Sharon and the Future of Palestine
The New York Review of Books: Sharon and the Future of Palestine
In this essay published in the December 2nd issue of the New York Review of Books, Henry Siegman helpfully connects the dots of known information about the causes and consequences of more than four years of Intifada and Israeli military response and settlement activity. He also sets forth a realistic plan for resolving the conflict. His analysis is that Israel's current "disengagement" process under the leadership of Ariel Sharon, even if it takes place as planned, is not a cause for any optimism that the reigning powerbroker, Sharon, has changed his spots or that the Palestinians are likely to get a fair deal. "Sharon is not about to agree to the minimal conditions for a workable Palestinian state," Siegman contends. He cites a Peace Now Settlement Watch report that shows new construction taking place at 474 settlements, including 50 sites where construction goes beyond the boundaries of existing settlements, in violation of Sharon's promises to President Bush. Hundreds of acres of West Bank land have been newly appropriated by Israel this year.
The upshot is that the Gaza withdrawal is meant to offer Palestinians a virtual prison compound in which residents will be isolated from the outside and denied freedom of movement within. Thirty-seven percent of the Palestinian population lives in the tiny Gaza enclave (representing just 1.25% of the original territory of the pre-1948 Palestinian mandate), and the territorial formula that the Sharon government envisions for them almost guarantees chaos. But Sharon's senior advisor and chief of staff Dov Weissglas has been remarkably candid that the aim is not to further -- but to prevent -- any advancement of a peace process. The disengagement, according to Weissglas, "supplies the amount formaldehyde that is necessary so there will not be a political process with the Palestinians."
Given increasingly successful efforts of Israel to subdivide the Palestinian territories into three discontiguous cantons, the salient question then is whether an apartheid state will be the final result. Siegman cites the prominent Israeli columnist Nahum Barnea in answer to this question: "thirty-seven years after the occupation, in the eyes of a large part of the world Israel has become a pariah country. It's not yet the South Africa of apartheid, but definitely from the same family." As for the barrier Israel is building to separate itself from the Palestinians, retired general and former director of military intelligence Shlomo Gazit has remarked that the reason Israel lost its case for the wall at the International Court of Justice at The Hague is that what was once a "security fence" has been turned into a "political fence." Gazit recognizes that "[t]he argument in The Hague was not about the security needs of Israel, but about Israel's right to establish political Jewish settlements deep inside Judea and Samaria."
Siegman points out that Palestinian terror directed against Israeli civilians, as well as the failure of Arafat as an institution builder, have contributed to the failure of the political process. "But," he continues, "Palestinian failures do not begin to legitimize Sharon's policies, or those of the Bush administration, for that matter. Palestinians have the right to a state in the West Bank and Gaza not because they meet certain standards set by Sharon, the man who aspires to acquiring much of their land, or because Bush has a 'vision' of two states living side by side, but because of universally recognized principles of national self-determination."
Only international intervention, Siegman concludes, not mere facilitation, stands to end the bloody conflict. He recommends that an international conference be arranged with the participation of the UN, the EU, Russia, and hopefully the US. The conference should have as its goal the adoption of a set of internationally recognized principles for ending the conflict, with or without Israeli and Palestinian approval. Such principles are already widely acknowledged: return to the pre-1967 boundaries, as stipulated by the Road Map, with adjustments to be made on the basis of one-for-one swaps; return of Palestinian refugees to Palestinian territory only; East Jerusalem to become the capital of the new Palestinian state; and special provisions for the Haram as-Sharif/Temple Mount. While Siegman does not expect that the US would participate in such a conference, he believes that American leaders would have a hard time denying the legitimacy of clearly expressed international consensus on principles that derive directly from the Road Map. Nor does he imagine that Israel, or even the Palestinians, would agree to implement these principles. But, he says, the point is to influence the cost-analysis of both sides, whose economic and political relations with the international community would be affected by refusal to comply or by implementation of unilateral measures.
Siegman's argument is that European unity in enacting such a plan perhaps may be augured by the unexpectedly near-unanimous vote in The Hague against Israel's separation barrier. His analysis, and his plan, make sense.
