Re-Evaluating “Oslo”
in Light of the “Roadmap”
Preface
My book, Failure or
Folly, traces, step by step, the Oslo process, from its roots in
1992 until its collapse at Taba 2001. The Oslo process did, indeed, radically
change the Middle East, but not as hoped. Hindsight has forced me to re-evaluate
the Oslo process in light of subsequent plans, drafted as a backlash against the
failure of the Oslo process.
Failure or
Folly highlights the follies that impaired the
Israeli-Palestinian negotiation process, but also the determination of the
Israeli negotiators to protect Israeli interests. The Oslo process did not fail
at the negotiation table, but rather in implementation. The Israeli negotiators
who have emerged out of the ashes of the Oslo process are not of the same
mettle. Subsequent plans, the Roadmap, Geneva and Disengagement, have all
subordinated Israeli interests to Palestinian interests, reducing the State of
Israel into a facilitator for the establishment of a flourishing Palestinian
state.
Re-Evaluating Oslo in Light of
the Roadmap
On April 30, 2003, the
US State Department released the text of the “roadmap” to a permanent solution
to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: “A Performance-Based Roadmap to
a Permanent Two-State Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict”.
The roadmap is comprised of three phases that will culminate in a final and
comprehensive settlement of the Israeli-Palestine conflict. The execution of the
roadmap is under the auspices of the Quartet – the United States, the European
Union, the United Nations, and Russia, and it these countries who will have
ultimate jurisdiction over arbitrating its implementation.
The Roadmap
to a Palestinian State
Although the roadmap is titled
“Performance-Based Roadmap to a Permanent Two-State Solution to the
Israeli-Palestinian Conflict”, a textual analysis of the roadmap easily reveals
that the roadmap is really nothing more than a roadmap to the establishment of a
viable, prosperous Palestinian state. Just by flipping through it, one can see
that it is built on two legs, one large, strong, sturdy leg, one puny, decrepit,
fragile leg.
Even a cursive glance at the
roadmap reveals that it is devoted almost exclusively to the realization of the
dream of a reformed, democratic, prosperous Palestinian state. Article after
article specifies the Quartet’s commitment and dedication to the Palestinian
state.
Other than security issues, such
as a cession of terror and incitement to terror, the roadmap does not say a word
in regard to the enhancement of Israeli’s interests or welfare. On the contrary,
not only is there no concern for for the State of Israel, Israel is required to
sacrifice its own interests for the benefit of the Palestinian state.
The roadmap waxes eloquently as
to the changes that shall take place in the course of the metamorphosis the
Palestinian Authority will undergo until it shall be incarnated into the
democratic Palestinian state envisioned by the Quartet. Special emphasis is
placed on the reconstruction of the Palestinian’s security apparatus and
political reform. Attaining this dream of a reinvented Palestinian state and
Palestinian people requires billions of dollars. To assure the realization of
these goals, the Quartet is committing itself to investing unlimited funds in
the Palestinian state, in addition to the billions transferred in the past, a
significant part of which had funded the war of terror against the State of
Israel and Israeli citizens.
The Palestinians will be
receiving this horn of abundance with no strings attached. The donor countries
will not be loaning the money; the money will be lavished upon them without
their having to assume a burden of debt.
In contrast, to persuade Israel
to approve the roadmap, the US promised $1 billion, the bulk of which to be
spent on American products, and a further $7 million in loan guarantees. No horn
of abundance for Israel; only crippling debt for the foreseeable future.
Fallacious Assumptions at the Foundation of the
Roadmap
The Roadmap resurrects the same
fallacious assumptions that doomed the Oslo Accords to failure from the outset:
-
The Israeli-Palestinian
conflict is a territorial dispute, and as such, one needs only to find a
border that would be acceptable to both parties.
-
The Palestinian Authority
is serious about ending violence and terror.
-
The key problem is that
the Palestinians do not have a state. Once they grasp that the Roadmap
will lead to a Palestinian state, they will comply with its conditions.
-
Israel’s existence and
Palestinian national rights can be reconciled.
-
Israel’s security
requirements and Palestinian non-negotiable demands can be reconciled.
Abrogating Israel’s Sovereignty
The roadmap grants the Quartet
total judiciary power over the implementation process, with the member
organizations having unlimited authority to impose monitors on both Israel and
the Palestinian Authority. These monitors will supervise the process, and have
ultimate authority to decide whether the parties to the roadmap have met their
obligations. Progress from phase to phase will be based upon the judgment of the
Quartet of whether appropriate conditions for proceeding are in place, taking
into account the performance of both parties. The roadmap stipulates that:
The Quartet will meet regularly at senior levels to evaluate the
parties’ performance on implementation of the plan... Progress into Phase II
will be based upon the consensus judgment of the Quartet of whether conditions
are appropriate to proceed, taking into account performance of both parties...
