In Israel and in the West, a huge laundry list of words and a very cooperative media and academia were essential for maintaining the moral and political validity of the open-air prison option as the best solution for the “conflict” and as an ideal vision for normal and healthy life in the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip. “Autonomy,” “self-determination,” and finally “independence” were used, and mainly abused, as words to describe the best version of an open-air prison model the Israelis could offer the Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
