Fragmented Borders, Interdependence and External Relations

The Israel-Palestine-European Union Triangle

Kenneth A. Loparo, Kenneth A. Loparo, Raffaella A. Del Sarto

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781349700110, 9781137504135
• eBook ISBN: 9781137504142
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Diplomacy & Treaties
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book investigates relations between Israel, the Palestinian territories and the European Union by considering them as interlinked entities, with relations between any two of the three parties affecting the other side. The contributors to this edited volume explore different aspects of Israeli-Palestinian-European Union interconnectedness.

Part I

Theoretical Framework

1

Borders, Power and Interdependence: A Borderlands Approach to Israel-Palestine and the European Union

Raffaella A. Del Sarto

This volume seeks to achieve three interrelated goals: first, it proposes a comprehensive approach to the analysis of relations between Israel, the Palestinian Territories and the European Union. Conceptually, it suggests studying these relations by considering the EU, Israel and the territories as three entities that are linked to each other through various bonds and borders. The term ‘borders’, as employed here, does not merely describe the external borders of a state or a political entity. It also entails those boundaries that are established by shared legal and functional regimes, and by common practices, and which may not necessarily be congruent with a state’s external borders. As elaborated further below, this conceptual framework emphasises the disaggregated functions of borders in modern times, while also adopting the notion of ‘borderlands’, defined as a space affected by the existence of borders.

Secondly, the book aims to take stock of the complex and multi-layered reality of ties connecting Israel, the Palestinian Territories and the EU to each other. The linkages between these three entities are far more complex than meets the eye. To begin with, an array of disaggregated borders and patterns of control characterises Israel’s hold on the Palestinian Territories, with the frontiers between the two entities remaining contested, undefined, multiple and partly fluid. Secondly, and as elaborated below, the well-developed nature of EU-Israeli relations entails Israel’s progressive inclusion into different functional and legal regimes of the European Union. Thirdly, the EU and its member states are substantially involved in the Palestinian Territories, by supporting the Palestinian Authority (PA), and to some extent, by exporting EU rules and practices to the territories through various cooperation programmes. Considering the EU’s constant expansion of its rules and practices beyond its ‘fuzzy’ borders, it is possible to conceptualise the Israeli-Palestinian-EU triangle as consisting of different entities that flow into each other.

Finally, the volume is interested in the political implications of the web of disaggregated borders and practices in the Israeli-Palestinian-EU triangle. While we may also think of borders as alternative expressions of power relations, the simultaneous disaggregation and interlocking of borders and practices in the Israeli-Palestinian-EU triangle means that the relations between any two of the three parties affect the other side. As such, the volume aims to understand how the Israeli-Palestinian-EU interconnectedness impacts on what the literature – and the policy practice – generally considers as different sets of bilateral relations and policies. The following section will elaborate on the borderlands approach and its application to the EU-Israel-Palestine triangle.

Borders and borderlands

A focus on borders and borderlands requires a significantly different way of looking at relations between Israel, the Palestinian Territories and the European Union. The changes that these borders have undergone, particularly in our times, are the starting point of this conceptualisation.

In the ideal-type conception of statehood, after the Peace of Westphalia of 1648, states had rather clearly defined borders that concomitantly delineated a territory, together with the authority of the state ruling over that territory. They also defined the people inhabiting that space, as a bounded political community. Reality probably always differed from this theoretical construct (Kratochwil, 1986; Krasner, 1999; Brown, 2002: 212 ff.; Stirk, 2005), with the concept of territorially defined ‘nations’ remaining particularly problematic (Smith, 1991; Anderson, 1991). However, international law has traditionally operated with the Westphalian notion of a triple function of borders (Jellinek, 1929), and this is still the case today. Similarly, the universal recognition of the principle of territoriality has remained the main organising principle of international politics until the present (Kratochwil, 1986). However, it is increasingly clear that today the different tasks performed by borders are no longer necessarily congruent. The main causes of this state of affairs are the spread of supranational and transnational patterns of governance, trade and globalisation, and technological innovations (cf. Sassen, 2006).