Enhanced international role in monitoring transition, with the active,
sustained, and operational support of the Quartet.
The roadmap authorizes the
Quartet to adjudicate every step in the roadmap implementation process. In doing
so, it has placed restrictions on the sovereignty of the Israeli government. The
roadmap, in essence, deprives the sovereign State of Israel the basic democratic
right to make decisions on the basis of the integrity of the country and the
welfare of its citizens. Not the government of Israel, nor its citizens, will
decide what is good for Israel, but rather the Quartet.
In reality, by approving the
roadmap, Israel delegated to the Quartet full powers over the conduct of its
affairs of state, the Israeli government rendered a mere puppet. In effect, each
cabinet decision must be evaluated by the Quartet’s yardstick, not the welfare
of the country or its citizens.
Although President Bush’s vision
extolls democracy in the Middle East, its roadmap breaches the very essence and
fundamentals of democracy. Thus, although the roadmap repeatedly makes
references to a democratic Palestinian state, the roadmap includes articles that
suspend the Israeli democratic process.
The Quartet, and all the states
that will be participating in the international conferences, will be arrogating
for themselves supreme power over Israel. Israel will metamorphose into “the Jew
of the Diaspora”. The roadmap re-creates the 2,000 years of exile, with Jews
once more impotent and powerless, once again at the mercy of the same states
guilty of the Holcaust either by direct commision or by ommission. With
anti-Semitism soaring, and once more legitimate, the roadmap places Israel, and
its Jewish population, in jeopardy, at the mercy of countries that finance
Palestinian terror, adulate its leader, and have a record of collaborating with
the destruction of the State of Israel.
Creating a Virtual Reality: Israeli Approval of the
Roadmap
Relying on the May 23, 2003
United States government commitment to fully and seriously address its comments
to the Roadmap, Israel agreed, by a majority of one, on the 26th of May, to
accept the steps set out in the Roadmap. The Israeli government’s approval
consisted of two resolutions, and a list of “comments”, or “reservations”, that
constituted Israel’s red lines.
The Primary Themes of Israel’s Reservations
The following are the primary
themes contained in the reservations submitted to the Quartet:
-
There would be no progress
to phase II without the fulfillment of all these
conditions: dismantling the terrorist organizations and
infrastructure, confiscating illegal weapons, and combating terror, violence,
and incitement.
-
Full performance as a
condition for progress between phases.
-
The emergence of a new Palestinian leadership.
-
The Palestinian state shall have provisional borders and certain
aspects of sovereignty, be fully demilitarized, with no military forces or
authority to undertake defense alliances or military cooperation. Israel
shall maintain control over the air space and entry and exit of persons
and cargo.
-
Reference must be made to
Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state and Palestinian waiver of any right
of return for Palestinian refugees to the State of Israel.
-
The end of the process will
lead to the end of all claims and the end of the conflict.
On November 20, 2003, the United
Nations Security Council voted unanimously to endorse the Roadmap, deliberately
omitting all 14 Israeli reservations. This resolution, as formulated,
effectively excludes the sovereign State of Israel from the decision-making
process that will decide its future.
Oslo Accords Versus the Roadmap
There is a saying that the road
to hell is paved with good intentions. The Quartet’s performance-based roadmap,
certainly, embodies this saying. Without a doubt, the roadmap is a victory for
the Palestinians, a reward for terror, and an unprecedented achievement attained
through consistent non-compliance to their commitments. The Palestinians
launched an intifada in September 2000, murdering more than 1,200
Israelis, and they were rewarded with a state. They also succeeded in realizing
their major goals: internationalizing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and a
real chance of forcing Israel to withdraw, at the very least, to the 1967
borders.
On June 24, 2002, President Bush
proclaimed his “vision” for Mideast peace. One of its central tenets was the
unequivocal statement that “The United States will not support the establishment
of a Palestinian state until its leaders engage in a sustained fight against the
terrorists and dismantle their infrastructure.” Somewhere along the road, this
primary principle and tenet of President Bush’s speech was either distorted or
eliminated from the roadmap.
Down the Slippery Slope: From Oslo to the Roadmap
The Oslo Accords were signed at
an impressive ceremony at the White House in September 1993. Ten years under the
Oslo process, and three and a half years of a Palestinian intifada
against Israel and Israeli citizens, attest to the utter collapse of the Oslo
process, and the bankruptcy of the ideology underpinning the Oslo Accords.
The drafters of the roadmap
subscribed to the same fallacies that had led to the collapse of the Oslo
process. Even worse, while the Oslo agreements incorporated checks and balances,
even if they were not implemented, the roadmap was devoid of these mechanisms.
