A Little Urgency, Please
September 30, 2005MJ Rosenberg, Israel Policy Forum, IPF Friday Volume 244
Now that the Gaza withdrawal is finished, it's time to move away from unilateralism and back to negotiations.
This is not to say that unilateralism did not make sense for Gaza. It did. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon made his decision to leave Gaza without negotiations at a time when Yasir Arafat was still running the Palestinian Authority and the intifada was still raging. Not trusting Arafat, and unwilling to negotiate under fire, Sharon decided to act on his own. He got the job done. Israel is out.
But, even in the Gaza context, unilateralism was not ideal. The problem with it is that it does not require anything from the other side. Israel committed itself to withdrawing the army and dismantling the settlements. The Palestinian Authority committed itself to nothing although it repeatedly indicated its willingness to negotiate the terms of Israel's withdrawal. Sharon was not interested.
Of course, there were all kinds of de facto negotiations both directly (called "coordination" not negotiation) and through the Egyptians and Jordanians to ensure that the Palestinians took no actions that would jeopardize withdrawal. But there was nothing formal, allowing Sharon to claim that Israel's decision to leave was an entirely Israeli decision (which it was). The irony is that the same absence of negotiations with the Palestinian Authority allows Hamas to claim that it drove Israel out (which it didn't). That is a claim it could not make had there been Israeli-PA negotiations.
One can only hope that the Palestinian Authority (prodded by the Egyptians and others) will do everything it can to secure Gaza, even without a formal agreement. After all, the lack of a formal agreement with Israel does not change the fact that the worst thing that could happen to the Palestinians would be for Gaza to become a terrorist base. The unilateral nature of Israel's Gaza move should not have negative repercussions down the road.
Nevertheless, it's time to get back to negotiations. Arafat is gone. His successor, Mahmoud Abbas, has repudiated violence. The past year has been by far the quietest since the Al Aksa intifada began in 2000.
Why not negotiate?
The precedents for negotiating land for security guarantees are obvious. (The phrase "land for peace" promises too much, at least initially).
Israel achieved two successful peace treaties (with Egypt and Jordan) through negotiations. In the case of Egypt, the subject of negotiations was the future of the Sinai Peninsula. Negotiations were long and hard, largely because of Israel's rightful insistence on guarantees to ensure that relinquishing Sinai in exchange for peace would leave Israel safer, not less so. That is what happened. No one argues that the Israel-Egyptian peace treaty is worth less to Israel than the occupation of Sinai that preceded it. No one could.
It is impossible to imagine that Israel would have left Sinai unilaterally. It needed security guarantees from the Egyptians before it vacated the territory. The same applies to Syria. Israel would not consider any moves off the Golan Heights without ironclad guarantees (and, likely, international monitors) in return and has conducted negotiations with the Syrians on that basis. Similarly, although Israel's territorial issues with Jordan were minor, they were still settled in the context of negotiations.
What makes the Palestinian front any different?
Not much, especially given that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has negotiated with Mahmoud Abbas in the past and, by accepting the Roadmap, is committed to doing so in the future. Sharon has also, most recently at the United Nations this month, indicated his support for the establishment of a Palestinian state.
But, for some reason, negotiations do not seem to be in the cards right now.
This week, in fact, a number of Israeli officials floated a trial balloon indicating that Israel would move unilaterally in the West Bank as it had in Gaza.
Ha'aretz reported that Eyal Arad, one of Sharon's top aides, said that "if we see, over time, that the impasse continues, then, even though Israel's diplomatic situation is comfortable, we might consider turning the disengagement into an Israeli strategy. Israel would determine its borders independently."
But then, following diplomatic protests (most significantly from Washington), Sharon deflated the balloon by announcing that he planned no unilateral moves, at least not for now.
That leaves us pretty much with the status quo. Israel will keep calling on the Palestinians to deal with the militants but won't do much of anything to help them. The Palestinians will say that they are doing the best they can, which is apparently very little. Israel's illegal outposts will stay where they are and the oft-promised settlements freeze will live to be promised yet again.
"This is not going to be the time of a major 'road map' breakthrough," David Makovsky of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told the Christian Science Monitor this week. "Both parties are entering political seasons so it's not a time for diplomatic breakthroughs."
Dennis Ross is quoted in the same article saying the US is "waiting for the period to play itself out." But, he added, "I'm afraid if you wait you will have missed the boat."
Of course, that pathetic boat has been missed again and again. But it is still out there, steaming to shore, in the expectation that this time the two sides will get on board.
This is where the United States needs to step in. After all, the Bush administration almost immediately protested the statements about further unilateral moves. Ambassador Jones demanded a “clarification” and he got it. “We have one plan, the road map, which the U.S. backs, and I see no change in its position, and that is the only plan that exists,” Sharon said.
But rhetoric is just rhetoric. The Roadmap does not require each side to issue sweet words about it. It is a concrete plan for action in three phases. So far, neither side has lived up to its terms. As for President Bush’s promise to hold their “feet to the fire,” it appears to have flamed out.
It’s time to get serious. If not, we can expect Intifada #3. That is precisely where the status quo leads.