Current trajectory of separation barrier
"With needed adjustments, Israel could build a separation barrier that serves its security interests, political interests, reduces hardships on Palestinians, and promotes -- rather than obstructs -- a two-state solution."The barrier Israel is building along and within the West Bank embodies the core disagreements of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – those over land and borders, security, ethnicity and nationality, control of and access to holy sites, and movement patterns. As such, it has come to define perspectives and narratives worldwide. One’s perspective on the matter is instantly elucidated by one’s terminology; each word carries a political statement: security, separation, or apartheid, and fence or wall. Although the barrier could serve as the tool for "smart separation" that provides security while laying the groundwork for a two-state solution, the contortions it has made to keep as many settlements on the Israeli side as possible and the resultant legal actions against it have kept it from serving the security interests of both Israelis and Palestinians. A plan for "smart separation" does exist, but its realization requires smart leadership.
Despite criticism of the barrier, physical separation between Israelis and Palestinians makes sense. First, physical separation saves lives. It saves Israeli lives by presenting a fortified obstacle that makes a suicide bomber’s job much harder. The ease with which terrorists were able to cross into Israel-proper before 2002, when the barrier project commenced, was astounding. And while making such passage more difficult, it also saves Palestinian lives, allowing the Israeli Defense Forces to take risks and adopt more selective policies as it engages Palestinian militants. The barrier will never be a perfect defensive mechanism, as evidenced by attacks that have taken place since 2002, although imperfect, it can be a good step. It also serves another, function: that of laying the foundation for a two-state solution. A smart barrier could serve many parties in creating this reality.
Separation from the West Bank is a core Israeli interest. It will inevitably take place either as a part of a political agreement or as a unilateral Israeli step. The longer Israel continues to exert control over the West Bank, the more difficult a two-state solution becomes and the more likely it becomes that the international community and Palestinians will prefer a different solution. However, lack of trust in Palestinian intentions and negative public attitudes toward unilateralism led to the creation of a separation mechanism between Israelis and Palestinians within the West Bank rather than a separation between Israel and the West Bank. A just, well-placed barrier offers a solution to this conundrum.
In this conceptualization, it is the barrier’s trajectory, rather than its physical makeup, that will define the political realities of the future. Placement is critical. It is a reference point in virtually any discussion of future Israeli evacuation plans, unilateral or via agreement. Israeli court rulings, political lobbying by settlers to include as many settlements on the Israeli side of it, counter argument by leftist groups, proposals for government-sanctioned "evacuation-compensation" initiatives for settlers east of the barrier – all point to the inevitable: Israeli civilian presence east of the barrier is doomed to be evacuated in one scenario or another.
The Changing Trajectory of the Barrier
The first trajectory
, approved by the Israeli government in October 2003, aimed to leave on the Israeli side of the barrier roughly 16 percent of the West Bank. It included a rather short segment that marked the initiation of a barrier that would isolate the Jordan Valley from the heartland of the West Bank. Had it been implemented and expanded, that trajectory would have created Prime Minister Sharon’s historic plan of Palestinian cantons in the West Bank surrounded by Israeli presence. It followed strategic interests that today seem somewhat outdated: topographical considerations outweighed demographic ones with very little, if any, thought given to Palestinian humanitarian needs, world opinion or international legitimacy. Roughly 330,000 Palestinians were designated to be left on the Israeli side of the barrier according to its original trajectory – about 130,000 in West Bank villages and 200,000 in heavily-populated Arab parts of East Jerusalem.
International political and legal pressure, human rights activists and, ultimately, the Israeli High Court of Justice contributed each in its own way to the changing of the barrier’s route. Key in this regard was the June 2004 ruling by then Israeli Chief Justice Aharon Barak, who concluded that Israel must balance its security considerations with the humanitarian ones of affected Palestinians. Thus, the eastern segment that marked the beginning of a Jordan Valley barrier was scratched and large parts of the planned barrier that were designated to be within the West Bank – on the edge of Palestinian towns, especially west and south of Hebron – were redrawn on the Green Line.
The current trajectory – adopted by the Israeli government in April 2006 – will leave, if completed, 8.5 percent of the West Bank on the Israeli side. It is 440 miles in length (in comparison, the Green Line is 196 miles; the difference a result of its many contortions to include settlements). Roughly 63,000 of the 260,000 West Bank settlers are designated to be left on the Palestinian side of the barrier and their future is unclear (additionally, there are about 180,000 Jews residing in East Jerusalem that was annexed to Israel in 1967, all of whom are left on the Israeli side of the barrier). About 235,000 Palestinians are designated to remain on the Israeli side of the barrier – the vast majority of whom are East Jerusalemites (about 200,000).