The following table summarizes
the primary differences between the Oslo Accords and the roadmap.*
Oslo
Accords
|
Performance-Based Roadmap
|
The
goal was peace and Israeli-Palestinian co-existence |
The
goal is the establishment of a Palestinian state. |
Prime
Minister Rabin firmly insisted that:
-
There
will be no Palestinian state,
-
Jerusalem will not be divided
-
The
Palestinian Authority will be demilitarized
|
Negates
all three of PM Rabin’s paramount convictions:
-
The
establishment of a Palestinian state
-
The
division of Jerusalem.
-
No
restrictions on Palestinian security forces
|
Mutual
recognition of Israel and the PLO. In signing the Oslo Accords, PM Rabin
attributed paramount importance to sustaining Israel as a Jewish state. |
Israel
must recognize, and assist in the establishment of, a Palestinian state.
The PA is exempt from recognizing Israel as a Jewish state. |
PLO
leadership receives a foothold in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, but
no control over the land. |
The PLO
receives a sovereign Palestinian state. |
Bi-lateral negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians |
Imposed
by the Quartet. Israel has no right to appeal, add, or detract. |
Direct
and indirect negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians despite
PLO maneuvering to avoid granting legitimacy to Israel. |
Realization of Arafat’s dream:
Internationalizing the conflict, international mediation and monitoring:
Quartet will supervise, monitor, referee and adjudicate the process and
the “performance”.
|
Progress in Oslo process only after meticulous, security-orientated
negotiations that culminated in the PLO signing an agreement (although
articles were cloned from agreement to the next owing to PLO
non-compliance. |
Progress measured in terms of redeployment of Israeli forces and the
transfer of authority to the PA over areas in Gaza and the West Bank.
The eradication of terror relegated to a secondary issue. |
Israel
retained authority and control over the progress of the Oslo agreements
by controlling the timing, scope and area of redeployment. |
The
Quartet is the arbitrator and the adjudicator at all phases in the
roadmap process and progress. |
The
Oslo Accords did not prevent the settlement of Jews in the Gaza Strip
and the West Bank. |
Freeze
existing settlement activity and dismantle settlement outposts erected
since March 2001. |
Israel’s concessions were reversible. |
Israel’s concessions are irreversible. |
Horizon
that would lead to the end of the Arab-Israeli conflict |
End of
conflict with Palestinians and Arab world not a factor. |
Reciprocity required, with progress conditioned on compliance, in
particular quelling violence and eliminating incitement |
No
reciprocity required. The Palestinians will unconditionally be given a
sovereign Palestinian state. |
As brilliantly analyzed by Boris
Shusteff,
...for the Arabs to continue on the road toward Israel’s
destruction, the OA [Oslo Accords] was lacking several very important
provisions. It did not have a clause that guaranteed the Arabs sovereign control
over the land that they needed to advance their Plan of Stages. It did not have
a mechanism directed against Jewish settlement activity. It forced the parties
to conduct direct negotiations with each other, and,...it was reversible,
meaning that Israel could stop her retreat if she felt that it endangered her
existence.1
The roadmap corrected these
lapses.
The roadmap, the new world
religion, is fraught with fallacies and contradictions. It will not bring peace
and security. It will not eradicate terrorism. It will not bring prosperity,
neither to the Palestinian state nor to the international community.
The roadmap completely changes
the whole Oslo equation.
It gives the Arabs absolutely everything that they dreamed of,
and gives Israel nothing that hasn’t been “given” before. The Roadmap allows the
PA to continue its policy of squeezing out Israel while demanding from the Arabs
only intangible promises in return.2
Conclusions
The concept of
“performance-based” is a euphimism for Israeli concessions regardless of
Palestinian non-compliance. The Quartet continues to urge Israel not to let the
continued terrorism against civilians deter it from living up to its commitments
under the roadmap. One clear message emerges from these efforts: terror against
Israelis should not stalemate the progress towards the establishment of a
Palestinian state.
The roadmap is governed by the
same false assumptions as the Oslo process, the same paramount importance
attributed to progress, the same disregard for the welfare of Israelis. The only
difference is that under the Oslo Accords Israel controlled the pace of the
process, and the agreements were a bulwark against risks to the existence of the
State of Israel, and to its citizens. Under the roadmap, Israel’s existential
concerns become immaterial. The only consideration of any importance is whether
or not ‘progress’ facilitates the establishment of a Palestinian state.
In hindsight, it may be stated
that the follies of the Oslo process were reversible. The Israeli team made
efforts to be hardnosed and uncompromising in the negotiations, but gradually
backtracked. Nonetheless, a look at the big picture reveals that the major
follies lie with the implementation of the agreements, not in their formulation.
This all changed at Camp David
when PM Barak yielded to President Clinton’s pressure, and jettisoned Israeli
red lines. PM Sharon is walking the same road, transforming progress into a
surrogate for peace and security for Israel.
