by one of the participants if Jews would be able to live in these areas, Shvut answered positively. The Tama 100 clearly is based on the understanding that Jews have to be able to live in any place they wish in Eretz Yisrael.
Later, Shvut spoke on the importance and some of the details of the TAMA 100, which totally erases the Green Line, relates to the western Land of Israel as one geographical planning unit and views Jerusalem as the actual capital for aspects such as employment, the economy and other matters.
“Until now there has been no comprehensive plan made by the State of Israel for Judea and Samaria, including both the Jewish and the Arab settlement”, he said, noting that the result is unplanned construction, improvised transportation, unplanned infrastructure and one outcome from this situation is unsupervised and uncoordinated Arab construction.
The Tama plan has an added advantage from the point of view of population density and employment, which now flows into Gush Dan and the coastal lowlands. The plan includes constructing new cities beginning in the area of Mahanayim in the northeast and other areas, laying down railroad tracks from Metula to Eilat and other elements. All of this, as mentioned, does not include the division in planning that exists today between Judea and Samaria and the other parts of the Land.
Shvut points out that in the Trump plan, half of Area C is designated for a Palestinian state, which means that the State of Israel would be limited in its planning to the areas of the Jewish communities and nothing beyond that. “Outside of the fences enclosing the existing Jewish communities it would be almost impossible to move. Travel would be on roads “threaded” through hostile territory, where one hundred meters to the left or right would be under Arab rule”.
He further noted the clauses in the Trump plan that cede the lands of Halutza and Emek Iron to Arab sovereignty. “The size is not important. The principle is important.
Also places where we were sovereign from ’48 and where the entire world recognizes our sovereignty, are given to them? There is no country in the world that would behave in this way without having lost in war or having any other choice.
Russia which is a huge country, does not surrender one meter to Ukraine. Will anyone suggest that the U.S. cede Texas to Mexico? But we, a state with so little territory, should be willing to surrender and give up land?”
Following Avraham Shvut’s talk, Yehudit Katsover, one of the co-chairwomen of the Sovereignty Movement, spoke. She described the planning vacuum in Judea and Samaria and the reality in which all construction and laying down infrastructure in these areas is dependent on private initiatives by council heads and bringing pressure to bear while utilizing their connections with Likud Central and other centers of power. “This is a terrible way to do things. The State of Israel must plan for the entire Land of Israel. If we have just another building here and there and another hill here and there, it is good, but this is not a well-planned Land”, she said, mentioning the need to plan the Land also for those who will yet arrive in the future from the diaspora as well.
Katsover repeated that under no circumstances should we agree to a plan in which Israel receives sovereignty over only 30 percent of the territory while surrendering the other 70 percent to an alien state in the heart of the Land. “In whose name is this surrender done” Our grandchildren? Our grandfathers? By what right?”, she asked. “Sovereignty is exclusive control over the territory. We do not make deals on the Land of Israel”.
Nadia Matar, Katsover’s partner in leading the Sovereignty Movement, stated that the entire discourse on sovereignty will be shelved if the Left wins the elections. “If the Right wins, there will be people that we can pressure so that positive things will happen. The Right wants positive things to happen. On the other hand, the Left will bring us back to Oslo. For positive things to happen, our job is to bring out the 300,000 voters of the Right who did not vote the last time”.
