Some
Order In The Mess
By Uri Avnery
09 August, 2004
Gush-Shalom
Ariel
Sharons disengagement plan has already made a mess
on all levels.
It has sparked
a continuing cabinet crisis, an upheaval in several parties, a disorientation
of public opinion, confusion in the security establishment and armed
confrontations between Palestinian organizations.
The Israeli peace
movement is mixed up like everybody else. Some support Sharon because
of the plan and even want to join his government, others denounce Sharon
and the plan furiously.
Lets try
to make some sense of this mess.
1. What does
the plan say?
According to Sharon,
he plans to evacuate and probably demolish all settlements
in the Gaza Strip, evacuate the settlers and the army and leave the
territory to the Palestinians. According to the plan, the Israeli army
will hold on to the Philadelphi Axis as an insurmountable
barrier between the Strip and Egypt.
As a symbolic gesture,
the plan also provides for the dismantling of three small, unimportant
settlements on the northern edge of the West Bank.
2. Will it be
implemented?
Not at all certain.
The plan was not
the result of elaborate staff-work. It was more in the nature of an
improvisation, quickly served up to please President Bush. Sharon knew
that it would be opposed by the right-wing and the Palestinians, and
pull the rug out from under the Labor Party.
The government
has officially resolved to confirm the plan in principle, but has not
decided to dismantle a single settlement. Such a decision would necessitate
another government resolution.
In the meantime,
the matter is moving forward languidly. The army is supposed to produce
a plan, but insists that the job of removing the settlers should be
turned over to the police. The Ministry of Justice has been charged
with the drafting of the necessary laws. A committee is supposed to
prepare a sliding scale for compensation. The tempo of progress in no
way indicates speedy implementation.
But, most importantly:
there is no effort at all to mobilize public opinion in favor of the
disengagement. The opponents of disengagement, the settlers and their
allies, are working with great zeal. They have already won a victory
in the referendum of Likud members, they have organized a big human
chain demonstration, they are preparing further large actions.
They manipulate the media with great dexterity. They can mobilize at
a moments notice tens of thousands of settlers and right-wingers.
They have at their disposal almost unlimited amounts of money, provided
by American Jewish millionaires and Christian fundamentalists.
Opposing this propaganda
juggernaut, there is nothing but silence. The Likud is not mobilizing
its members for a campaign of support for the plan, the Labor party
is busy with internal squabbles about joining the government and the
left-wing does not know what to think about the whole affair.
The supporters
of the plan console themselves with the knowledge that in all public
opinion polls, a majority supports the plan. But this is a wobbly majority,
unenthusiastic and unsure of itself. It has not yet been tested in a
real crisis. It can easily evaporate.
3. Is there a
time-table?
None at all.
Sharon and his
people speak loosely about starting the evacuation in March, 2005, and
finishing the job by the end of that year. By the look of things, this
is idle talk. Since Yitzhak Rabin remarked that there are no sacred
dates, all Israeli leaders have violated agreed timetables. The
natural inclination is always to postpone difficult decisions.
When I met Yasser
Arafat this morning, he remarked: It took Israel six hours to
leave South Lebanon, why does Sharon need 17 months to leave the Gaza
Strip?
4. So what is
Sharons real purpose?
The plan suits
his grand design to turn all (or almost all) of Eretz Israel into a
Jewish State. (Eretz Israel the Land of Israel is nowadays
understood as identical with Mandatory Palestine, the land between the
Mediterranean and the Jordan.)
For him, Gaza,
a negligible piece of real estate (less than 1.5 % of the country!)
is devouring a disproportionate part of Israels military and financial
resources. What is important for him is Judea and Samaria
the West Bank, which is 16 times larger. He hopes that the disengagement
from Gaza will enable him to annex more than half of the West Bank and
to enclose the Palestinians in a number of enclaves that are practically
isolated from each other and at the mercy of Israel. In the long run,
the aim is to make life intolerable for the Palestinian population and
cause it to leave altogether.
5. If so, is
there any positive side to the disengagement plan?
In the peace camp,
some voices insist that the plan should be supported because it creates,
for the first time, a precedent of evacuating settlements in Eretz Israel.
Emotionally and politically, this would certainly have a huge impact.
(The Yamit area, where several settlements were evacuated in pursuance
of the peace treaty with Egypt, is not considered part of Eretz Israel).
The peaceniks who
support the plan argue that the long-term intentions of Sharon are irrelevant.
The only important thing is what actually happens on the ground - and
on the ground 7500 settlers will be removed from the Gaza Strip - if
it happens, of course.
6. On the other
side, can the plan cause damage?
A disengagement
that is divorced from peace negotiations can be very dangerous.
Sharons people
say that they dont give a damn what will happen in the Gaza Strip
after the Israeli withdrawal. They are pretending. Behind the scenes,
the military and political leadership is planning the installation of
a local warlord, who would rule the Strip under Israeli (and therefore
also American and Egyptian) protection. Their preferred candidate is
Muhammad Dahlan, the former boss of the political police in the Strip.
If this happens,
the local strongman may well end up like Bashir Jumail, who was supposed
to rule Lebanon under Israeli protection. He was soon murdered. The
warlord installed by Israel may be removed and actual power in the Gaza
Strip then pass into the hands of the armed organizations that will
continue to fight against Israel by all available means, including missiles.
The Israeli army will then occupy the territory again, and the whole
story will begin again from square one.
On the other hand,
if the experiment succeeds, the Gaza Strip will become an autonomous
area under Israeli control, administered by a local strongman. It will
be rather like the South African Bantustans at the time of apartheid.
The Palestinian people will, of course, view this as an existential
threat and fight against it by all possible means.
7. Can the plan
be supported by the peace camp?
Only if the following
conditions are met:
(a) The government
of Israel must declare that the West Bank and the Gaza Strip constitute
one single territorial unit, as explicitly stated in the Oslo agreement.
(b) The disengagement
must be connected with the renewal of peace negotiations between the
government of Israel and the elected leadership of the Palestinian people.
(c) The disengagement
must be implemented by agreement with the Palestinian Authority and
the territory must be turned over to it in an orderly manner. The agreement
should include arrangements that will guarantee the security of both
sides, perhaps backed by an international peacekeeping force.
(d) The Philadelphi
Axis must be dismantled. Land, air and sea connections between
the Gaza Strip with the world must be opened, perhaps under international
supervision.
(e) All buildings
and infrastructure of the settlements must be turned over intact to
the Palestinian Authority or an international institution. Their value
may be taken into account when the refugee problem is settled.
(f) A definite timetable
must be agreed for the implementation of all phases of the disengagement.
PS:
When I asked Arafat
today whether he believes that the disengagement plan will actually
be implemented, he answered: We hope so!
I didnt
ask whether you hope so, but whether you believe it! I insisted.
Arafat smiled and
repeated: We hope so!