The Time is Now
June 1, 2004by Naomi Chazan, Tikkun--an analysis of Sharon's disengagement plan
We are probably at the most important juncture in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since 1967, and potentially since 1948. What happens in the next six months is going to be monumental.
It’s during periods of transition, when things are changing, that it’s possible to make a difference. But given the way things have been going, I’m not 100 percent sure that we’ll be able to make a difference. It’s absolutely essential to anybody who believes in a just and fair peace for Palestinians and Israelis to look hard to see where it might be possible to intervene to avert what may truly be a human, ethical, moral, political, and historical disaster.
Since April 14, 2004, when President Bush met with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and gave him a letter of support for Sharon’s policies, we have entered a totally different and new path. Many people were surprised by the Bush-Sharon exchange of letters. But I don’t think we have any right to be surprised whatsoever, because Sharon has been saying for the past four years that he intends to establish a Palestinian State in 44 percent of the Occupied Territories, and the Sharon-Bush exchange simply confirms American support for this plan.
Since the Gaza disengagement plan received official support from Washington, four major parameters have literally changed before our eyes. First, the conventional wisdom until now has been that the resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict—and by extension the Arab-Israeli conflict—would occur through the creation of a viable Palestinian State alongside Israel. Conventional wisdom, in other words, has been a two-state solution. But Bush and Sharon signed off on a modified two-state solution which is anything but viable; which, for the first time since 1967, grants American approval to the annexation of major segments of the West Bank; which declares non-recognition of the Right of Return for Palestinians to Israel; which contends that Israel has the right to build a security barrier outside the Green Line, the 1967 boundaries; and which essentially grants Israel military control of Gaza after its “withdrawal.” That’s not a two-state solution.
In short, for the first time since 1967, the two-state solution is being called into question. Of course there have always been one-staters: there are Jewish one-state fundamentalists (“it’s all mine”) and there are Muslim one-state fundamentalists (“no, it’s all mine”). They play a zero-sum game. But it has also become radical-left chic to be a one-stater as well. The Left’s one-state solution seems to boil down to this: one day there’s going to be a democratic one-state solution, but in the meantime people are going to kill each other off for another generation and there’s not much we can do about that. I’ve always found this abominable on a purely human level. But to authorize a modified two-state solution reopens the question of the nature of the solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in very dangerous ways. The Bush-Sharon deal forces us to rethink and restate our objective: Where are we going? We thought we knew where we were going, and now we must make our objectives even clearer.
The second change relates to strategy. Everything up until now has been predicated on the assumption that a peace agreement was going to be negotiated between the two principl parties: the Israelis and the Palestinians. But Bush and Sharon agreed to authorize unilateral steps, which means Palestinians are no longer to be given a say in their own future. It is an old form of imperialism of a kind I could not imagine occurring in the twenty-first century.
In real terms, the Bush-Sharon agreement means that the Road Map is dead, despite the fact that their letters mention the Road Map over and over. The Road Map, however, is about negotiations between two parties, and the current agreement is the antithesis of such negotiations. More to the point, the Bush-Sharon exchange makes it much more difficult for proponents of other peace proposals like the Nusseibeh-Ayalon principles or the Geneva Accord.
The third shift has to do with timing. For the past three years, awful things have been going on—in a matter of minutes, people can explode in suicide bombs and people can die as a result of F-16 fighter bomber explosions in Gaza. Sharon and Bush are saying, “We’re going to have a gradual disengagement. The disengagement from Gaza and from the West Bank will be completed by the end of 2005 and this is a temporary state, and when the Palestinians learn and they choose a new leadership and they stop doing this, that, and the other, then maybe something else can happen.” Nothing is urgent according to Sharon and Bush. And if nothing is urgent, it means more people are going to get killed and more people are going to suffer while politicians dilly and dally. When you draw out time in our region, lots of things can happen—most of them not good. The Wall can be completed. In Jerusalem this Wall literally cuts through living rooms. More settlements can be constructed, and therefore more “facts on the ground” can be created. As the clock ticks, peace becomes ever more difficult.
The final change in parameters created by the new Bush-Sharon agreement relates to “operationalization”—which means “implementation” or carrying out. The conventional wisdom has been that implementation occurs carefully, with external monitoring, outside observers, somebody to keep order. But now the Palestinians, according to this exchange of letters, are not even allowed to ask for outside assistance or observers without the permission of the United States and Israel. Not only that, but there are no measures, there are no standards, for any process that occurs; Israel will be able to decide how it will operationalize. What does this mean? That the withdrawal from Gaza is not a real withdrawal. When Israel pulls out its troops, people will claim that the Occupation in Gaza is over, but according to this agreement Israel will maintain control of all the borders, including the sea border, entrances, and exits. Israel will retain full rights to enter Gaza when it wants to, as long as it says that it’s no longer occupying Gaza. I think that what we’re about to see is not Gaza as the first withdrawal, but Gaza alone, as the only withdrawal. And in exchange for leaving Gaza, Sharon is going to annex large portions of the West Bank and pursue new construction. This is one of the most bizarre withdrawals I can think of. Two days after the Bush-Sharon exchange, Israel once again engaged in a targeted assassination of Hamas leader Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi, after assassinating Sheik Yassin two weeks earlier. And recently, Sharon has begun to mumble about removing—listen to these euphemisms—Yassir Arafat. This is all about “operationalization.”
