How We Left
Gaza
By Tanya Reinhart
19 August, 2005.
Yediot Aharonot
We will never know with certainty what
took place in the mind of Ariel Sharon in February 2004, when he first
declared, without consulting anyone, that he is ready to evacuate the
Jewish settlements in Gaza. But if we try to put together the pieces
of the disengagement puzzle, the scenario that makes most sense is that
Sharon believed that this time, as before, he would find a way of evading
the plan. This would explain, for example, why the Gaza settlers have
not yet received compensation money and why, as the Saturday Supplement
of Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot revealed on August 5, almost no steps
have been taken to prepare for their absorption into Israel. (1)
Sharon had good
reason to believe that he would succeed in his avoidance tactics. In
the previous round, when confronted with the Bush administrations
road map, he committed himself to a cease fire, during which Israel
was to revert to the status quo of pre-September 2000, freeze settlement
construction and remove outposts. None of this was carried out. Sharon
and the army claimed that Mahmud Abbas (in the previous round) was not
trustworthy and had failed to rein in Hamas. The army continued its
assassination policy and succeeded in bringing the Occupied Territories
to an unprecedented boiling point, followed by the inevitable Palestinian
terror attacks that shattered the cease fire. During the entire time,
the first-term Bush administration stood by Sharons side and dutifully
echoed all his complaints against Abbas.
During the current
period of calm, the Israeli army also continued with incursions into
towns, arrests and targeted assassinations. It seemed as if the next
terrorist attack, in the wake of which the calm would explode, was imminent,
and the Israeli press was full of details outlining the Fist of
Iron operation, which was expected this summer in Gaza. But the
Bush administration suddenly changed direction. While Israel continued
to declare that Abbas was not fulfilling his task, the Bush administration
insisted repeatedly that Abbas must be given a chance. What had changed?
Until this turn-around,
there was general agreement in Israel that there had never been a U.S.
president who was friendlier towards Israel than George W. Bush. Presumably
no one thought that a love of Jews on the part of the evangelical Bush
was behind this support. But there was a feeling in Israel that with
its superior air force, Israel was a huge asset in the global war that
Bush had declared in the Middle East. With the euphoria of the power
that was felt at the time, it seemed as if Afghanistan and Iraq were
already in our hands and now we would proceed together towards
Iran and maybe even Syria.
But in early 2005,
the wheels began to turn the other way. The United States was sinking
in the mire of Iraq incurring defeats and casualties. Iran, which after
the war with Iraq was ready for any terms of surrender, drew encouragement
from Iraqs resistance and from its ties with the Shiite militia.
The oil agreements with China gave a boost to its economy and its status.
Suddenly the possibility of an attack on Iran didnt seem as certain.
It turned out that even the most advanced weapons may not suffice to
bring to their knees entire regions which the U.S. was eyeing. In the
meantime, support for Bush had sunk to under forty percent and after
each world terrorist attack, one heard the paired words, Iraq and Palestine.
Bush will not give up on Iraq so fast. But the headache of Palestine,
he really doesn't need.
Since the beginning
of this year, the U.S. steamroller has been moving steadily. First the
all-powerful Israeli lobby in the U.S. was quietly neutralized. Two
former officials of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)
have been indicted on charges of assisting the transferring of classified
information to an Israeli representative. If convicted, this could spell
the end of AIPAC and the entire lobby. In the meantime, they will have
to sit quietly, regardless of Bushs actions towards Israel.
The next move was
to freeze military support in Israel under cover of the China arms sales
crisis. It would have been possible to handle this pesky problem with
one small blow, as in the past, but the U.S. imposed real sanctions
this time. Contracts for the purchase of military arms were frozen,
and the U.S. suspended cooperation on development projects. In Washington,
the doors were closed on Israeli military officers.
Under these circumstances,
the declared date of the disengagement approached. In light of the open
preparations in Israel for a military operation, suspicions grew in
the U.S. administration that Sharon would not carry out the plan. According
to the New York Times of August 7, the Bush administration exerted pressure
to prevent this from happening, and to prohibit the military operation.
On July 21, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice arrived in Jerusalem
for an unfriendly, hard-line visit. The New York Times reported remarks
of Middle East Security Coordinator General William Ward: "General
Ward, a careful man, confirmed that two weeks ago, American pressure
helped stay the Israeli military when it was poised to go into Gaza...
He predicted that there could be similar pressure should the need arise.
'That scenario is a scenario that none of us would like to see,' he
said. 'There is a deep realization on the part of the Israeli leadership,
including the military, about the consequences of that type of scenario.'
" (2)
Over the years we
have become accustomed to the idea that US. pressure means
declarations that have no muscle behind them. But suddenly the words
have acquired new meaning. When the U.S. really does exert pressure,
no Israeli leader would dare defy its injunctions (and certainly not
Netanyahu). And so we have pulled out of Gaza. If the U.S. continues
to lose ground in Iraq, maybe we will be forced to pull out of the West
Bank as well.
(1) According to
the article, from the very beginning, back in 2004, the Prime
Minister rebuffed the recommendation of [Major General Giora] Eiland,
[National Security Advisor and Head of the IDFs disengagement
Planning Branch] and decided that the government will not build temporary
housing.
(2) Steven Erlanger, The New York Times, August 7, 2005
Translated from
Hebrew by Edeet Ravel