Sharon Makes Sure There Will Be No Peace Talks

By Rachelle Marshall


	Palestinian youth throw stones at an Israel army jeep in the West Bank city of Jenin Nov. 3, after a week of violence in which six Israelis and 14 Palestinians were killed (AFP Photo/Saif Dahlah).

ISRAEL'S foot dragging has stalled the Middle East peace process ever since it began in 1990 under the first President Bush. The Oslo accords of 1993 brought promises of Israeli troop withdrawals, prisoner releases, and the easing of border restrictions that were never fulfilled. Israel instead proceeded to double the number of Jewish settlers on land seized from the Palestinians and cemented its hold on the West Bank. Many hoped the dismantling of its illegal settlements in Gaza last August would be followed by renewed peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, but Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is doing everything possible to avoid them.

Sharon claimed the late Palestinian President Yasser Arafat was not a legitimate negotiating partner because he encouraged terrorism. Arafat’s successor, Mahmoud Abbas, has fervently denounced violence, but Sharon will not negotiate with Abbas either until he dismantles Hamas and other militant groups. Abbas knows he cannot disarm the better equipped and disciplined militias, however, and instead is trying to draw them into the political process. Sharon meanwhile is carrying out actions that strengthen the militants and undermine Abbas’ efforts to bring them in line.

Because Israel carried out the removal of settlers from Gaza without the participation of the Palestinian Authority, Hamas was able to claim responsibility for forcing the Israelis out. Just before the evacuation, an Israeli death squad disguised as Arabs killed five Palestinians in Tulkarm, two of them teenagers. Israeli raids and arrests in the West Bank continued while the settlers were leaving. As the Israelis no doubt expected, militants responded by firing rockets into Israel and injured five Israelis.

This was the excuse the army needed to launch a campaign of bombing, assassinations and arrests in Gaza and the West Bank that lasted for more than 10 days in September. During that time more than 500 Palestinians were arrested, 10 were killed, and much of Gaza’s infrastructure was destroyed, including power lines, bridges, buildings and roads. In the days following the settlers’ departure Gaza was a free-fire zone, and Palestinians were made aware that Israel was still very much in control.

The Israelis continued their campaign of arrests and assassinations in the West Bank, and shut down the offices of several charities they said were linked to Hamas. When Al-Aqsa gunmen retaliated by killing three Israeli settlers in late October, Israel responded in turn by barring Palestinian cars from the main West Bank highway leading to Jerusalem, sealing off Bethlehem and Hebron, and making dozens more arrests. Israel again blamed the Palestinians for renewing the violence, but the figures show a different story. Between mid-February, when both sides agreed to a truce, and mid-October, Israeli soldiers and settlers killed 91 Palestinians. Palestinians killed 17 Israelis in the same period.

Abbas and Sharon were scheduled to meet on Oct. 10, but by late October such a meeting had yet to take place. The two sides were deadlocked over Sharon’s refusal to fulfill his earlier promise to release more Palestinian prisoners and withdraw the army from four Palestinian cities. Gaza’s borders remained tightly sealed, despite Israel’s earlier agreement to open the Rafah gate and allow foreign inspectors to supervise passage in and out. While Abbas was abroad in mid-October urging foreign leaders to support resumption of peace negotiations, the Israelis announced they were suspending all contacts with the Palestinian Authority.

Israel’s intransigence puts Abbas in an impossible position. Sharon demands that he dismantle militant groups, but will not allow the much weakened Palestinian security forces to acquire more weapons. Israel’s refusal to open Gaza’s border or grant any other concessions to the Palestinians undermines Abbas’ credibility as a leader and strengthens the militants’ claim that political means alone will not bring an end to the occupation. At an Oct. 20 White House meeting with Abbas, President George W. Bush urged the Israelis to ease conditions for the Palestinians and stop settlement construction, but he has repeated this message so often and with so little follow-up that it might have been a recording. While Bush was speaking, another 4,207 homes for settlers were under construction in the West Bank.

Hamas won 26 percent of the vote in local West Bank elections this fall and plans to challenge Abbas’ Fatah party in the Palestinian parliamentary elections this January. Sharon said Israel would block Palestinians’ access to the polls if Hamas runs, a move the Bush administration does not support. Bush instead has pressed Abbas to require that all candidates renounce violence—a requirement no candidate for the White House could meet and still be elected.

Moderate Palestinians, especially in Gaza, have more than Hamas to worry about. With potential leaders such as Marwan Barghouti either in jail or victims of Israeli death squads, and members of the Palestinian Authority tainted by corruption and cronyism, armed militias and the various family clans now compete for influence. The result is often lawlessness and violence that Palestinian security forces are unable to control. Young men who have no access to jobs or higher education are potential recruits for the militias, and according to Professor Talal Okal of Al-Azhar University, mosques are taking the place of unreliable secular Palestinian leaders as a source of authority.

If Gaza sinks into anarchy no one will be happier than Ariel Sharon and other right-wing Israelis. Israeli officials repeatedly refer to Gaza as “a test case,” as if Palestinians have to prove themselves worthy before they can gain their rights. If Palestinian leaders fail to impose order in Gaza, or if militants take over, Israelis can more easily justify their refusal to withdraw from the West Bank.

Meanwhile Sharon will do everything possible to prove his toughness in order to beat back a challenge from far right former Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu plans to run against Sharon for the post of party leader in April when Likud holds its regular primary vote. Netanyahu, who resigned from the Cabinet in protest against the removal of Gaza settlers, has strong support from the right, and polls show him with a 12-point lead among Likud voters.

If Netanyahu does become head of Likud, Sharon is certain to form a new party with Shinui, which is secular but conservative, and with Labor party leaders Shimon Peres and Ehud Barak. A September survey by the Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot showed the prospective party winning 36 seats in the 120-member Knesset, with only 14 seats going to Likud. Peres and Barak moved the Labor party so far to the right that Israelis who favor an end to the occupation now have nowhere to go except to a small liberal party such as Meretz.

Given the political situation in both Israel and in the occupied territories, there is little hope for renewed peace negotiations. If Abbas fails to produce results, Palestinian voters may opt for more militant leaders next January, in which case the Israelis would reject such leaders as negotiating partners. If Netanyahu becomes head of Likud, Sharon as head of a new party is almost certain to be again elected prime minister.

Thomas Friedman and other media commentators have referred to the new party as “centrist,” but it will be centrist only because the left in Israel has all but disappeared. There is nothing moderate about Sharon. His record as a commando leader in the 1950s and 1960s, and his involvement as minister of defense in the massacre of hundreds of Palestinian refugees in Beirut in 1982, is as bloody as that of any terrorist. In the early 1970s he became the prime mover behind the settler movement, which was designed to ensure that Israel would never have to relinquish the West Bank.

Sharon’s notion of a peace settlement is to turn over to Palestinians a few chunks of West Bank territory separated by Israeli-controlled highways, Jewish settlements, and high barriers, and call the result a “state.” He makes no secret of his intention to impose such a solution unilaterally. Suicide bombings and other Palestinian violence pose no threat to Sharon, but only provide him with a chance to show his strength. What he wishes to avoid most of all are serious peace talks with the Palestinians. Until pressure from the United States forces him to the negotiating table, such talks will not take place.

Rachelle Marshall is a free-lance editor living in Stanford, CA. A member of the Jewish International Peace Union, she writes frequently on the Middle East.