All of this has serious implications. First, from now on, the United States is no longer an honest broker in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. I say that with a fair amount of sadness, because the United States has immense power, and if it is no longer an honest broker that means the prospects of bringing the sides together at the negotiating table are reduced. Second, for the first time since the early 1970s, I see the reunification of the Arab world around the Palestinian-Israeli conflict—a seismic shift from what we’ve known in recent years. Third, the gap between the United States and Europe is growing. Even Tony Blair, the only leader who supported the Bush-Sharon exchange, had to rap Sharon on the knuckles about his threats to Arafat. These are significant changes that can’t be ignored. If they are even partially implemented, they fundamentally alter the parameters of the Arab-Israeli conflict and specifically the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
These facts cannot be willed away. There is a tendency time and time again for good people not to see reality as it exists and to find a whole series of excuses about why interpretations like these may be too dismal and depressing. I would plead with you to take the Bush-Sharon plan and its consequences seriously.
The Sharon plan is brilliant. Why? Because it isolates the Right, but it also isolates and weakens the Left and blurs the distinction between Likud and Labor. Many in the peace camp are going to reluctantly support the Sharon plan because they were the first to suggest elements of it. Sharon took the positions the Labor Party offered in last year’s election—namely the dismantlement of illegal West Bank settlements and the withdrawal from Gaza, distorted them, and, now he is throwing these proposals back at Labor, saying, “How can you oppose your own plan?” Even my party, Yachad, which had a very difficult debate on the subject, is going to go along with portions of the plan. But it will be hard pressed to go along with portions without explaining itself—which in the end will make it sound like it’s supporting the plan. I don’t think this plan should be supported and I’m in the minority—in the peace camp in Israel! That’s why it’s such a brilliant plan. It puts the Right in the corner, but it puts the Left in the corner as well.
My assumption is that there will be a coalition reshuffle within the next few months; in fact, I think Labor will eventually enter the Sharon-Likud coalition because it will talk itself into supporting this plan. Because of the Sharon plan, it’s going to be much more difficult for Israelis on the Left to continue to press for a viable two-state solution, evacuation of all settlements, and a return to the 1967 borders. Americans on the mainstream left will also be stuck in a similarly difficult position. If you want to know why Democratic nominee John Kerry supported this move, it’s because he is stuck in exactly the same corner. In terms of the Jewish community abroad, and especially in the United States, the plan is brilliant because it appears to be compassionate (Israel is withdrawing; what more could you want?). It’s difficult to explain to the world that in fact Israel is locking 1,200,000 Palestinians into an enclave without any breathing space under the guise of withdrawal.
For Palestinians, the immediate effects are going to be dangerous indeed, because this move totally discredits Palestinian moderates. It makes our partners in Geneva, for the first time, really afraid. A couple of days ago, the first post-Sharon-Bush poll in Palestine was published showing that for the first time ever, Hamas enjoys more support than the PLO. That’s scary. Fundamentalists on any side, for any reason, are not pleasant people. Even more serious, however, is the fact that this imposed withdrawal almost forces the Palestinians to resist. If the very same moves were the result of negotiations, then the Palestinians could claim, “We liberated territory and that gives us responsibility.” But just as liberation can lead to responsibility and cooperation, imposition leads to resistance.
We’re making a mistake that is going to reverberate throughout the Middle East. Why? Because we’re leaving the Palestinians with no options. It’s criminal to leave people with no options, because if you have no options, you have one option: violence. It’s almost an invitation to violence. If you are peace loving, if you believe in a fair and viable and humane resolution to the conflict, what do you do? That should be the challenge of the Tikkun Community. The first direction is to prevent the Sharon plan. But unfortunately I’ve begun to think that even if Bush and Sharon are gone by November, it will be very difficult to halt their plan unless there’s an alternative in place. The Geneva Accord is such an alternative, so one way to oppose the Sharon plan is to support the Geneva Accord.
The second possibility—and there is talk about this among friends—is to get the Palestinian Authority to officially adopt the Geneva Accord and to put that plan out as their alternative. The only problem is that once again this calls on the Palestinians to do something, rather than focusing on what we can do.
The third possibility, and I think this is the wisest, is to pick apart the Sharon plan. Portions of the plan, to my mind, are an abomination. But there are two elements that are precisely what many of us have been struggling toward for many years: dismantling settlements—as many as possible and as quickly as possible—and ending the occupation. We can say “yes” to these and to everything else “no”—no ifs, ands, or buts. If we deconstruct the Sharon plan and support only the elements that are precisely where we are going, and oppose those elements that lead to the opposite, it may be possible to get somewhere. But that means doing something that’s difficult to do in the twenty-first century, especially in Washington, D.C., and that is to be sophisticated and nuanced and explain things in more than a sound bite. The Sharon-Bush meeting is a turning point, and if we want to prevent its evil consequences, we’ve got a lot of work to do.
Naomi Chazan was a member of the Israeli Knesset from 1992 to 2003. She is professor of political science and African studies at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and is currently the Robert Wilhelm Fellow at the Center for International Studies at MIT.