Of course, states typically still possess territorial or physical borders that confine territory and hence regulate (or restrict) the movement of people and different types of goods. As these borders usually also define an area in which specific laws and rules apply, these physical borders usually coincide with at least some functional and legal borders. However, there may be other functional or legal boundaries that exceed or overlap with the external borders of a given polity. Patterns of economic or political integration, or security alliances, serve as examples here. In these cases, functional/legal boundaries and state borders may be disaggregated from each other. Open Skies aviation agreements are another concrete example. Regulating market access and the servicing of air carriers among the signatories, these accords establish functional/legal boundaries that are decoupled from state borders.

Likewise, shared practices established in a specific issue area may expand beyond the physical frontiers of a state. Practices, as defined here, are repeated and socially meaningful processes that embody, express and reify specific background knowledge on the material world (e.g. Adler and Pouliot, 2011: 6 ff.). Practices, in this sense, go beyond the technical aspect of merely agreeing formally on specific laws and rules that characterise functional regimes. Practices, rather, entail the act of performing a specific line of action that expresses a meaning on which the parties agree. Practices may also instantiate specific institutions (ibid.). The testing procedures for mutually recognised certificates in the context of a trade agreement, or specific modalities of passport controls at the border, are concrete examples of practices. It is interesting to note here that border controls are not necessarily carried out at a state’s external borders, border checks at international airports being a case in point. In short, practices may be disaggregated from territorial borders.

Finally, borders also define political communities, loyalties and identities. However, these identity boundaries are not necessarily congruent with functional or state borders either. Thus, as a result of the disaggregation of borders, different types of borders and practices may coexist, intersect and overlap within a given space.

There is extensive literature on borders that spans across different academic disciplines. Hence, and perhaps unsurprisingly, the literature continues to operate with different terms and analytical frameworks. However, most scholars would agree that borders are not, or not merely, fixed physical traits demarcating territory. Rather, borders are historically contingent institutions that govern the extent of inclusion, exclusion and permeability between different areas; different degrees of permeability may also apply to different issue areas, with state borders also including different geographic and institutional locations (Anderson, 1996; Newman, 2003, 2006; Cassarino, 2006; Sassen, 2009). In addition, the specific rules and practices defining borders, together with their location, are not given, but may change over time. Borders are thus the result of social construction (cf. Berger and Luckmann, 1966; Searle, 1995). This point is particularly important for understanding the significance of borders in establishing functional regimes, shared rules, and practices, and for delineating their scope (which may, or may not, be defined in territorial terms). The nature of borders as social constructions also explains their potential role as alternative expressions of power relations, particularly in protracted conflicts.

Borders may neatly divide between two geographical, legal or cultural entities, but this is not necessarily the case. Areas in closest geographic proximity to a border, and which are directly affected by the latter, defined as borderlands, have attracted much scholarly attention. In fact, the borderlands paradigm, originally developed in the context of the US-Mexican border, laid the foundation for an entire field of studies termed Border Studies (Martinez, 1994; also Zartman, 2010). The nature of borderlands obviously depends on the type and configuration of the respective border(s). Hence, closed and impermeable borders may indeed create two separated socio-economic, legal or cultural spaces. But in the event that a border is porous, borderlands become zones of transition from one set of rules to another, thus challenging the binary distinction between ‘in’ and ‘out’. If different types of borders coexist, intersect and overlap in a given area, borderlands may become hybrid zones of crossover. Closed and open borders performing different functions may of course coexist within the same space, thus entailing different degrees of inclusion and exclusion, according to specific issue areas.

A borderlands approach to Israel-Palestine and the EU

What is the relevance of these insights for analysing relations between Israel-Palestine and the European Union? Three main aspects of Israeli-Palestinian-EU relations support a comprehensive approach that focuses on borders and borderlands.

