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Reuven Koret is the publisher of Israel Insider and the CEO of Koret Communications.
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By Reuven Koret
November 10, 2007
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Reprinted from March 29, 2004, in commemoration of Yitzhak Rabin's murder and the brutal distortion of his vision and legacy by the government of Israel.
On October 5, 1995, I stood outside Israel's Knesset with tens of thousands of other protesters surrounding the building, demonstrating against the ratification of the Israel-Palestinian Interim Agreement.
The "Oslo peace process," secretly begun by Shimon Peres and Yossi Beilin and other European-backed Israeli leftists, and only later grudgingly adopted by Yitzhak Rabin, had already proven a sham and a disaster for Israel. The policy of "fighting terrorism as if there was no peace process, and conducting the peace process as if there was no terrorism" brought only more terrorism and less peace. Rabin's popularity was in freefall, and his Knesset support was dwindling and dependent on the anti-Israel Arab vote.
It was a furious protest, one of the most intense I have ever witnessed. At one point, standing next to Benny Elon, then a leader of the Zo Artzenu civil disobedience movement, and now tourism minister, I watched the limousine of cabinet minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer surrounded and beat on by protestors. Someone walked on its roof. While there was no overt violence from the protesters, there was outrage in the air, as the government of Yitzhak Rabin managed after a 15-hour marathon session to get the agreement approved, 61-59.
I returned from the demonstration and watched clips of Rabin's speech on TV. His vision of a permanent settlement didn't sound bad at all. It was balanced, pragmatic, and filled with what I can only describe as Jewish pride and patriotism. Rabin sketched terms for a territorial settlement which, in hindsight, is significantly superior to what Ariel Sharon now appears to be offering with his "unlateral disengagement" plan.
The Rabin vision, expressed for the first time so explicitly in his speech, explicitly opposed a Palestinian State: "We view the permanent solution in the framework of State of Israel which will include most of the area of the Land of Israel as it was under the rule of the British Mandate, and alongside it a Palestinian entity which will be a home to most of the Palestinian residents living in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. We would like this to be an entity which is less than a state, and which will independently run the lives of the Palestinians under its authority."
He called for territorial compromise to ensure that Israel's maintains a 80% Jewish majority in its sovereign territory, but he ruled out a return to the 1949 Armistice borders: "The borders of the State of Israel, during the permanent solution, will be beyond the lines which existed before the Six Day War.
Rabin demanded Israel's permanent control of the Jordan Valley as a security border "in the broadest meaning of that term." He cited Israel's cluster of communities in Gaza as a model for places to be retained by Israel in a permanent solution: "The establishment of blocs of settlements in Judea and Samaria, like the one in Gush Katif."
Even Rabin's remarks about the interim period were more hawkish than Sharon's disengagement plan, which is based on the assessment that long-term interim arrangements, not a permanent accord, are the best Israeli can expect for the near future.
Rabin ruled out the uprooting of any settlement until a permanent agreement was reached: "I want to remind you: we committed ourselves, that is, we came to an agreement, and committed ourselves before the Knesset, not to uproot a single settlement in the framework of the interim agreement, and not to hinder building for natural growth." Sharon, by contrast, prepares to uproot dozens of Israeli settlements, starting with the entire Gush Katif bloc in Gaza.
Rabin demanded that Israel retain full control over land, air and sea access points. "The responsibility for external security along the borders with Egypt and Jordan, as well as control over the airspace above all of the territories and Gaza Strip maritime zone, remains in our hands." Sharon appears willing to water down this access control as well.
Rabin emphasized Israel's commitment to retain control over Jewish holy sites in the territories, including the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron and Joseph's Tomb in Nablus. While Sharon has included Rachel's Tomb in Bethlehem within Israel's security fence, he has made no commitment regarding the other holy sites.
Rabin also introduced a key element of conditionality, linking Israel's further withdrawals to the PA changing of the Palestine National Covenant, the basis of the Oslo Agreement that underscored the unreliability and betrayal of the Palestinians. "We are aware of the fact that the Palestinian Authority has not -- up until now -- honored its commitment to change the Palestinian Covenant, and that all of the promises on this matter have not been kept. I would like to bring it to the attention of the members of the house that I view these changes as a supreme test of the Palestinian Authority's willingness and ability, and the changes required will be an important and serious touchstone with respect to the continued implementation of the agreement as a whole." The Charter of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, calling for the destruction of Israel, has never been altered, despite all pretenses to the contrary.
By abandoning conditionality of Palestinian's actions, and making a commitment to unilateral withdrawals, Sharon [and Olmert after him] has abandoned the principal of reciprocity that Netanyahu made a watchword. Instead he aimed to shift the obligation of reciprocity onto the Americans, an attempt which now appears over-optimistic and a recipe for continuing frictions with our only significantly ally.
Rabin said that "no detainee or prisoner will be released unless he signs a commitment to obey the law, to not commit acts of terrorism and involvement in them". Hundreds remained in jail because they refused to sign." Sharon made no such condition when he released hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, and in the recent exchange with Hizbullah.
Exactly one month after Rabin's last major address to the Knesset, he was killed. Ariel Sharon's unilateral disengagement plan represents a substantial regression relative to Rabin's vision of a permanent settlement, or even a long-term interim arrangement. [Olmert's planned concessions in Annapolis perpetuate and compound that regression, despite recognition by many of his minister's that the Disengagement from Gaza and Samaria was a mistake.]
Sharon was elected by a landslide over a Labor candidate who advocated unilateral retreat from the Gaza Strip. Now he endorses just such a retreat, threatening to embrace the Labor party if his right wing and Likud colleagues don't support him. It is a profoundly anti-democratic move, especially as it becomes clear that Israeli will receive no quid pro quo from the Americans.
For those in the center and right who feel betrayed and bewildered by Sharon's moves, there is one clear course: adoption of the Rabin vision as he expressed it in his last days.
This means embracing Rabin's view that Gush Katif in Gaza should be not evacuated but annexed; that annexation, demarcated by the security barrier, should be extended to all the settlement blocs and Jewish holy sites which Israel intends to keep, including those he mentioned. It means opposing a Palestinian state with unsupervised airports, seaports and border crossings. It means no more insane prisoner exchanges. And it means no reward for terror: the Palestinians must understand that more terror means territory lost forever.
Hindsight is 20-20, and much has changed since 1995. But the events of the ensuing years -- including but not limited to Camp David, the subsequent outbreak of massive Palestinian violence, 9/11 and all that followed it -- makes Rabin's vision all the more prescient and appropriate to our time: much more so than Sharon's ill-conceived unilateral retreat.
Israel, now more than ever, should embrace Rabin's latter-day vision. Despite his initial seduction by the left, in the end he turned out to be right.
Views expressed by the author do not
necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
 
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