To Drink From
The Sea Of Gaza
By Uri Avnery
07 June, 2004
Gush - Shalom
Perhaps
Abe Lincoln was right that you can't fool all the people all the time,
but a lot of people can surely be fooled for a long, long time. Just
look at Ariel Sharon.
From the start,
the "Disengagement Plan" was an exercise in deceit. But the
world is eager to be deceived. The world's statesmen take it seriously,
it causes violent storms in Israel, the media have a ball. All this
for a plan that has neither hands nor feet.
So what is the purpose
of all this mayhem? Cynics might say: the mayhem itself. It puts Sharon
in center stage where he can continue to play the master of events.
Now the commotion has reached a climax.
The main aim of
the exercise is to satisfy George Bush. The president demanded a plan
which will show him doing something for peace. The more he gets sucked
into the Iraqi quagmire, the more he needs to prove that he is achieving
something in our country. Especially since his last baby - the "Road
Map" - has died in its cradle.
Bush demanded that
Sharon come up with a plan. No problem. Hocus pocus, here is a plan,
with a fine promising name: "Disengagement". Speeches, meetings,
a visit to the White House, exchanges of documents, state visits, emissaries,
Mubarrak, Abdallah, disputes, compromises, and finally even a full-blown
cabinet crisis. All this for a balloon full of hot air.
The plan claims
to have three aims: to get the settlers out of Gaza, to turn the Strip
over to Palestinian rule and to destroy the "terrorist infrastructure"
there.
This week, Sharon himself defined the first aim in an unequivocal manner:
"By the end of 2005, not a single Jew will remain in the Gaza Strip!"
A resolute, bold and strong-willed statement, as befits a great leader.
(In fact, this statement has a faintly anti-Semitic ring. If the Palestinian
government wants to invite peaceful Jews to live there, why shouldn't
they? Wouldn't it have been more appropriate to say: "No settler
will remain in the Gaza strip"? Never mind.)
But the crucial
words in the statement were "by the end of 2005." They are
reminiscent of the classic Jewish joke about the Polish nobleman who
threatens his Jew with death if he does not teach his beloved horse
to read and write. The Jew asks for three years to accomplish such an
arduous task. When his wife hears of it she exclaims: "But you
know you cannot teach that to a horse!" The Jew calms her: "Three
years is a long time. By then, either the horse or the nobleman will
have died."
In our country,
eighteen months are half an eternity. The situation changes by the week.
Before the end of 2005, many things may happen: Bush may lose the election,
catastrophe may overcome Iraq, in our country bloody events may reach
such proportions as to obliterate any memory of the "plan".
Events this week made clear the central role that time plays in the
"plan". Tzipi Livni, the Minister for Immigration Absorption,
worked hard to engineer a compromise between Sharon and his opponents.
She reinvented the egg of Columbus: the government will officially adopt
the plan, but not the implementation of the plan. For some nine months,
only "preparations" will be made. Not a single settlement
will be evacuated. After that, the government will decide whether to
evacuate any settlements at all, and, if so, which ones. (The opponents
then demanded that the government continue to pour money into the settlements
which are supposed to be evacuated.)
The fact that everybody
treated this proposal seriously speaks for itself. A plan that is supposed
to be implemented next year might as well be postponed to the next century.
But let us examine
the plan on its merits, as if Sharon really intended to put it into
practice. He evacuates the settlements and demolishes them, the army
leaves the Gaza Strip, some kind of Palestinian administration takes
over.
Will this bring peace? Will this stop the attacks?
There is no chance
that this would indeed happen.
The basic principle
held by all Palestinian factions is that the West Bank and the Gaza
Strip constitute one integral territorial entity. This was stated explicitly
in the Oslo Declaration and all the following agreements. Following
this principle, Yasser Arafat has rejected all proposals of "Gaza
First", unless they include at least a significant part of the
West Bank (Jericho, for example.)
Sharon knows this,
and therefore he added to his plan an appendage: a small area on the
northern fringe of the West Bank will also be evacuated. Four small
settlements are located there, and their inhabitants are very eager
to leave (with generous compensation, of course). No Palestinian will
take such an evacuation seriously.
There is not the
slightest chance that the fighters of any of the Palestinian factions
in the "liberated" Gaza Strip will look quietly on, while
Sharon realizes his designs in the West Bank: the annexation of 55%
of the West Bank to Israel ("settlement blocs", "essential
security zones", "areas of special interest to Israel",
as the army planners put it), with the Palestinians corralled into small
enclaves. This work is already going on rapidly with the building of
the monstrous "separation wall".
The "liberated"
Gaza Strip will inevitably become a base of the battle for the liberation
of the West Bank. The Israeli army will react, as usual, with all its
might, invading, killing, destroying and uprooting. If this does not
do the job (as it did not up to now), Sharon may cut off the supply
of electricity, water and food. Since the Strip will be isolated from
the world, this is possible. But it will not succeed, because the world
will be watching, and the Americans cannot afford this.
The military planners
know this well, and have been inspired by a new patent ides: to get
the Egyptians involved.
Brilliant, or so
it seems. The Egyptian regime lives on generous American handouts -
rewards for signing a peace agreement with Israel. Congress, eager to
please the Sharon government, recently threatened to delay the payment
of 200 million dollars to Egypt. It is therefore vital for Husni Mubarrak
to show the Americans that he is Sharon's ally.
But Mubarrak knows
that he is walking a tightrope. Egypt's connection with the Gaza Strip
dates back more than 4000 years and has had many ups and downs. The
Egyptians ruled the Strip after the 1948 war and do not like to be reminded
of it. More than once, they tried to control the Palestinian cause,
and each time it ended with their humiliation. President Gamal Abd-el-Nasser
created the PLO in order to thwart Yasser Arafat, but within a few years
Arafat had taken it over. President Anwar al-Sadat tried to become the
guardian of the Palestinians, only to be put to shame by Menahem Begin.
If the Egyptians now try to take over Gaza and obstruct the Palestinians'
fight for the liberation of the West Bank, they will be considered collaborators
and be exposed to attacks that may well spill over into Egypt itself.
Hamas has powerful allies there who won't step back from violence.
Mubarrak will be very cautious about accepting responsibility in Gaza,
especially if Arafat is not involved. He knows well the curse beloved
by Arafat: "Go and drink from the sea of Gaza!"
Therefore, this
whole plan is standing on its head. It has no basis in reality. All
in all, it is a recipe for the continuation of the war in another form.
But no need to worry. Sharon is not really serious about it. He is sure
that before the time comes for the evacuation of even a single settlement,
either the horse will die or the Polish nobleman will forget all about
it.