16 thoughts on “CSM column on Israel and Palestine”

  1. Cole’s The Jailer
    This is an excellent account of I/P situation after the Gaza withdrawal, ultimate read both for newbies and for those who follow the region systematically. A few remarks.
    Yes, it is true that ideological positions of both Sharon and Netanyahu are far-rightist. From the other side, situation on the left-right scale is not static, political figures and forces keep moving on this scale depending on the current developments. From this prospective, it is clear that, by pursuing the Gaza withdrawal, Sharon made a negligibly small shift to the left, but, at the same time, he masterfully dragged the Israeli, American and British left – far to the right. Also, in the course of withdrawal debate, Likud and right-from-Likud forces moved even further to the right. In fact, this general shift to the ideological right is at least as important as facts on the ground. From the other side, make no mistake, the best effort will be taken to obfuscate this critical shift, to present Sharon and classical neocons as centrists and even lefties! This is exactly what Sharon fought for.
    Next, it is worth reminding that, unlike the Arabs and the EU, Clinton did not formally accept the two-state solution; it was done for the first time by the Bush administration as a part of their currently defunct “road map to peace”. Needless to say, Barak, not to mention the Likud, could not be more positive on it than Clinton. So, now it becomes clear that, as a result of Sharon’s ingenious maneuvering, this chimera is not just “frozen”, but pretty much put in the same realm as Iraqi WMD. However, commitment to two-state solution is a cornerstone of the Arab, European and UN diplomacy! This in itself means huge and unpredictable negative consequences for the world community.
    Now, in the Kafkian metamorhosis, Sharon is awakening in the worst form one can imagine – that of a victim of a massive stroke. The problem is, unlike Gregor Samsa, he did quite a lot to turn the ME and beyond into a huge penal colony.
    Salon. Juan Cole. The Jailer

  6. Israel, rightly or wrongly, despairs of finding a negotiating partner and its policy post-Sharon will continue to be one of separation.
    The Palestinians face a moment of truth when the Fatah old guard decide whether they can live with election results that likely will diminish their ability to feed at the public trough.
    Helena’s article was well written imo but not sure that I share her sanguine hope that the time is ripe for a UN initiative.

  7. I think any initiatives are dead in the water until after the Palestinian and Israeli elections. Before that, everything we hear will either be empty electioneering or be suspected of being empty electioneering.
    This is a sort of power vacuum, or activity vacuum. I think the time is ripe for some destructive and violent act to try to de-stabilize the I/P situation. That is, I think it is too frustrating for any hotheads who may want to steer history. In the current situation, Israeli hotheads are well suppressed by the Israeli government (remember what happened to that “Jewish Battalion” a few days ago). But the Palestinian hotheads are ruling Gaza and the place could boil over any day. This, in turn, provides an opportunity for Hamas to be seen as providing law and order, winning hugely at the polls?
    Alternatively, Israel could “Intervene” in the Palestinian elections by killing off some of the more radical candidates. It must be very tempting. I don’t expect this because I think the Israeli right just might view Hamas as more of an opportunity than an obstacle. The Palestinian elections are due first and a big Hamas win could bode well for Bibi Netanyahu. So Olmert is not likely to make martyrs for Hamas in the period leading up to the election. It all makes my head spin…

  8. And if Gaza does “Boil over” before the election then Netanyahu’s job is to transfer the blame from the Palestinians to Kadima. This will be hard since Ariel Sharon will still be gravely ill (or recently in his grave), and Netanyahu doesn’t want to be seen as disrespectful. Kadima will probably try to wrap themselves in Sharons “Mantle” as long as he has the additional popular support brought on by his stroke.
    My whole analysis is based on the idea that each party will try to influence each other’s elections as well as win their own. I admit I have no proof of this. But it makes sense.
    Hamas should, I think, be rooting for Kadima over Likud and would, if I am right, keep things calm militarily until after the Israeli elections. However, if that logic had prevailed previously, the Palestinians wouldn’t have launched the Intifada that brought Sharon into power. I think my head is spinning the other way now.
    If the maelstrom is as I think, then Helena’s goal to keep “Progress steady at this critical hour” is unattainable. But there should be no backsliding until after both elections.

  9. I think it is logical for Likud to root for Hamas…and vice versa…they are locked in a symbiotic relationship…have been for some time in fact.

