It is easy to understand why Prime Minister Ariel Sharon wants to expand
some existing West Bank settlements. It is even easier to understand why
his government chose to announce the expansion now.
The latest West Bank expansion is apparently linked to the Gaza withdrawal.
Defying the far right by his continued insistence on getting out of Gaza,
Sharon feels the need to appease them in the West Bank. The only flaw in
this logic is that the extremists who want to remain in Gaza - come hell or
high water - are probably not appeaseable. These are people who assume that
Israel will remain in 100% of the West Bank in perpetuity anyway. A few
thousand new apartments will produce neither euphoria nor the inclination
to make nice over Gaza.
But it has enraged the Palestinians, damaged what is left of the peace
process, and complicated life for the United States; and getting out of
Gaza remains as politically difficult for Sharon as before.
Of course, Sharon has calculations that are not related to Gaza, at least
directly. He wants to expand the Israeli presence on the West Bank for its
own sake. In fact, some of his supporters within the Likud party argue that
one of his main reasons for wanting out of Gaza is so that Israel can
retain the West Bank.
Getting out of Gaza will buy Israel some time demographically (with one
million fewer Palestinians, the Jewish majority will last longer) and
diplomatically as well. Already the emphasis on Gaza has reduced the
pressure on Israel to resume negotiations over the West Bank.
This is where U.S. and Israeli policy rationales diverge. Sharon may want
out of Gaza, in part, so he can keep the West Bank. The United States wants
Israel out of Gaza as a means of kick-starting some form of negotiations
and ultimately the Roadmap.
Its reasons are obvious but they are not primarily altruistic. Naturally,
the United States would prefer to see a peaceful Middle East. It would like
to see Israelis living in security and Palestinians with a state.
But such high-minded thoughts are not the main reasons America needs
progress on the Israeli-Palestinian issue. It needs it because every day
the conflict continues, America's standing in the Muslim world deteriorates
and the threat of terrorism directed at Americans and American interests
increases.
This is not to say that Al-Qaida cares about what happens in the West Bank.
It doesn't, but its recruits do. The fury Arabs and other Muslims feel
toward America today is heavily driven by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
And that fury is more intense than ever before. This spring the Pew
Charitable Trust's Research Centre conducted a survey of attitudes toward
the United States nine countries, among them Turkey, Pakistan, Jordan and
Morocco, all U.S. allies.
The Pew group reported that "in the predominantly Muslim countries
surveyed, anger toward the United States remains pervasive... Osama bin
Laden is viewed favourably by large percentages in Pakistan (65%), Jordan
(55%) and Morocco (45%). Even in Turkey, where bin Laden is highly
unpopular, as many as 31% say that suicide attacks against Americans and
other Westerners" are justifiable.
Some of this anti-American animus is driven by the Iraq war but, not
surprisingly, the Palestinian issue remains a central source of Muslim
grievances against the United States. In fact, the belief that Palestinians
are getting a raw deal is pretty much the only belief which virtually all
Muslims - Sunni and Shiite, traditionalist and secular - share.
Moving toward resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would not
eliminate anti-U.S. feelings. But it would reduce them. That is what
happened during the Oslo period when attitudes toward both the United
States and Israel were improving in the Muslim world. (It is hard to
imagine today but less than a decade ago Muslim and Arab states were
opening diplomatic and trade relations with Israel, the Arab boycott had
been abandoned, and the United States was sponsoring anti-terror summits in
which Israelis and Arabs joined in common determination to confront the
terror threat.)
Today, however, the Palestinian issue is a terrorist recruiting tool. It
will remain one until Israelis and Palestinians, with U.S. help, move
toward an agreement that will bring both peoples security. And that means
the two-state solution.
But the two-state solution will be a dead letter if settlement expansion
continues. Writing in the Washington Post, Daniel Seidemann, a lawyer and
counsel to Ir Amim, an Israeli organization concerned with the future of
Jerusalem, wrote that the current settlement expansions "will dismember the
West Bank into two cantons, with no natural connection between them."
As an Israeli Jew, desperately worried about his country, Seidemann fears
that the expanded settlements "will create a critical mass of facts on the
ground that will render nearly impossible the creation of a sustainable
Palestinian state with any semblance of geographical integrity. And denying
the possibility of a sustainable Palestinian state leaves only one default
option: the one-state, bi-national solution that signifies the end of
Israel as the home of the Jewish people."
This is a prospect that no friend of Israel can countenance. The very idea
of the Zionist dream being sacrificed on the altar of West Bank settlements
is unthinkable. Israelis and Americans too, have a great deal at stake in
the current debate over the settlements. In fact, the stakes couldn't be
higher. Silence is simply not an option.
###
Source: Israel Insider, September 1, 2004
Visit the Israel Insider website at: http://www.israelinsider.com
Distributed by the Common Ground News Service.
For copyright permission, please contact Israel Insider at
publisher@israelinsider.com
