The Hindu : Sharon's plans for Gaza

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Thursday, Feb 12, 2004

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Sharon's plans for Gaza

By Chinmaya R. Gharekhan

Conventional wisdom suggests that it would take a hardline leader such as Mr. Sharon to make peace with the Palestinians.

THE ISRAELI Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, made major headlines with his February 2, 2004 statement to the effect that he was ready and had ordered plans to be prepared for the evacuation of 17 settlements from the Gaza strip within the next two years.

The Gaza strip has always been a security headache for Israel. It is an undeniable fact that the intifada of 1987-92 was a major, almost decisive, factor that made the then Israeli Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin, to agree to the Oslo Agreement in 1993. Oslo provided Rabin with a dignified way of getting out of the strip where the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) were suffering heavy casualties. Protecting the settlers in Gaza has posed a major security and financial challenge to the Government since many of the settlements are isolated pockets, completely surrounded by Palestinians.

Though it makes good financial and security sense for Israel to pull out of the strip — the Israeli Army Chief is enthusiastic about his Prime Minister's proposal — Mr. Sharon's announcement surprised many and shocked his Likud party. Three factors are believed to have influenced his decision: his coming visit to Washington, the controversy about the security wall or fence, and the scandal involving him and his sons about the so-called Greek Island affair which might drag him to court. Most people are intrigued and sceptical, given Mr. Sharon's track record of close identification with the settlers. The real story is now out. Mr. Sharon wants to relocate the settlers, uprooted from the strip, in new or existing settlement blocks in the occupied West Bank, which in effect means enlarging the area of the West Bank that would be incorporated in Israel following an eventual peace agreement with the Palestinians. This would be against the letter and the spirit of the road map that bans any increase in the settlements.

The right wing opposes Mr. Sharon's proposal because it amounts to rewarding terror. There is some substance to this argument since the militant movements are almost certain to interpret the evacuation as a victory for them and as an invitation to intensify terrorist activities.

Conventional wisdom suggests that it would take a hardline Likud leader such as Mr. Sharon to make peace with the Palestinians. The difficulty is that Mr. Sharon has not come up with `the vision thing' to raise hopes in the hearts of the Palestinians. If he were to declare that he would be prepared to accept the proposals which his predecessor, Ehud Barak, offered to Yasser Arafat in 2000, even as a basis of discussion, he would strengthen the hands of moderates such as Ahmed Qurei and Abu Mazen in their efforts to deal with the extremists. As of today, the Palestinians have nothing to look forward to, except closures and massive unemployment; they need an incentive to thwart the rising influence of the Hamas and the Islamic Jihad. Mr. Sharon wants terror to stop first. This vicious cycle can only be broken by Israel, since no one on the Palestinian side can effectively control the terrorists.

The Palestinians are in a difficult situation. They have placed all their hopes on the Americans , Israel's strongest and most dependable supporters. Both parties also realise that in this election year, the U.S. President will not say, much less do anything to upset the powerful Jewish lobby in the U.S. This could translate into freedom for Israel to take any action without having to worry about American reaction. Since 1988 when the Palestinian Liberation Organisation officially abandoned the idea of `driving Israel into sea', and more so since Oslo, the Palestinians have been working for a two-state solution. Since the two-state solution at present is as far away from realisation as it has always been, voices are being raised in favour of a binational state solution. Some Palestinians, including even the Prime Minister, Ahmed Qurei, believe it would be better to let demography do its work for them when, in a few years, they would be in a majority in an Israel whose territory would comprise all the land between the Jordan river and the Mediterranean sea. This, understandably, is a most unwelcome and scary prospect for the Israelis for whom Israel is the state of the Jews, not a state of its citizens. Some Israelis, including senior Ministers, have their own answer to this threat: impose a unilateral solution which would consist of declaring the creation of a Palestinian entity on about 40 per cent of the West bank, a nightmare for the Palestinians.

These mutual scare scenarios seem to have propelled the two sides to making renewed efforts to resume negotiations. There is talk, once again, of the two Prime Ministers meeting in the next few days and American envoys will revisit the region. In West Asia, one must always expect the unexpected.

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