I raised that possibility when he announced the "withdrawal" from Gaza in February.
So is he serious? I have no idea. Sharon is a strong and clever politician who has played bait-and-switch before. But now he's made specific promises for a specific time. So for now I will give him the benefit of the doubt and applaud him as a man who has learned - at least a little - that Israel's future is best served by peace and its security best founded on justice.In fairness to myself, I'll note that four days later, I said "so it turns out he wasn't really serious after all" when it became clear that the settlers to be removed from Gaza were to be resettled on the West Bank.
The result is to strengthen Israel's de facto (but illegal) grip on portions of the area which Sharon intends to keep as part of any final settlement - or even in the absence of one.But I didn't realize at the time how thoroughly I'd been jobbed. Earlier this month it became clear. From the Toronto Globe & Mail for April 5:
Palestinians may not get a state for many years as a result of Israel's unilateral "disengagement" plan, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said in interviews published Monday, providing more details of his proposal to withdraw from all of the Gaza Strip and four West Bank settlements. ...The BBC added some more details:
Mr. Sharon said the withdrawal plan is a "deadly blow" to the Palestinians and that he would not co-ordinate with them — an apparent response to ultra-nationalist critics who have accused him of succumbing to Palestinian violence.
"In the unilateral plan, there is no Palestinian state. This situation could continue for many years," Mr. Sharon told Yediot.
Other details of the plan included:This, in fact, is not a withdrawal, it is the creation of a gulag. A gulag filled with 1.3 million people, surrounded by Israeli military forces, cut off from the world except by their guards' permission, with no way to build their own institutions or economic base. It's a giant prison. Sharon admitted as much:
- no Palestinian control over any ports;
- Israeli control over a patrol road in the south of the Gaza Strip on the border with Egypt;
- handing over the homes of more than 7,000 settlers to an international organisation, not destroying them. ...
The prime minister told Maariv that his plan "will bring their [the Palestinians'] dreams to an end".
"When you fence areas and communities in the West Bank, you end a lot of their dreams," Mr Sharon said, referring to the controversial security barrier Israel is building.
"My plan is tough on the Palestinians. A mortal blow."
He said Israel would continue supplying water and electricity, but said the flow might stop in the event of a major Palestinian attack on Israelis.So much for a change of heart. It seems the only way his heart changes is to become ever-more ossified.
What raises this now, of course, is that President Boy-Wonder has endorsed the whole flaming thing: Not only the new Gaza Gulag, but Israel's professed intention to keep six major Jewish settlements in the West Bank "for all eternity." That endorsement came despite the fact that those settlements are all illegal under international law, as has been repeatedly noted in UN Security Council resolutions. Apparently our concern for those is a matter of convenience rather than conviction. (Or maybe a reluctance to raise questions about "land seized in war?")
With one eye on the elections and the other on the wacko Christian fundamentalists in his own administration who regard a secure Israel as a necessary prerequisite for the Second Coming, Bush did not content himself with overthrowing decades of US policy about the West Bank: He also came out against the so-called "right of return," the insistence that Palestinians should have the right to return to family homes abandoned in 1948 that are now within the legitimate (1967) borders of Israel. It was unlikely such a right would ever become part of a final settlement - even apart from arguments about "demographic suicide," Israel simply could not absorb the over 4 million potential returnees. But previously, the US had always finessed the issue, suggesting some sort of limited return and/or compensation could be worked out as part of a final agreement.
Now that's off the table, and Palestinians are being told that after less than 50 years they must surrender the dream that Jews did not give up for hundreds: that of returning home.
No wonder Sharon left the meeting with a big grin. I wonder if he actually needed a plane to fly back to Israel.
Not everyone was so pleased.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan censured Bush for ignoring the wishes of Palestinians, while the European Union said it would not accept border changes unless agreed by both sides.To counter Arab anger, Colin Powell has started a charm offensive to convince them the agreement does not say what it clearly does. Absurdly,
Saudi Arabia, a key U.S. ally, said Bush's backing for Sharon's plan would "if cemented...complicate peace opportunities and cripple the peace process."
Powell insisted in interviews and telephone calls that Bush's meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon produced positive results for the Palestinians and their statehood aspirations. ...It's true that Bush "did not endorse any settlements" in exactly the same way that there was "no threat" of an al-Qaeda attack in the summer of 2001: He didn't list them by name. But he did endorse the idea of those settlements and the idea that Israel will keep them along with a chunk of the West Bank. Those "modifications" Powell spoke of were supposed to be minor ones and the language was intended to avoid locking the parties into fixed positions before negotiations, not to act as an excuse for a large-scale land grab. (Since echoes of Vietnam are careening around the region, I'll mention another one: I recall saying in about 1972 that the basic rule about PR in Vietnam was "when you change your policy, insist that you're not.")
"The president did not endorse any particular outcome," Powell said at a State Department news conference. "He did not endorse any settlements yesterday."
Nor, Powell said, did Bush take positions different from those of previous administrations that "modifications, adjustments, changes will be required" in the borders Israel held before capturing the West Bank and Gaza in the 1967 Mideast war.
Despite this line of bull, which I doubt will impress anyone concerned and which I'm surprised Powell can deliver with a straight face (I'm sure Sharon got a good chuckle out of it), the cause of peace has been given a smackdown unlike any it's experienced of late.
Yes, I'm aware of terrorist attacks and terrorist counterattacks and terrorist counter-counterattacks, of the cycle of retaliation which everyone insists the other side started. But I'm also aware that the argument that terrorism prevents peace, that you "can't negotiate" then, that a bomb planted in a car or dropped from a jet or strapped to someone's chest "puts a halt to talks," is a lie, a lie that only empowers those who do not want peace. Such attacks, even such atrocities, prevent negotiations toward justice - which is the only sure foundation of peace and security - only if you choose to allow them to.
Groups such as Hamas have openly acknowledged using their attacks as a means to head off "appeasement," i.e., the possibility of a compromise settlement. And I have wondered more than once about the strange coincidence
that Israel always seems to make some "provocative" move - a raid, an assassination, a "clampdown," something - just at the moment when it looks like some radical Palestinian groups might agree to back off on violence or just before some negotiation is supposed to start.There clearly are those on both sides who believe a bloody status quo is preferable to a settlement that might require them to give something up.
And so once more the hawks have taken flight. And once more the undertaker smiles.
Footnote: Powell also
defended Bush's policy shift against charges of pro-Israel bias, saying: "I don't think we have abandoned our role as an honest broker at all.""When you change your policy...."
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