The first element in the Israeli-Palestinian-EU triangular relationship of overlapping borders and practices regards the connection of the Palestinian Territories to Israel. This linkage is characterised by a plethora of disaggregated physical, functional and identity borders that affect people and territory across that space. In the Palestinian Territories, Israel maintains various mechanisms of ‘inclusive exclusions’, linking the Palestinians to Israeli rule and combining a meticulous administration of Palestinian movement with the fragmentation of Palestinian space (Ophir, Givoni and Hanafi, 2009a: 23).

In economic terms, the Palestinian Territories form a so-called customs envelope (an incomplete customs union) with Israel, with the Oslo Accords obliging the Israeli authorities to collect taxes and customs duties on behalf of the PA. While the Israeli sheqel is the dominant currency in the territories, Israel exerts considerable power over the Palestinian economy through its control of the external borders of the territories, and by making various economic activities dependent on the permits it issues (Gordon, 2008: 33 ff., ch. 3). At the same time, the disaggregation between functional and ‘state borders’ across Israel and the territories is perhaps best expressed by the over 130 Israeli settlements in the West Bank, where Israeli laws and rights apply to their Israeli inhabitants.¹ Palestinians, on the other hand, live in distinct areas of administrative rule established under the Oslo agreements. Currently, 18% of the West Bank – mainly Palestinian cities – are under the exclusive administrative control of the PA (Area A), while 61% of the West Bank (Area C) are under full Israeli civilian and security control. The remaining 21% of the West Bank (Area B) is under Palestinian civil control and joint Israeli-Palestinian security control. However, irrespective of the administrative area, Israeli military rule remains the highest authority in all of the territories, with the PA acting as Israel’s security contractor of sorts in the West Bank (Ben-Ami, 2006: 11; also Klein, 2010: 21 ff.).

The West Bank barrier has added yet another type of border to the space comprising Israel and the West Bank, given that it is not congruent with the Green Line.² In this context, it is also worth recalling Israel’s system of control over the movement of people throughout the West Bank. The latter consists of fixed checkpoints, moving checkpoints, physical obstructions (such as dirt piles and concrete blocks), roads on which Palestinians are forbidden to travel, and various gates along the separation barrier (B’Tselem, 2011).³

Moreover, considering that about 20 per cent of Israeli citizens are Palestinians, and that most of East Jerusalem’s Palestinians are ‘permanent residents’ in Israel (but not Israeli citizens), it becomes quite clear that political and functional borders are decoupled from the boundaries of political communities across Israel-Palestine. Incidentally, Israel has been defined as an ‘accidental empire’ (Gorenberg, 2006), with Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian Territories lasting almost half a century. Thus, the manifold relationship of inclusion and exclusion in Israel-Palestine clearly challenges any ‘traditional’ conceptualisation of borders, supporting a borderlands perspective instead.

The second element of Israeli-Palestinian-EU interconnectedness regards EU policies towards its immediate periphery in general, and towards Israel in particular. As a result of the European integration process, multiple and overlapping border regimes and practices characterise the EU itself. The Common Market, the Eurozone and the Schengen area are cases in point. As argued elsewhere (Del Sarto, 2010), the EU’s variable border geometry decouples the distinctive functions of borders from each other, giving rise to multiple functional borders that do not often coincide with either a political entity’s external borders or its identity borders. Studies on EU migration policies – which after the bombings in Madrid and London in 2004 and 2005, respectively, became tightly coupled to the security policies of the EU and its member states – show, for instance that the Union’s external borders are no longer where they are supposed to be. With the notions of internal and external security increasingly overlapping, those frontiers have partly been dislocated to third states (cf. Guild, 2009; Bigo and Guild, 2005; Groenendijk, Guild and Minderhoud, 2003).

More importantly, in its external relations, the EU tends to gradually expand its variable border geometry to the ‘neighbourhood’. In this vein, some states bordering the European Union have become EU member states themselves ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Part I  Theoretical Framework
• Part II  Security, Sovereignty and People
• Part III  Economic Borders and Infrastructure
• Part IV  Legal and Normative Borders
• Part V  Conclusions
• Index