Unilateral
Give, Unilateral Take
By Roni Ben Efrat
04 March, 2005
Challenge Magazine
In
days of yore, when right-wing thugs shouted "Arik, King of Israel!"
leftist leaders grimaced in disgust. On Sunday, February 20, however
- after the cabinet approved "Arik's" Disengagement Plan -
Labor ministers beamed with smug satisfaction. They had all they could
do to keep from shouting, "Arik, King of Israel!" Sharon has
begun to accomplish for them what the Oslo Accords never dared to broach:
dismantlement of settlements. The media have promised him a place in
the pantheon of the greats. He is the man who set the deadline for "the
end of the Occupation," who "has opened a new chapter in the
history of the Middle East." (Shimon Shiffer, Yediot Aharonot,
Feb. 20.)
On that festive
Sunday, few wanted to be reminded that after approving disengagement
- practically in the same breath - the government decided to build its
notorious "separation barrier" on a line that will unilaterally
annex, in effect, 7% of the West Bank. The principle of unilateral action,
Sharon demonstrates, can work in two directions. But this was not just
another of his notorious tricks. The Labor Party is a full partner to
the decision on the barrier, which annexes to Israel the large urban
settlement of Maaleh Adumim and the Etzion Bloc.
A senior pundit
of Yediot Aharonot, Sever Plotzker, wrote in the paper's lead editorial
for that historical Sunday: "The dream of Greater Israel has melted
away, disappeared from the agenda, at least for the present generation.
Under Ariel Sharon, Israel is withdrawing from Gaza and clearing all
the settlements there - as a first step, and not as the last, toward
a return to its proper borders."
But what are these
proper borders? As we read the map, the Palestinians have gone full
circle, after an odyssey that began 11 years ago at Oslo, back to the
"initial step" of those days, called "Gaza and Jericho
first." The Disengagement Plan promises nothing more than that.
Even less, for it does not promise them sovereignty in Gaza. Yasser
Arafat, in his day, understood that Israel must not be permitted to
separate Gaza from the West Bank. Abu Mazen has let it happen. At Sharm
al-Sheikh he agreed to the parting of the two, while getting no Israeli
commitment about the future.
Where Israel is
concerned, Gaza and the West Bank are separate worlds. In April 2002,
when the Intifada raged, the Likud and Labor joined to make full-fledged
war on the West Bank in an operation known as "Defensive Shield."
Israel did not hesitate to flatten the Palestinian Authority (PA) and
quarantine Arafat politically. Yet it did not go into Gaza - and this
was no coincidence. Israel has no interest there, whereas it sees the
West Bank as its own strategic territory, even if part of it may pass
someday to the hands of a docile PA.
Nahum Barnea, the
veteran Yediot commentator, interprets Sharon's course of action, in
chess terms, as a sacrifice of the rook in an attempt to save the queen.
(Feb. 21.) The rook consists of the Gaza settlers, the queen consists
of those in the West Bank. Yediot satirist B. Micha'el wrote on Feb.
22: "Slow to learn, and led by a conjurer, Israel again sets forth
on one of its 'sting' operations - again a futile attempt to sell half
a sack of damaged goods at an exorbitant price."
The "proper
borders" of the future Palestinian state vary with the eye of the
beholder. As seen by the cheated side, they depend on whatever power
it can muster to recapture what it's been robbed of. If, in order to
get back Gaza, which Israel doesn't want at all, the Palestinians have
had to make four years of Intifada, imagine what kind of World War they
would have to wage to retrieve the West Bank!
Meanwhile, except
for the Palestinian people, there are plenty who benefit from the charade.
For Abu Mazen and the PA, the way back into the political arena, after
the fiasco left by Arafat, must pass through Sharon. Israel's Labor
Party gets a piece of the government without having to give up principles
which, in any case, it never had. The Yahad Party (which holds the copyright
to the Geneva Initiative) believes that Sharon, in breaking the taboo
against dismantling settlements, will pave the way for it to continue
where he leaves off.
The Arab parties,
as usual, have not risen above the level of proclamations. They announced
their opposition to disengagement because it does not ensure the minimal
Palestinian needs, but in crucial Knesset votes they either abstained
or cast their Nays when they knew the Ayes would win. In Knesset committees,
when the count looked close, two of them voted for disengagement. The
official Israeli Left, in a word, shows its customary short-sightedness.
The fate of the
West Bank will not be the fate of Gaza. The dismantling of some little
West Bank settlements will cost the Palestinians dearly: they will have
to let other, bigger settlements stay - not to mention concessions on
Jerusalem and the refugees. When the price is announced, they will conclude
that the cost of independence is the surrender of that independence.
Then, once again, they will take to arms. And "Arik, King of Israel"
will discover that he was leading not just them by the nose, and not
just Israel by the nose, but finally himself by the nose. When he mewed
Arafat in the Muqata'a to die a slow death, he left Abu Mazen to roam
outside. But an empty-handed Abu Mazen will be powerless to stop the
next uprising. And who will King Arik have then?
CHALLENGE is
a bi-monthly leftist magazine focusing on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
within a global context. Published in Jaffa by Arabs and Jews, it features
political analysis, investigative reporting, interviews, eye-witness
reports, gender studies, arts, and more. This article first appeared
in Challenge #90, March-April 2005