Published: 12 August 2022
Last updated: 5 March 2024
A viable Palestine may depend on the unification of the occupied territories. The opening of the Peljesac Bridge shows it can be done.
A new bridge was opened last week in southern Croatia, linking its southern region to the rest of the country and making it no longer necessary for Croatians to cross the border with Bosnia twice to travel to the heritage city of Dubrovnik.
Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic inaugurated the new border-bypassing bridge, defining the day as “the day the country was united.”
The 1991 border between Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina meant that that the southern part of Croatia was cut off from the rest of the country.
The parallel with Israel and Palestine is obvious – two states, Croatia and Bosnia, that had fought one another and had made a peace agreement, which they’ve respected for 30 years. A road was required for linking two separate regions, a road that would skip over border crossings, making life easier for residents and visitors alike.
While the geography of Croatia allows a bridge which does not need to pass over Bosnian territory, the principle is the same.
In 2005 there was also a desire to open a new page in Israel’s relations with the Palestinian Authority. The US administration had financed a study looking at different alternatives for creating a land bridge between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, crossing through Israel. The Palestinians were very keen on such a land bridge. For them, it was a test of Israel’s sincerity in agreeing to the establishment of a Palestinian state with two separate regions.
It never happened but perhaps there is something Israel and Palestine can learn from the Croatian-Bosnian experience.
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A Bridge Between Gaza and the West Bank? Croatia Just Did Something Similar (Haaretz)
