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M.J. Rosenberg is Director of Policy Analysis for , a long time Capitol Hill staffer and former editor of AIPAC's Near East Report.
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By M.J. Rosenberg
June 22, 2004
It's a good thing that Ariel Sharon is leading Israel and not Charles Krauthammer. I say that because Sharon understands that the current lull in terrorism inside Israel cannot last forever and that, in addition to fighting the terrorists, Israel needs to address Palestinian grievances or face disaster. Krauthammer, on the other hand, believes that the status quo is just fine. In his column recently in the Washington Post, he celebrates "Israel's Intifada Victory." Yes, he notes, 978 Israelis have been killed since Oslo collapsed but, writes Krauthammer, all that is past. Israel has won and that is that.
Neither Sharon nor the vast majority of people who actually live in Israel would agree. As one Israeli told me on Wednesday, "It's better now. The fence is a great success. But you still live in terror until the kids come back from the mall. People want the fence and they want negotiations. We can't live like this forever."
That is why the overwhelming majority of Israelis are supporting not Krauthammer's happy status quo but Sharon's effort to dramatically alter it. Nevertheless, the task ahead of the prime minister is very, very difficult.
That is because the most extreme elements in Israeli society are determined to thwart the Prime Minister's plan. Some are committed to a Greater Israel, with Gaza a part of it, but more fear that leaving Gaza establishes a precedent for the West Bank.
Every settler knows - as every Palestinian should - that Gaza First does not imply Gaza Last. In return for the total cessation of terrorism and a full commitment to peace, the overwhelming majority of Israelis would give up most of the West Bank, just as they are ready to give up all of Gaza. That is why the settlers are threatening to take to the barricades. It is not because they love Gaza. It is the precedent.
Sharon is taking on the most dangerous segment of the Israeli population. In the May 31 issue of The New Yorker, Jeffrey Goldberg -- an American Jewish reporter who served in the Israeli army -- describes the extreme settlement movement as a threat to the very existence of the Jewish state. Goldberg, a regular in the New York Times Magazine and elsewhere, has often been criticized for his supposed pro-Israel bias, and that makes his take on the settlers particularly significant.
One incident Goldberg reports is especially telling. It occurs when Goldberg confronts Rabbi Leibman, the head of a yeshiva in the Yitzhar settlement near Nablus. Goldberg wants to know if Leibman condones the settlers' ripping out of olive trees on which local Palestinians depend for their livelihood.
Goldberg writes:
"I asked who was destroying the olive trees. The destruction of fruit-giving trees, even those belonging to an enemy, is considered a grave sin in Judaism...
"What is an olive tree compared to the burial place of Joseph, the son of Jacob?" he said.
"To the farmer who supports his family with the tree, I said, the tree is important.
"But the farmer is an Arab," Liebman replied. "He shouldn't be here at all. All this land is Jewish land. It is meant for the Jews by God Himself."
"And if the Army comes to carry off the Jews of Yitzhar?
"Let them try," he said.
These are the people that Sharon is challenging when he insists on going ahead with his Gaza withdrawal plan. These are people who will have no qualms about fighting Sharon, the Israeli army or anybody else who gets in their way. And their rabbis tell them that armed resistance to Israeli authority is not only permissible but mandated.
So it is no small thing that Sharon is trying to do. In fact, he is going farther toward extrication from the territories than his immediate predecessors.
That is a point made in Wednesday's Maariv by columnist Nir Baram. In a column called "The Left Ought to Shut Up," Baram writes that supporters of withdrawal from the territories should not hold their applause merely because it is Ariel Sharon, and not a Labor prime minister, who is behind the Gaza withdrawal. "In Ehud Barak's era, members of the Israeli left spoke about comprehensive peace....But the Wye agreement which Netanyahu signed was not even honored by Barak, settlement outposts were not removed and the settlement enterprise flourished...."
But now, Baram writes, "more than at any time in the past, we are near to the removal of settlements.... Sharon, who is negotiating with the settlers about compensation [for leaving] has reached...a stage" never previously approached.
Baram believes that Sharon's motives are suspect and that he may want out of Gaza only to alleviate pressure to get out of the West Bank. But, for Baram it is the action, not the motive, that matters. "The removal of settlements is a positive action under any condition, irrespective of Sharon's motives," he concludes.
Of course, Gaza withdrawal will be infinitely more positive if it leads toward an agreement with the Palestinians. And that is only going to happen if Sharon's boldness on Gaza is replicated on the West Bank.
There are differences, of course. Israel can and will totally exit Gaza but that is not going to happen in the West Bank. Israel will insist on retaining major settlement blocks in areas adjoining the Green Line, particularly near Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. (Most Palestinians have accepted that in principle, so long as they are compensated on a 1:1 basis with land now on the Israeli side of the border). But the far-flung and isolated settlements (not to mention the outposts the Sharon government deems illegal) will have to go.
And they will, once Israelis and Palestinians reach an agreement guaranteeing Israel's security and Palestinian statehood.
We aren't there yet, but Gaza is a good start.
There is one caveat however. Gaza withdrawal cannot be a cover for settlement expansion in the West Bank or for violating the promises made to the United States regarding the route of the security barrier. Expanded settlement in the West Bank or a lurch eastward in the fence's route toward Ariel would only complicate the problem Gaza withdrawal is designed to solve. That problem is Israeli retention of areas that are overwhelmingly Palestinian and the ensuing erosion of Israel's status as a democracy.
On June 4th, according to Haaretz, Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert harshly criticized those "who delude themselves that the occupation can continue and that people will still continue to have relations with us."
"Today, huge opportunities are opening up for Israeli exports in China, India, South Korea and Mexico, but there is a danger that these opportunities will be lost, because Israel today is a vilified country, the most denounced and the most smeared in the world. There isn't an international conference at which Israel is not denounced..." Maintaining control of Gaza and the West Bank "is a recipe for undermining the basis of our existence," he said.
Strong stuff, especially considering that Olmert is one of the leaders of the Likud party. But it's reality. And Sharon and Olmert have chosen to confront it. As John F. Kennedy liked to say, "even a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." Sharon is taking that step.
Views expressed by the author do not
necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
 
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