From Oslo to Geneva: From the Pan into the Fire
William Shakespeare wrote that
“All the world is a stage, and we are all merely actors.” This was never so true
when the Geneva Accord was presented to the world as a “permanent status
agreement” between Israel and Palestine. Time Magazine, in its December 4
edition, dubbed it a hypothetical Israeli-Palestinian peace [that] is classic
political theater.The Geneva Accord, as everyone agrees, is no more than a
virtual document, sponsored by politicians who were ignobly defeated at the
polls. Even Yossi Beilin, the power behind the agreement, admitted that the
Geneva Accord was no more than a virtual document. However, the world hailed it
as a step forward.
The pinnacle of the absurd was
the “signing” ceremony of the unofficial document in Geneva, Switzerland
Although conceding that the document is virtual, this didn’t bother a host of
foreign dignitaries and celebrities from swooping on Geneva to celebrate the
signing of a non-agreement. Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey praised
it as “a little light in the darkness”, while UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan
extolled the initiative as having “caught the imagination”. Lech Walesa joined
the Geneva ceremony, Nelson Mandela contributed video greetings, and
endorsements came in from Bill Clinton, Tony Blair and Jacques Chirac. A letter
of support was signed by 58 former presidents, premiers and other foreign
leaders. The President of Israel, Moshe Katzav, met with the Israeli initiators,
and Secretary of State Powell not only sent his own letter of encouragement, but
invited the chief negotiators, Yossi Beilin and Abed Rabbo, to meet with him.
Ostensibly a showcase to display
the vision of peace held by the Israeli negotiators and their Palestinian
partners for peace, neither the Palestinian peace partners, nor
Former US President Jimmy Carter, could resist
demonizing Israel. In line with this atmosphere, the Israeli speakers “did not
hear” the Arab representatives calling PM Sharon a fascist, nor the songs of
praise they sang to their fighters and martyrs, terrorists who have slaughtered
more than 1,200 Jewish lives in the past four years. To compound this, the
Israelis, at this “mometous moment of Israeli-Palestinian accord”, did not even
bother to condemn Palestinian terrorism or vicious anti-Semitic and Anti-Israeli
incitement.
However, just as the theatre has
an impact on reality, so does the virtual reality of the Geneva Accord inflict
irreparable damage to the State of Israel.
From Oslo to Geneva
The Geneva process embodies
virtual reality, a reality with no past, present or future, and no geographical
dimension.
-
No Past – no Oslo Accords,
no terrorism, no incitement, no consistent non-compliance to agreements;
-
No present – no terror, no
threats against Israel, no vicious anti-Israeli and Anti-Semitic
incitement and malevolent propaganda sponsored and disseminated by the
Palestinian Authority;
-
No future – no
responsibility for the ramifications, repercussions and consequences of
the Accord;
-
No Geographical dimension –
no soaring anti-Semitism worldwide, both in words and deeds; no Muslim and
Arab threats towards the integrity of the State of Israel and against the
Jewish People.
Although the initiators of the
Geneva Accord claim that the Accord is based on Clinton’s parameters, the fact
is that the Accord contains a huge leap towards the Palestinian positions,
relinquishing major red lines, without the Palestinians ever making a single
concession.
The Geneva Accord was written as
if the various agreements between the PLO/Palestinian Authority and Israel, from
the
Oslo Accord in
1993, up to Wye in 1998, had never been signed. The Geneva Accord is impervious
to the PA’s 10 year non-compliance to obligations, including the three and
half-year inhuman terrorist war waged against Israel. It is, therefore, not
surprising, that the Accord recycles Palestinian obligations, presenting them as
if they were a breakthrough in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and not a
regurgitation of the same obligations. The only thing real for the Geneva
negotiators is the virtual world they created.
The Geneva Accord: the Incarnation of the Roadmap
When Israeli officials, and most
notably Prime Minister Sharon, couch their opposition to Geneva by evoking the
Roadmap, they are misleading the Israeli populace. The Roadmap drafted the
guidelines; Geneva realizes them. The Geneva Accord and the Roadmap are two
sides of the same coin; both being blueprints for the establishment of a
Palestinian state. In fact, the Roadmap established many of the guidelines
incorporated in the Geneva Accord.
-
The ultimate goal is not
peace, but rather a final and comprehensive permanent status agreement.
-
The highly acclaimed
roadmap forces Israel to accept at the outset the establishment of a
Palestinian state ruled by the PLO. The renouncing of terror, and the
suppression of the terrorist organizations are no longer pre-conditions.
-
No stipulation that the PA
desist from all violence prior to Israeli withdrawals, rendering Israeli
withdrawal the sine qua non of both agreements.
-
Attaching top priority to
the establishment of a Palestinian state.
-
Internationalizing the
conflict by empowering an international supervisory/monitory force, that
includes countries inimical to Israel's welfare to supervise
implementation.
-
Emasculating Israel’s
sovereignty by vesting the international supervisory/ monitory force exclusive responsibility for
arbitrating and adjudicating the progress in executing the articles
of the peace plan.