The segments of the barrier that are complete
and operational are for the most part on the Green Line with some exceptions around Qalqilya and – most notably – Jerusalem, where Israeli planners chose to follow the artificial, expanded municipal boundary of the city, as declared unilaterally by Israel in 1967, cutting Arab East Jerusalem from the West Bank. Most of the segments of the barrier that cut into the West Bank are designated to surround the biggest settlement blocks and construction there has been limited thus far, mostly because of international pressure and court orders that freezes construction.
In large part the legal problems that halt construction are a result of a greedy trajectory dictated by a distorted set of considerations. If the primary aim was to provide security for the majority of Israelis, then a short, uncontroversial route along the Green Line should have been chosen – one that would allow quick construction with manageable objections. But it is clear that other political and ideological considerations dictated the trajectory – ones that have since doomed the project to a long period in legal and political purgatory. The problematic, expansionist route has not served the interests of security well; five years since the initiation of construction, the barrier still exists only in disconnected segments, with gaps around the settlement blocks where trajectories attract political and legal fire.
Foolish vs. smart separation
The route of the barrier is a manifestation of "foolish separation." Although separation between Israeli and Palestinian communities has been a primary security consideration, the barrier does not serve security. In the cases of 
East Jerusalem and Gush Etzion, it runs through Palestinian residential spheres, separating Palestinians from Palestinians rather than Palestinians from Israelis. It therefore forces troops on the ground to patrol a narrow line with an increasingly hostile population on both sides of it. It also forces Israel to facilitate the entrance of Palestinians into the Israeli side of the barrier for a variety of purposes, including access to land, services, employment and worship.
Moreover, instead of allowing for a contiguous, viable entity on the other side, unwise trajectory creates impediments for a two-state solution rather than providing pathways to it. The division of Jerusalem along demographic lines –with Arab populations in Palestinian and Jewish populations in Israel – envisioned by President Clinton in 2000 could have become a reality on the ground, serving both Palestinian and Israeli interests. Instead, the chosen trajectory, which isolates Arab East Jerusalem from the West Bank, has reshuffled the populations. Many Palestinians, seeking better employment, flocked into the ‘unified’ city, including into Jewish neighborhoods – creating a reality of crowdedness, increased poverty, and – should current trends continue – a city that contradicts the vision of two states with two capitals.
But it is not too late; a plan for ’smart separation’ exists. An alternative trajectory was presented early in the debate by an Israeli organization made of retired IDF officers and other security officials called the Council for Peace and Security. Drawn by passionate supporters of physical separation and Israel’s security, the CPS trajectory followed the Green Line in its entirety, except for those parts of the West Bank where large settlement blocks existed in close proximity to that 1967 boundary and where incorporating such settlements into the Israeli side of the barrier did not significantly harm Palestinian livelihood or contradicted the logic of separation. In the Jerusalem area, the CPS trajectory followed the same demographic logic that serves Israel’s security, leaving all but 20,000 Palestinians on the Palestinian side of the barrier. With an additional 5,000 West Bank Palestinians left on the Israeli side, the CPS trajectory creates maximal separation that on the one hand enhances Israeli security and on the other hand follows closely the logic of a future borders. It is 360 miles in length (compared with the government’s 440 miles) and thus cheaper to build and easier to defend. It leaves roughly 5.5 percent of the West Bank on the Israeli side of the barrier – opening the door to reciprocal adjustments via land swaps in the context of an agreement. Additionally, it retains all of the 180,000 Jews that reside in Jewish neighborhoods of 
East Jerusalem as well as 185,000 settlers in the West Bank; roughly 75,000 settlers are left on the Palestinian side, and therefore slated for evacuation, according to the CPS trajectory.
The CPS trajectory is a product of careful security analysis. But it is easy to see how their route serves the strategic political interests of involved parties. By creating a ’smart separation’ that follows demographic logic and livelihood patterns, it forms the basis of a two-state reality. As a quick look at the maps can demonstrate, changes to the CPS trajectory are doable. Most of them require only changing lines on paper, as the biggest differences involve the trajectory around the large settlement blocks – the exact areas where construction have not commenced yet. As for Jerusalem, the Israeli public is aware of the futility of maintaining its hold of Arab parts of the city that will not be part of Israel in a final status agreement.
With the needed adjustments, Israel could build a separation barrier that serves its security interests, political interests, reduces hardship on Palestinians, and promotes – rather that obstructs – a two-state solution.
Written with assistance by Dan Rothem