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Monday, Oct 13, 2008
For Palestinians, the baffling Israeli withdrawal is a milestone -- but their future is still shrouded in uncertainty.
Aug 18, 2005 | Thirty-eight years after Israeli troops rumbled into the Gaza Strip, Sinai, the West Bank and the Golan Heights, real change on the ground is taking place. Israel is adding the Gaza Strip to Sinai (as well as south Lebanon) on the list of occupied areas that it has decided to abandon. But unlike the Sinai withdrawal, which was completed as part of a peace agreement with Egypt, or the one from south Lebanon, quitting Gaza is different. Much as Palestinian militants would like to attribute Israel's withdrawal to their acts of resistance, most Palestinians concede that local, regional and international issues, as well as military and political considerations, contributed to the Israeli decision.
Now is the time to take stock of the lessons learned from the years of occupation and resistance in order to understand what Israelis and Palestinians should do next.
The Israeli occupiers, as well as their sidekick settlement movement, should by now clearly understand the limits of military power, even when that power is overwhelming. This understanding, however, has not translated into genuine Israeli attempts to negotiate solutions rather than dictate them. Ariel Sharon's use of unilateralism has produced confusion on all fronts, Israeli, Palestinian and international. Long-term political success and real peace will not result from one-sided acts.
For a while, a couple of years ago, Ariel Sharon convinced many people that he was interested in negotiations. Israel had no difficulty in persuading Washington to accept its position that it would not negotiate until quiet prevailed over all the lands between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean. Repeated Palestinian calls for a cease-fire were rejected as Israel, the strong party in this equation, insisted on a total cessation of hostilities. Yasser Arafat also proved a convenient scapegoat. In the post-9/11 era, President Bush was easily persuaded to shun the Palestinian leader, giving the blessing of the world's only super power to Sharon's unilateralist policies.
To short-sighted politicians, unilateralism is attractive because it obviates the need to engage in negotiations, which are messy, human and unpredictable. Going it alone also has political appeal, especially domestically, because leaders can decide how much and how far they want to carry out a particular policy.
Sharon has steadfastly refused to negotiate, coordinate or reveal plans for the disengagement and what is to follow. In the months leading up to this week's withdrawal, a commonly heard observation in the West Bank and Gaza was that Israelis were negotiating among themselves about the future of the Palestinians.
Israel's unilateral decision to disengage from Gaza, independent of any larger bilateral or international framework, is unlike any in modern history. Even the Israeli decision to leave southern Lebanon in 2000, while taken unilaterally, at least tacitly involved the United Nations. That withdrawal was in keeping with Security Council Resolution 425, and it was the international body that demarcated the Blue Line (the de facto border between Israel and Lebanon) and verified Israeli withdrawal to positions behind it.
To be fair, unilateralism has been convenient not only for a reluctant Israeli prime minister who does not wish to make substantial compromises during negotiations, but is also attractive to hard-line Palestinians who regard bilateralism as a means of pressing them to make unpopular concessions.
In any case, the day after the completion of the Gaza withdrawal, Israelis and Palestinians will be confronted with important unresolved questions. There is no doubt that the evacuation of Jewish settlers in areas some religious Israelis consider part of their God-given territory represents a huge ideological reversal. But after years in which the settlement of Palestinian land formed one of Zionism's main tenets, encouraged by religious leaders and the state alike, will the removal of settlements continue in the West Bank, or will this be a one-time exception?
The withdrawal and the ambiguity surrounding it have left Palestinians in a state of political confusion and uncertainty. In more than 25 years as a journalist, I have never witnessed more confusion in the Palestinian national (and Islamic) movement than I have seen during the past few months. Nowhere in any of the Palestinian literature, past or present, can one find any discussion of a scenario that reflects what has been happening in Gaza. All analysis of regaining occupied lands has focused on either a clear-cut military success or a negotiated settlement. The current half-baked partial withdrawal, without any negotiated agreement, real dialogue or a clear road map for the future, has stunned the Palestinian body politic. Israel's refusal to reveal even the most mundane details of its plans (even to its American allies), has been the main reason for this state of confusion.
One would have expected the Palestinians to be happy about the turn of events in Gaza. After all, the Israeli decision to withdraw from Gaza (even if they use the term "disengagement") is what the Palestinians have always wanted. Politically, the unilateral Israeli action doesn't cost the Palestinians anything. There are no agreements to be signed, no commitments to be made. But the Israeli decision was initially faced with skepticism. Many doubted that it would ever take place. Then they argued that it would result in Israel's taking a harder line in the West Bank and Jerusalem (which is probably true but doesn't mean the Palestinians should not welcome the withdrawal).
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