  12. Juan Cole’s piece is interesting. I find it particularly telling that he purports to know what the Likud Party is “hoping” today (parties don’t “hope”, Juan, individuals do), even as the members of that party are struggling to understand, themselves, what they stand for and where they are going.
    Of course this is typical of Cole: asserting what he believes the real players in these events are thinking and what their unstated goals are. Well, it’s okay to theorize and speculate, but let’s not raise these speculations to the level of fact simply because they appear on the Internet, shall we. As far as I’ve seen, Sharon is the first Israeli Prime Minister to openly call for a Palestinian state (I don’t believe that the Oslo Accords stated this explicitly, and I certainly know that Yitzhak Rabin never did, as Cole implies).
    The idea of “gated communities” and “bad neighborhoods” doesn’t appear to be Sharon’s, or that held by most Israelis today (and probably not by a fair portion of the Likud membership – despite what Cole generalizes about them). I think that the average Israeli would like to see a prosperous, or at least reasonably prosperous, Palestinian state, because that would give Palestinians less of an incentive to be violent. (At least that is my impression from being here on the ground.) But what I, and I believe most Israelis, simply can’t agree with is that the Palestinians shouldn’t bear the main burden of responsibility in ensuring their future economic welfare. To believe otherwise is simply patronizing.
    Of course Cole, as is typical, makes light of the fact that “Gazan militants with a bad aim have fired several Qassam rockets into Israel.” Again, we see that just because they haven’t killed anyone recently, they are the Palestinian equivalent of the Keystone Cops. (Perhaps Mr. Cole should spend a few weeks sitting on park benches in Sderot to see just how funny it really is.) But this is precisely the reason why this government has maintained that there really isn’t anyone to talk to. If Abu Mazen can’t trouble himself to reign in his own militants, how on earth can he be party to negotiations and a signatory to binding agreements? (This, by the way, is, again, something that Sharon stated publicly over a year ago.)

  13. Arafat’s diplomacy is gone
    In the 1990-ies and early 2000-ies, development like this would result in international diplomatic outburst, PA and Israel would use the UN for fierce verbal exchanges. Now, after the Gaza withdrawal, discredited UN is busy investigating Syria, and nothing like this happens.
    Israeli right must be happy about this change and take current situation as their important accomplishment. The problem is, anti-Israeli diplomacy and PR was an important function of PA under Arafat, this is exactly why he was hated. Now it is obvious that Abbas cannot replace him in this respect. So, Hamas and more radical factions of PLO will take care of the situation without much reliance on the Western public opinion.
    Amira Hass. IDF cantonizes W. Bank, sealing in Palestinians: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/670068.html
    For a month now, since the second week of December 2005, the Israel Defense Forces has severed the northern part of the West Bank from other sections, and prohibited residents from traveling toward Ramallah and points southward.
    The ban applies to some 800,000 people, residents of the Tul Karm, Nablus and Jenin provinces. Until January 2, the ban applied just to residents of Jenin and Tul Karm. Since then it has been extended to Nablus area residents.
    The IDF has also cut off direct traffic links within the northern West Bank. The main artery – Road 60, running from the Shavei Shomron settlement to the road leading to the settlements Mevo Dotan and Homesh, has been closed to all Palestinian traffic since mid-August by means of three steel gates.

  14. I agree with some of what you say, JES–Palestinians need to reign in their own hotheads and it simply doesn’t help to always blame Israel for everything. There can’t be a meaningful peace agreement if the Palestinians can’t control their own extremists. That’s not even a moral point–it’s simply a fact.
    But Likud does appear to be rather like the mirror image of Hamas and I also agree with Henry James (and presumably Cole, though I haven’t read the article yet) that Sharon hadn’t given any indication of being the reformed character people make him out to be. He made a pragmatic decision to pull out of Gaza and probably to pull out of some parts of the West Bank someday, but if there’s any evidence he’d go as far as what was discussed at Taba or the informal Geneva Accords (which represent probably the best compromise for both sides), I haven’t seen it.
    Sharon gets to look like a moderate merely because he was pragmatic and clever enough not to be as extreme as the settler movement wanted him to be.

  15. Donald,
    What’s wrong with being pragmatic? If Arafat, for example, had been pragmatic, perhaps there would have been a Palestinian state by now.
    BTW, many politicians, including Shimon Peres and Tzipi Livni, have said that Sharon spoke to them and was quite clear about his plans to pull out of large sections of the West Bank. I don’t see any indications to the contrary.
    As to the Likud, I think that there is a tendency of those who really don’t know anything about the party, its composition or its dynamics to try and make speculative generalizations about what the party stands for. The Likud is by no means monolithic, and it is probably one of the most diverse parties in Israel, comprising economic liberals, self-made sepharadi Jews, out-and-out opportunists and, yes, some from close to the radical right. What’s more, it still looks as if the Likud is headed to a weak third showing in the upcoming elections, so why the big interest?

  16. JES, large portions of the West Bank I don’t doubt–nearly all of it (as would have happened if the Taba talks had led to a deal) seems questionable to me.
    Being pragmatic–well, it depends on what one means. In this case I’m accusing Sharon of pragmatically deciding that he could keep much of the West Bank and pass himself off as someone interested in a just peace at the same time. That, I think, is wrong, both morally and ultimately pragmatically as well, since I seriously doubt even the most moderate Palestinians would accept it.
    As for Arafat, nobody ever accused him of being a good leader. And to be fair, since I’ve mostly been bashing Sharon in this post, the Palestinians need to be pragmatic enough to squash their rocket-launching extremists and their gun-toting kidnappers or there’s no chance of a just solution. If they could do this then I think they’d be in a position to put a lot of pressure on Israel to be more forthcoming, but for once I agree with the notion that the Palestinians are throwing away an opportunity.
    As for Likud, I’m in America and if there are Likud members dovish enough to embrace the Geneva Accords as a model for what a just peace would look like then I don’t hear about them over here. I don’t know what their electoral chances are–I hear conflicting things about Kadima and assume Labor isn’t likely to win.

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