--Lincoln
In this essay published in the December 2nd issue of the New York Review of Books, Henry Siegman helpfully connects the dots of known information about the causes and consequences of more than four years of Intifada and Israeli military response and settlement activity. He also sets forth a realistic plan for resolving the conflict. His analysis is that Israel's current "disengagement" process under the leadership of Ariel Sharon, even if it takes place as planned, is not a cause for any optimism that the reigning powerbroker, Sharon, has changed his spots or that the Palestinians are likely to get a fair deal. "Sharon is not about to agree to the minimal conditions for a workable Palestinian state," Siegman contends. He cites a Peace Now Settlement Watch report that shows new construction taking place at 474 settlements, including 50 sites where construction goes beyond the boundaries of existing settlements, in violation of Sharon's promises to President Bush. Hundreds of acres of West Bank land have been newly appropriated by Israel this year.
The upshot is that the Gaza withdrawal is meant to offer Palestinians a virtual prison compound in which residents will be isolated from the outside and denied freedom of movement within. Thirty-seven percent of the Palestinian population lives in the tiny Gaza enclave (representing just 1.25% of the original territory of the pre-1948 Palestinian mandate), and the territorial formula that the Sharon government envisions for them almost guarantees chaos. But Sharon's senior advisor and chief of staff Dov Weissglas has been remarkably candid that the aim is not to further -- but to prevent -- any advancement of a peace process. The disengagement, according to Weissglas, "supplies the amount formaldehyde that is necessary so there will not be a political process with the Palestinians."
Given increasingly successful efforts of Israel to subdivide the Palestinian territories into three discontiguous cantons, the salient question then is whether an apartheid state will be the final result. Siegman cites the prominent Israeli columnist Nahum Barnea in answer to this question: "thirty-seven years after the occupation, in the eyes of a large part of the world Israel has become a pariah country. It's not yet the South Africa of apartheid, but definitely from the same family." As for the barrier Israel is building to separate itself from the Palestinians, retired general and former director of military intelligence Shlomo Gazit has remarked that the reason Israel lost its case for the wall at the International Court of Justice at The Hague is that what was once a "security fence" has been turned into a "political fence." Gazit recognizes that "[t]he argument in The Hague was not about the security needs of Israel, but about Israel's right to establish political Jewish settlements deep inside Judea and Samaria."
Siegman points out that Palestinian terror directed against Israeli civilians, as well as the failure of Arafat as an institution builder, have contributed to the failure of the political process. "But," he continues, "Palestinian failures do not begin to legitimize Sharon's policies, or those of the Bush administration, for that matter. Palestinians have the right to a state in the West Bank and Gaza not because they meet certain standards set by Sharon, the man who aspires to acquiring much of their land, or because Bush has a 'vision' of two states living side by side, but because of universally recognized principles of national self-determination."
Only international intervention, Siegman concludes, not mere facilitation, stands to end the bloody conflict. He recommends that an international conference be arranged with the participation of the UN, the EU, Russia, and hopefully the US. The conference should have as its goal the adoption of a set of internationally recognized principles for ending the conflict, with or without Israeli and Palestinian approval. Such principles are already widely acknowledged: return to the pre-1967 boundaries, as stipulated by the Road Map, with adjustments to be made on the basis of one-for-one swaps; return of Palestinian refugees to Palestinian territory only; East Jerusalem to become the capital of the new Palestinian state; and special provisions for the Haram as-Sharif/Temple Mount. While Siegman does not expect that the US would participate in such a conference, he believes that American leaders would have a hard time denying the legitimacy of clearly expressed international consensus on principles that derive directly from the Road Map. Nor does he imagine that Israel, or even the Palestinians, would agree to implement these principles. But, he says, the point is to influence the cost-analysis of both sides, whose economic and political relations with the international community would be affected by refusal to comply or by implementation of unilateral measures.
Siegman's argument is that European unity in enacting such a plan perhaps may be augured by the unexpectedly near-unanimous vote in The Hague against Israel's separation barrier. His analysis, and his plan, make sense.
--Lincoln
posted by Lincoln Z. Shlensky at 1:46 PM
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