By Reuven Koret
May 2, 2004
While this piece was intended to present an analysis of the choices facing Likud voters today, I can't ignore the massacre of a pregnant woman and her four children as they traveled from Gush Katif, reportedly to campaign against the plan of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to drive them from their homes. Sources close to Sharon said the attack was proof that the terrorists were in "hysteria" and that his "disengagement plan" pulls out the rug from under terror. We can't ask the murdered family members whether they agree. But we can ask ourselves the tough questions.
So what are the best arguments for Sharon's "disengagement" plan (if "plan" is not too strong a word)?
The first is that if Israel takes the initiative and retreats in haste from Gaza and four settlements in Samaria, with no conditions or quid pro quo, it will win the support and respect of the world. It will eliminate the cost and burden of protecting Israelis who live there and of preventing terror attacks from Arabs who live there. The Arabs will be out of our lives, and we out of theirs.
Then there are the diplomatic arguments: Israel will be not be pressured for a long time, if ever, to make any additional withdrawals. The Americans and the Europeans, if not the Arabs, will accept the new fence-circumscribed de facto borders. They will accept Israel's position that Palestinians will not be able to return to only to a Palestinian state.
To these have been added: if the Likud rejects the Plan, we will: be on the receiving end on an imposed solution; be flooded with Palestinian refugees; be hit with a wave of terror attacks; be subject to diplomatic isolation and economic sanctions; be rewarding Arafat and Hamas; will make the Americans mad, and, last be not least, bring on new elections.
But from the morning after Sharon's return from the United States, it has become clear that disengagement will not win Israel diplomatic immunity but only more pressure to retreat. No one denies that Israeli intelligence and security assets will be weakened, no one pretends that terror will cease, and everyone knows the terrorists will celebrate their victory. Missiles with increasing ranges are likely to fly north to Ashkelon and Ashdod, east to Sderot and Kiryat Gat. Despite its declarations to the contrary, Israel will not be able to maintain the same level of control over weaponry flowing in by land and sea.
Israel will continue to transfer tens of millions of dollars monthly to the Arafat regime, and Israeli citizens still have no assurance of receiving compensation for abandoning their homes, factories, greenhouses and fields. We will be pressured for more retreats, pressured not to build in settlements, pressured not to respond to terror attacks, pressured to allow Palestinians to fly in and out, bring cargo in and out, cross borders (and Israel) freely. As Gaza and the "liberated" parts of Palestine fall under Arafat's control, realizing his plan of stages, Palestinians will flood in without limit, producing economic and ecological disasters which will, of course, be blamed on Israel for not giving more.
By fleeing from Gaza, as it did from Lebanon, without any diplomatic or political gains, Israel will be sending the message that terror works, and that the only solution is complete withdrawal. It worked in Sinai, in Lebanon, next in Gaza, the West Bank, parts of Jerusalem. And it will work in the Galilee, in Um el Fahm, Nazareth, Lod, and Jaffa.
Some claim that retreat is the only solution to solve the demographic threat: only half of the population west of the Jordan is Jewish, with the Arab birthrate much higher. But beating a hasty retreat behind fences and walls, and creating an independent Palestinian state, will enable and legitimize an uncontrolled and irreversible flow of refugees, and children and grandchildren of refugees to Arafat-led lands west of the Jordan. And it will further embolden the fifth column of Israel's population to identify with the enemy and aspire to overwhelm the Zionist entity by babies if not bombs, ballots if not bullets.
As Arabs flood in, Jews would be flushed out. The human cost of expelling families from their homes would extend well beyond those deported. The world would witness scenes of terrorists taking over Israeli homes and synagogues. The sight of Jews being deported against their will, dragged from their homes even as terrorist celebrate and continue with their massacres, would likely unleash uncontrollable forces which could lead to civil war, especially if Sharon tries to overrule rejection of his plan by the party which elected him.
If nothing else, the referendum has had the effect of activating the remnants of the "national camp" both secular and religious, and galvanizing their cooperation, rousing them from despair and apathy. Against all the odds, with the Prime Minister and all of the leading Likud humpty-dumpties supporting the plan, an optimistic and well-organized campaign spearheaded by the Jewish Leadership movement inside the party, and the Yesha Council from without, ran a principled, disciplined and well organized campaign. Win or lose, Moshe Feiglin and his movement is now a national force to be reckoned with in any future political constellation.
The same cannot be said for the Prime Minister, whose over-confidence in calling for a binding referendum and over-stating his achievements in Washington has given way to a panicked and ignoble retreat from honoring the results of the voting, and empty threats and fear-mongering should the vote go the other way. Ministers Netanyahu, Shalom and Livnat, by grudgingly supporting disengagement while refusing to campaign for it, have left themselves sitting on the fence, likely to be pushed off by Sharon, win or lose.
When Sharon six months ago announced his idea of "disengagement," I saw in it at least a possibility for strong and decisive Israeli action to determine our borders and our fate, to create a decisively Jewish state without relying on the assent of the Palestinians. However, the evolution of this patchwork of half-baked ideas has made it obvious that, in Sharon's clumsy hands, this has become nothing other than a pathetic continuation of the Oslo debacle, with no lasting benefits to be gained from the retreat, only more losses.
The idea that Shimon Peres is likely to soon become a prime partner in the government, unless Sharon is first indicted for bribery and other crimes of corruption, is proof positive of the bankruptcy and betrayal of the voters who elected the Prime Minister in an unprecedented landslide over the Labor candidate who campaigned for unilateral withdrawal.
The last month has revealed the painful lack of principles of the government leadership, confirmed its lack of long-range planning, and undermining its credibility and moral standing. By contrast, the opponents of the plan have said they will accept its results and back the Prime Minister. If the referendum passes, there is little doubt that its opponents will for the most part accept the verdict of the majority.
However, should the referendum fail, Sharon has made it clear that he will ignore the verdict of his party and forge ahead with his plan. Ignoring the fact that less than a month ago he described the results as binding, Haaretz quoted today senior officials in the Prime Minister's office as saying "The vote will not change the policies of the government."
What will be changed? "If the vote reflects the constellation of the party, at the end of the line there may be no other alternative than to go to early elections, change the party, or change the government," the official said.
Missing from the list is resignation, the only honorable course for Sharon should his plan be rejected by his own party. Extending his middle finger to the majority of voters who elected him would likely produce violent, anti-democratic outcomes of the worst kind.
Resignation would have the additional benefit of allowing Sharon to step down with his honor intact, rather than being forced from office by a prospective criminal indictment.
If Sharon loses, he should have the self-respect to step aside and permit the emergence of a new generation of leaders who have not grown tired and frightened, who have not lost the will or the way to struggle for an unapologetic, uncowed, unbowed Jewish Israel.
The Likud, and its leader, stand before a fateful choice today, and tomorrow. It could mark the finest hour of the grass roots power of committed democrats to effect positive change, or a tragic decline into a bullying, blustering dictatorship of has-beens and losers.
Sharon, in a statement following the murder of the 5 members of the Hatuel family, said that his disengagement plan "is a harsh and painful blow to the Palestinians." By the same logic, one can only imagine the degree of their pain should Israel retreat from the Old City of Jerusalem
The stark reality of the murder of a pregnant mother and her four kids stands in silent opposition to the "hysteria" of the spin doctors who would drive her surviving family, her neighbors and tens of thousands of other Jews from their homes and take credit for their wisdom in doing so in haste.
Views expressed by the author do not
necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
 
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