-
Trivializing Israel’s
concern for security, with the bulk of the demands required from the
Palestinians on the declarative level.
-
Disregarding Israel’s 14
reservations, thus upsetting the balance of power between the State of
Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
-
Focusing, almost
exclusively, on Palestinian concerns and demands.
-
Relying on the good will of
the Palestinians, with no unequivocal demands that steps are to be taken,
or mechanisms put into place, to ensure Israel’s security.
-
Denying Israel recourse to
reverse the process when (not if, relying on precedent) the Palestinians
launch attacks against Israel.
In contrast to the Roadmap, which
does not allude to the Palestinian refugees, the Geneva Accord devotes a great
deal of attention to this issue, peremptorily relating to the State of Israel as
a mere pawn in the resolution of the problem.
-
The “assumption” of the
Palestinian narrative of the “refugee problem”, as a well as the
absorption of an indeterminate number of refugees; and
-
The “assumption” of a
crippling burden of compensation to both refugees and host countries.
In a nutshell, the Geneva Accord
concessions are beyond folly; they are national and religious suicide.
Ariel Sharon’s “Disengagement Plan”
In his long-awaited speech at the
annual Herzliya Conference, Prime Minister Sharon first confirmed the
government’s commitment to the Roadmap. He, however, omitted the very salient
fact that Israeli qualifications, formulated to protect Israel’s existential
interests, had all been rejected out of hand both by the Quartet and the UN
General Assembly.
Sharon, then, went on to present
his key innovation. In his speech, which was, as expected, a sharp departure
from the Likud’s traditional policy, Sharon presented the main features of his
“Disengagement plan” whose main feature was unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza
Strip. The “disengagement” from the Palestinians would include the redeployment
of IDF forces along new security lines and a change in the deployment of
settlements, in order to reduce as much as possible the number of Israelis
located in the heart of the Palestinian population.
Without a doubt, Sharon’s plan is
the epitome of folly, a repetition of PM Barak’s rout from Lebanon. The plan
encourages the Palestinians to continue their terrorist attacks against Israel,
and not comply with the roadmap. Why should they? The terror attacks have won
them unrequited concessions that will constitute the opening positions in the
next round of negotiations.
...the unilateral retreat not only grants the Palestinians
short-term gains; it simultaneously assures them that they risk no permanent
long-term losses. Sharon’s speech boils down to, therefore, an unadorned
withdrawal under fire, with no compensatory moves whatsoever.3
In presenting his plan, Sharon
turned his back on the virtually wall-to-wall consensus that the Left’s method
of unreciprocated concessions had proven to be a total failure. Evelyn Gordon
quotes Ha’aretz columnist Zvi Bar’el who aptly noted that once one
accepts the premise that “in order to increase security, it is necessary to
retreat a bit,” it becomes difficult to explain why it does not logically follow
that “in order to increase security even more, it is necessary to retreat even
further” – precisely what the Left has been advocating all along.
This move eradicates all the gains that Sharon has made over the
last three years in convincing the rest of the world that Israel has a right to
expect an end to terrorism in exchange for a withdrawal. Now that even Sharon
has waived this requirement, why should the rest of the world uphold it? Indeed,
the only lesson the international community can reasonably draw from his retreat
is the opposite: that with enough pressure, Israel can be forced to concede even
its most cherished red lines without a single Palestinian concession in
exchange.4
This conclusion is almost certain
to lead to increased international pressure on Israel for further withdrawals,
with no respite to terror, and no reciprocity on the part of the Palestinians.
President Bush Endorses Sharon’s Disengagement Plan
On April 13, Sharon embarked on a
trip to the US in order to obtain President Bush’s endorsement of his
“Disengagement plan”. On April 14, at a press conference, Bush and Sharon
presented a united front in support of the plan, inducing Sharon to label the
President’s “historical” pledges as “the toughest blow dealt to the Palestinians
since 1948”. The Deputy Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, went even further, claiming
that, “I don’t know of any other Israeli Prime Minister who has ever made such
historical gains in a White House encounter.”
Nonetheless, there were
significant discrepancies between the Sharon and Bush formulations, especially
in their presentation to the Israeli public. An impartial analysis of what had
actually been said by Bush, and contained in his letter, shows that Sharon’s and
Olmert’s hyperbole was an misrepresentation of the truth.
Refugees
Bush did not reject the
Palestinians’ “right of return” to the State of Israel, but rather equivocated.
What he had actually said was that
It seems clear that an agreed, just, fair and realistic framework
for a solution to the Palestinian refugee issue as part of any final status
agreement will need to be found through the establishment of a Palestinian
state, and the settling of Palestinian refugees there, rather than in Israel.
In other words, within the
framework of negotiations on final status between Israel and the Palestinians,
it is clear, but not guaranteed,
that the refugees would settle in the Palestinian state.
