...The document written and signed in 1995 that created areas A, B and C, though hardly dramatic in its own right, set the stage for dramatic, often painful events. It directly relates to current affairs such as the recent proposal made by IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot to return to the PA sole security control over some cities in Area A, beginning with Ramallah and Jericho. Will Israel repeat the mistake of providing Hamas and Islamic Jihad with sanctuaries from which to launch not only attacks with makeshift weapons, as in the current wave of violence, but also massive suicide bombings, as in the second intifada? The same can be said of the lenience Israel is showing in the face of massive illegal building abetted by the EU and some other Arab states. Israel might be making the same error it made between 1996 and 2002 when it allowed the PA to encroach on areas B and C, for which it paid a very high price during the second intifada.
Prof. Hillel Frisch..
BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 339..
08 April '16..
Most would agree that the ABCs are indispensable to literacy and a gateway to Western literature and culture. Similarly, knowing the difference between areas A, B and C in Judea and Samaria and the ramifications thereof is indispensable to understanding the politics and violence that affect many of us on an almost daily basis.
Take any social or political activity of consequence for either Israelis or Palestinians, from agriculture to construction to employment, settlement and of course security and taxation, and the importance of these designations is bound to arise.
It has been more than twenty years since the terms "Areas A, B and C" came into existence, but even avid followers of Israel’s political scene might be confused over what they mean. They were first used in legal documents during the Oslo negotiations, most notably the interim agreement between Israel and the PLO signed in September 1995 known as the Oslo II Accord. That agreement extended the jurisdiction of the newly formed Palestinian Authority (PA) to the major towns in Judea and Samaria. The PA had secured jurisdiction over most of Gaza and Jericho a year and a half earlier.
These three types of jurisdiction—which have important differences—were only intended to have meaning for five or six years, at which point a final settlement to the Palestinian issue was supposed to be achieved. The date for that auspicious occasion, as agreed upon by then-US president Bill Clinton, then-Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and then-PLO leader Yasser Arafat, was to be no later than five years from the establishment of the PA in May 1994; that is to say, in 1999.
Seventeen years later, a final agreement seems as distant as ever. The differences between the legal definitions of areas A, B and C and the realities on the ground have grown. Yet despite those differences, Israel, the PA, the US and most if not all of the international community still regard these legal distinctions and the documents in which they were inscribed as binding, only to be supplanted by the signing of a final agreement.
This primer tries to make sense of these differences and their ramifications for issues such as settlements, security and the prospects for a peaceful resolution of the Palestinian issue.
Area A is the space in which the PA has political and military jurisdiction over its residents, all of whom are Arab. This includes all the major towns and their immediate environs, with the partial exception of Jewish Hebron, which came under exclusive Israeli control in the 1997 Hebron protocol between Israel and the PLO. This area comprises approximately 18 percent of Judea and Samaria’s land mass.
According to the Oslo Accords, the PA was never given jurisdiction over Israeli citizens and foreign nationals. Israeli citizens have the right to enter and pass through Area A unmolested, provided they are not involved in illicit activity, in which case the PA can only temporarily apprehend them until they are transferred to the Israeli authorities. Joint Israeli-PA patrols were intended to handle such cases.
Area B signified less built-up areas, many of which shared space with settlements created in the massive settlement drive in the 1980s launched by the Likud government. In Area B, which comprises approximately 22% of Judea and Samaria, Israel and the PA share jurisdiction. Israel enjoys exclusive jurisdiction over the Jewish inhabitants and exclusive authority over security for both its Arab and Jewish inhabitants.
The PA has political, administrative and police jurisdiction over the Arab inhabitants. They are subject to its laws, pay the necessary taxes and benefit from the same public services the PA provides in Area A. Strictly speaking, only the IDF and the Israel Police can make arrests in these areas.
Most of Judea and Samaria (60% of the area) is designated Area C, over which Israel has exclusive jurisdiction both administratively and in security matters. Area C’s distinguishing characteristic is that it is sparsely populated by Arab inhabitants and in which much Jewish settlement has taken place. Most of this area lies east of the populated mountain spine from Jenin in the north to Hebron in the south. The eastern slopes descending into and including the Jordan Valley are characterized by harsh climate and low to no rainfall.
The Jordan Valley, the South Hebron Hills and the area in the vicinity of Ma’aleh Adumim—from east of Mount Scopus to Jericho—are by far the most politically contested spaces in Area C, due to both Jewish settlement and Israeli security concerns.
It is important to note that a fourth letter of the alphabet was left out of these legal designations: “J” for Jerusalem. The issue of Jerusalem in the relevant legal documents was mentioned only as one of five crucial issues that were to be resolved in the final talks. This meant that Jerusalem remained formally under exclusive Israeli jurisdiction.
The alphabetic division of the area clearly reflected Israeli geostrategic logic more than Palestinian interests, suggesting that Israel had the upper hand in the negotiation process. The division was supposed to facilitate Israeli security control while relieving Israel of the burden of caring for the area’s Arab inhabitants.
BUT ISRAEL’S UPPER HAND in the negotiations was undermined by its policy on the ground over the six years between the emergence of the PA and the outbreak of the second intifada. The Israeli Defense Ministry, the IDF and the government attempted to buy quiet by turning a blind eye to PA encroachment with the encouragement of many Western governments.
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