Shared spaces - Separate spaces: The Israel-Palestine peace process

The Israel-Palestine peace process has been implemented in a series ofstages, beginning with limited Palestinian autonomy in part of the West Bankand Gaza Strip, followed by the territorial expansion of the self governmentregion to include all major Palestinian population centers. The current peaceprocess is no more than a transition stage on the way to Palestinianstatehood. Final round negotiations will have to deal with difficult issuesof boundary demarcation. This will necessitate transforming thegeographically discontinuous map of the Oslo II agreement into separate andcompact political territories. While shared Israeli-Palestinian spaces wouldindicate a real move towards peace, continued mistrust and suspicion of eachpartner for the other is dictating the creation of separate spaces - for bothpeoples trod territories. This is yet another example of the continuedsignificance of territorial boundaries as part of the conflict resolutionprocess in areas of ethno-territorial disputes.