Borders and Major Settlement Blocs
Ostensibly, President Bush had
recognized certain Israeli settlement blocs, however, the truth is that he
actually evaded the issue. Bush had merely stated, in an ambiguous, non-binding
declaration, that
In light of new realities on the ground, including already
existing major Israeli populations centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the
outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the
armistice lines of 1949... It is realistic to expect...mutually agreed changes
that reflect these realities.
As can be seen, Bush talked in
terms of “realistic” and “unrealistic”. There was no guarantee that Israel would
be allowed to retain the major settlement blocs, such as Maale Adumim, the
Jerusalem neighborhoods, Gush Etzion and Ariel.
Security
The preamble to the plan
emphasizes that the rationale of the plan is the absence of a Palestinian
partner with which Israel can engage in a peace dialogue. Nonetheless, the
United States and the international committee will join forces, with the
blessings of Israel, “to strengthen the capacity and will of Palestinian security
forces to fight terrorism and dismantle terrorist capabilities and
infrastructure”.
In other words, Bush calls for an
international effort to arm and train the Palestinian security forces, who are
not a partner for peace, and who have been collaborating with the terrorist
organizations in the terroist onslaught on Israelis.
Indeed, the Disengagement plan
requires that Israel, in conjunction with the US, the UK, Jordan and Egypt,
provide military training to Palestinian armed forces, regardless of the fact
that the ostensible justification of the withdrawal was that the Palestinians
were not a peace partner.
In addition, the plan requires that Israel continue to provide services and aid
to the Palestinians.
To encapsulate, the bulk of
President Bush’s statement focused on his vision of a thriving Palestinian state
and Israeli obligations to withdraw from settlements and to freeze existing
settlements. Bush succeeded in obtaining Israel’s commitment to initiate a
historic process of withdrawal and evacuation of Jewish settlements so as to create
conditions conducive to the establishment a contiguous and viable Palestinian
state in exchange for non-binding statements.
Watering Down “Sharon’s Achievements”
On April 15, the day after the
“historic” meeting, the Bush administration began backtracking. Already on the
following day, Secretary of State Colin Powell unequivocally denied that
President Bush had
recognized Israel’s right to retain the settlement blocks. He also stated that “the
President did not declare that the Palestinians do not have the right of return.”
In tandem, the State Department emphasized that no essential change had been
made in the policies of the United States, and the President was only reflecting
what had been said by other administrations. In brief, senior officials in the
Bush administration efffectively emptied President’s Bush’s statements of all
meaning.
On May 3, the Quartet – the US,
the United Nations, Russia, and the European Union, declared that Israel “must
end the Israeli occupation that began in 1967”, implying a complete Israeli
withdrawal to the pre-1967 borders.
However, the most crucial
development was the backlash in the Arab world, that vociferously condemned the
Bush administration’s pro-Israel bias. Evidently Sharon’s and Olmert’s hyperbole
had infuriated the Arab and Muslim world, inducing Egyptian president Hosni
Mubarak to charge that Arab hatred of America had never been greater. The US, in
danger of losing its Arab allies, began to repudiate the assurances given to
Sharon.
In a joint press appearance with
Abdullah, king of Jordan, Bush reassured the king and the Arab world
As I have previously stated, all final-status issues must be
negotiated between the parties in accordance with UN Security Council
Resolutions 242 and 338, and the United States will not prejudice the outcome of
those negotiations.
1949 Armistice Lines
The most puzzling element in
President Bush’s formal statement was the allusion to the 1949 Armistice lines
rather than the usual 1967 borders. DEBKAfile’s political analysts
examined the1949 Armistice Agreements to find out why.
They found that the 1949 agreements...left open or as
demilitarized zones large and highly strategic areas of pre-1967 Israel,
including the Hamma intersection of the Israeli, Jordanian and Syrian borders,
the Nitzana region south of the Gaza Strip and abutting on Sinai in the Israeli
Negev, the eastern half of the Israeli Arava from Tsofar south of the Dead Sea
up to Eilat at its southernmost tip. Putting these large chunks of Israel back
on the negotiating table would provide a pretext for Egypt and Jordan to re-open
its peace treaties with Israel and lay fresh claims to more territory.5
Arab Response
Palestinian leadership, including
the terrorist organizations, have unequivocally declared that Sharon’s
Disengagement plan is a victory obtained thorough the armed struggle. Certainly
the plan has reinforced the faith the Palestinians have in terror as the
preferable strategy for obtaining their “rights”.
The Likud Referendum
Realizing that he did not have
party support for his plan, Sharon was persuaded to initiate a party referendum
on his unilateral disengagement plan and its concomitant pledge to uproot 7,500
Jews from the Gaza Strip and from four West Bank settlements. The referendum was
planned for two weeks after Sharon’s successful meeting with Bush in order to
reap the fruits of Bush’s “unprecedented assurances”. Sharon gave his commitment
to honor the results of the referendum.
