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Has Sharon set a trap for Bush?
Henry Siegman IHT
Tuesday, June 3, 2003
The road map and the settlements
NEW YORK
President George W. Bush's summit meeting Wednesday with Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon of Israel and the Palestinian prime minister, Mahmoud
Abbas, is unexpected and extraordinary. The hope it generates for
progress in the implementation of the American-back peace plan known as
the road map could not have been imagined just days ago. Nevertheless,
it is difficult not to view Sharon's and Abbas's acceptance of the road
map without a large dose of skepticism.
In the case of Abbas,
that skepticism has less to do with his intentions than with his
ability to implement the road map's requirements, particularly the
demand that he put an end to terrorism. Abbas must contend with the
likely obstructionism of Yasser Arafat and with the sorry state of
Palestinian security forces, destroyed by Israel.
In Sharon's
case, the skepticism has nothing to do with his ability to deliver on
the road map's demands, which he unquestionably can, but with his
intentions. Since becoming prime minister in February 2001, Sharon has
accepted every peace initiative, including the Oslo accords, the
Mitchell Commission proposals and the Tenet guidelines, and yet managed
to torpedo each with "reservations" and "conditions." If anything, the
reservations Sharon has attached to his acceptance of the road map are
far more destructive than the conditions that enabled him to defeat
previous peace initiatives while skillfully avoiding blame for doing so.
Skepticism
about Sharon's acceptance of the road map is also warranted by reports
in the Israeli press about "facts on the ground" being established
every day that are wildly inconsistent with Sharon's new conviction
that Israel cannot continue its occupation of 3.5 million Palestinians.
According
to the Israeli journalist Amira Haas, writing in Ha'aretz, these facts
on the ground include a new separation wall that is destroying
thousands of acres of the most productive Palestinian orchards and
farmlands critical to the economy of a new Palestinian state and
enclosing Palestinian villages and the entire city of Qalqilya. Israel
has also built security fences around settlements, security roads and
bypass roads that continue to cut off the Palestinian villages from
each other and the villages from their land, and has expanded
settlements to half the total area of the West Bank.
These facts
may already have determined that the "state" that Sharon is willing to
accept, and that has so deeply scandalized rightist opinion in Israel,
will be comprised of three enclaves within the West Bank (not counting
the fourth enclave in Gaza) cut off from one another, with no direct
outlet to neighboring Arab countries, much less to the rest of the
world.
Another leading Israeli expert on Palestinian affairs,
Danny Rubinstein, concluded in Ha'aretz that the Israeli presence in
the territories is becoming a permanent one. It is an assessment
endorsed by Emunah Elon, a leading rightist opponent of Palestinian
statehood, who wrote in Yediot Ahronot that "the road map is
irrelevant, and all that matters is what the prime minister does." Elon
confirms that what Sharon is doing is "dividing the territories of
Judea and Samaria into tiny Palestinian cantons, cut off one from the
other, fenced in and surrounded by a plethora of Jewish settlers." She
assures agitated settlers that the excitement generated by Sharon's
controversial statements about ending the occupation will be "a
fleeting episode."
Perhaps the conclusions of these Israeli
analysts about the irreversibility of the changes already made in the
occupied territories are exaggerated. What is clear, however, is that
only President Bush's personal involvement in the peace process and his
insistence on the strictest compliance by both Israel and the
Palestinians with the road map's provisions will prevent the plan's
failure.
Despite formidable obstacles, Bush's welcome personal
immersion in Middle East peace diplomacy holds out the hope of
significant changes in Israeli policy, as evidenced by the fact that
Sharon persuaded his government to accept the road map despite his own
hostility to it. It is not necessary for the United States to threaten
Israel with sanctions in order to influence its policy. It is more than
sufficient for the president to convey to Israel's leaders that
obstructionist tactics would damage America's interests in the region
and affect America's perception of Israel as a peace-loving nation.
With
the exception of the ideological core of the settler movement, the vast
majority of Israelis understand that Israel's security and continued
viability depend on America's friendship. Consequently, a prime
minister who is seen as responsible for a cooling of America's
friendship for Israel cannot long survive.
The issue of
settlements will tell us what we need to know about Sharon's real
intentions. It will also tell us what we need to know about Bush's
intentions. There is no justification for delaying a cessation of all
settlement activity or the dismantling of outposts, for they serve no
security purposes whatever. In fact, more than any other factor,
settlements are responsible for Palestinian violence and for the
absence of popular Palestinian opposition to terrorist groups. The
settlement enterprise has been nothing less than the theft of
Palestinian land in broad daylight, a theft made possible only by
Israel's vastly superior military force. The notion that Abbas can
confront and subdue terrorist groups while this theft continues is
absurd.
If Sharon will contrive reasons to delay or undermine
the road map's provisions dealing with the settlements and settlement
outposts, it will be a clear indication that his real intention is to
trap Bush into lending U.S. support for his notion of a Palestinian
state comprised of several cantons on territory fragmented by the
settlements. And if Bush insists on full compliance with the road map,
beginning with its provisions for an end to all further settlement
activity, this will be a clear indication that he intends to remain
fully committed to doing what is necessary to bring the century-long
conflict between Jews and Palestinians to an end.
The writer is a senior fellow on the Middle East at the Council on Foreign Relations. These views are his own.
Copyright © 2003 The International Herald Tribune