Indeed, at the outset, Sharon’s
strategy was on the high road to victory. On April 16, polls showed that support
for the Disengagement plan was around 49%, while only 38% opposed it. Then,
something unprecedented in the history of the State of Israel occurred – a
grassroots, coordinated effort was launched by the settlers to personally visit
every single Likud member to persuade him/her to vote against Sharon’s plan.
In support of the Jewish
community, nearly 100,000 Israels streamed to the Gaza Strip on Independence day
to show their solidarity with the settlers. Whether deliberately or not,
soldiers were ordered to close the entrance to the Jewish settlements at around
12:30 and tens of thousands of Israelis were stranded for hours in a huge
traffic jam. Indicative of the raison d’être for driving down to the Gaza
Strip, very few cars turned around and went home.
The success of the opponents was
astounding. As the days passed, the gap between supporters and opponents
decreased. On the eve of the referendum, polls showed that the opposition even
had a slight gain over the supporters, raising hopes that the
campaign was a success. On May 2, to everyone’s astonishment, the opponents won
a landslide victory, 59.5% as against 39.5%.
Disengagement Plan Approved
After a lot of turmoil and drama,
Sharon’s disengagement plan was approved on June 6, 2004. It is, perhaps,
appropriate that the plan was approved specifically on this day as it conjures up,
to some extent, the deployment of forces on the eve of the Six-Day War on June
6, 1967.
Ostensibly, the Israeli cabinet
approved a watered-down version, but in essence, nothing was changed, just
cosmetic changes. This ploy allowed Likud ministers Benyamin Netanyahu, Limor
Livnat and Silvan Shalom to vote in favor of the plan without losing face and
ministerial posts.
This was quite apparent in
Sharon’s speech, in which he stated, “The disengagement process has begun. Today, the Government
decided that it is Israel’s intention to relocate all Israeli settlements in the
Gaza Strip and four settlements in Samaria by the end of 2005.”
The plan was approved
notwithstanding the stepped-up efforts of the terrorist organizations to obtain
more advanced weaponry. This assessement became certainty when Turkish
authorities confiscated a ship bound for the Palestinian Authority carrying a
vast trove of weapons, including a radio-controlled missile and launcher,
rockets and warheads. This threat was not even factored into the political
storm.
Reviving the Past
Reverting to the War of Independence
The Egyptians have expressed
their consent to ensure Israel’s security after total withdrawal from the Gaza
Strip. However, they have made this contingent upon Israel creating a ‘safe
passage’ corridor between the Gaza Strip to Judea and Samaria. Dr. Guy Bechor,
of the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, has pointed out that such a
corridor embodies the Egyptian dream of returning to the Falujah pocket, not far
from Kiryat Gat, where Egyptian forces were trapped during the War of
Independence in 1948.
Sharon’s disengagement plan, in
effect, reverts the State of Israel to the middle of the War of Independence.
Reverting to June 5, 1967
Within the framework of the
Disengagement plan, Sharon plans to allocate a central role to Egypt in securing
Israel’s southern border after withdrawal. However, the Camp David agreement
does not permit the presence of heavy Egyptian security forces along the border,
allowing Egypt to deploy only police units. Thus, the agreement places strict
restrictions on the deployment of armed Egyptian forces and patrol units near
the Israeli-Egyptian international border. To overcome this obstacle, PM Sharon
has initiated talks with Egypt for the purpose of discussing the amendment of
this key security article for the purpose of co-opting Egyptian security forces
to patrol the international border. Such an amendment would allow Egyptian
military mobility throughout the Sinai Peninsula, effectively nullifying the
demilitarization of Sinai. The annulment of this article would allow Egypt free
movement on the southern border, thus enhancing Egypt’s capability of moving
forces into Israel should it be expedient. Sharon’s initiative is, thus,
reconstituting the pre-Six Day War military deployment on Israel’s southern
border.6
It should be pointed out that
Egypt and Egyptian military forces have either turned a blind eye or have
collaborated in the effort to assure an endless flow of arms and artillary to
the Palestinian Authority and to the terrorist organizations. Certainly, the
Karin A, carrying tons of weapons, could not have entered the Sinai strait
without the cooperation of Egyptian authorities.
Add to this Sharon’s proposal to
invite the Jordanians to supervise security in Judea and Samaria, and you have a
frightening scenario. The redeployment of Egyptian and Jordanian forces erases
Israel’s victory in the Six Day War, and hurls us back to the square one of June
5, 1967.
History Does Repeat Itself
Sharon, evidently, is determined to make the same mistakes that the Oslo
architects made.
-
Ignoring existential risks
to the State of Israel and its citizens.
-
The Palestinian Authority
is at its lowest point since 1993.
-
It is riddled with
corruption.
-
It is losing its battle
with the Hamas to gain control over the Palestinians.
-
Arab leaders, including
King Abdullah and Mubarak, have urged Arafat to retire.
-
Violence and chaos dominate
the areas controlled by the PA.
-
Israel has been successful
in and thwarting terrorist activities to the extent that terrorism is at
its lowest level in four years.
-
Resurrecting Arafat, who
has been selected by the Quartet to oversee Israel’s withdrawal from the
Gaza Strip.
-
Prize for terror –
reinforces the determination of the terrorist organizations to continue
pursuing terror as a successful strategy.
-
The threat of deepening the
schisms within Israel, and intensifying inter-group hostilities hovers
over the Disengagement plan.
-
Renunciation of all red
lines, as Sharon himself admitted at a meeting of the Foreign and Security
committee on June 2.
There are no red lines. This is the program, and it is the one I
shall have approved.7
Most telling, Sharon’s rationale
for unilaterally withdrawing from the Gaza Strip was that the disengagement
would head off international pressure for further concessions in Judea and
Shomron. Here, too, PM Sharon’s assumptions have been proven to be unfounded.
Rather than easing the pressure on Israel for further concessions, Sharon’s
Disengagement plan has increased it.
The statement released at the
conclusion of a meeting of the Foreign Ministers of the European Union made this
absolutely clear. The thrust of the statement was a reaffirmation of the Roadmap
as the only viable peace plan.
The European Union recalls its established position, restated by
the European Council of March 25-26, that the Union will not recognize any
change to the pre-1967 borders other than those arrived at by agreement between
the parties. The Union emphasises that no declared views on the possible shape
of a final settlement can pre-empt the negotiation of that settlement. The
European Union also notes that the refugee question and the manner in which the
right of return may be realized is also a Final Status issue...
To encapsulate, the Disengagement plan is only the first
step in total Israeli retreat to the June 1967 borders, with final status
negotiations include the Palestinian “right of return”.
Conclusions
Beilin initiated the “peace” process, Peres
pushed it forward, and, finally Rabin approved it. There is no doubt that the
Israel of today, 11 1/2 years after Oslo, is an entirely different country than it
was in September 1993, with developments spiraling out of control.
The Israeli representatives who were party
to the Oslo Accords signed at an impressive ceremony on the lawn of the White
House in September 1993 really believed that peace was at hand. However, the
intransigence of the Palestinian negotiation teams, and the escalation of
terrorism, convinced wide sectors in the Israeli public that the Palestinians
did not want peace with Israel.
But not all sectors.
The radical Left transformed their devotion
to the “Oslo process” into a religion. Suicide bombers, the bloody intifada,
and even unambiguous declarations calling for the destruction of Israel, did no
sway them in their beliefs. The reason for this is simple. A crucial dogma of
their religion is the categorical imperative to abrogate the results of the 1967
war. This is the reason for their obsession with the settlements and the
settlers. They are not interested in peace. They are only interested in
evacuating the settlements, and all their indefatigable efforts are devoted to
the attainment of this goal. From a historical perspective, they have, without a
doubt, succeeded outstandingly well in disseminating their worldview.
Currently, in the international discourse
revolving around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the settlements and the
settlers are considered to be the only obstacle to peace in the Middle East, not
the terrorist groups. It is, therefore, not surprising that the Roadmap, the
Geneva Accord and the Disengagement plan all subordinate Israeli security concerns to the evacuation of the
settlements.
All these “peace” plans present competing visions for achieving a permanent settlement
in the Middle East. All of them revolve around the territorial dimension of the
relationship between Israel and the Palestinians, each one proposing an
alternative convergence point of Israeli and Palestinian demands.
However, the goalposts have been moved, and
the crucial issue debated in the international arena today is the legitimacy of
the State of Israel and its right to exist. It is now politically correct to
question the existence of Israel. It is, therefore, not surprising that Israel
is perceived by a majority of the Europeans and the Americans as the only threat
to peace in the world.
Thus, the Oslo process, which was motivated
by a vision of peace, has inexorably led to a vast deterioration in Israel’s
status to the extent that the very existence of the State of Israel is under
threat.
Endnotes
1 |
Boris Shusteff, The Disaster (Notes on the Roadmap),
Freeman Center website, May, 5, 2003,
<http://www.freeman.org/m_online/jun03/
shusteff.htm>. |
2 |
Ibid. |
3 |
Evelyn Gordon, “Withdraw Under Fire”, Jerusalem Post,
December 22, 2003. |
4 |
Ibid. |
5 |
“Bush’s 2004 Middle East Vision Could Be Israel’s
Nightmare”, DEBKAfile Special Analysis,
<http://www.debka.com/>,
April 14, 2004. |
6 |
Arutz 7,<
www.a7.org.il>, May 24, 2004.
|
7 |
News First Class website, <www.nfc.co.il>,
June 2, 2004.
|