Tuesday’s vote, in which the Knesset approved Israel’s disengagement from the Gaza Strip, is only the start of a long process. The numerous opponents of the disengagement — principally from the right — are lying in ambush, and it is far from certain that the programme will be carried out.
The plan is already splitting the state of Israel — politically and socially, religiously and emotionally. And as the time for evacuating the settlements draws near, this split will no doubt continue to deepen. But only if and when the entire process is completed, in about a year’s time, will we be able to look back at Tuesday’s vote and say that it marked a historic turning point in the Israel-Arab conflict.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is presently waging the most difficult and complicated political battle of his life. He is now proceeding against the rigid ideology that he has always supported, and that has guided his actions for decades.
At the beginning of the 1970s Sharon initiated and encouraged the building of settlements, taking care to plant them just where their presence would block any possibility of an arrangement that would include an Israeli withdrawal and separation from the occupied territories. Over the past three decades it was Sharon who impeded any diplomatic process that might, in his opinion, have led to the evacuation of settlements.
Now he must wage an uncompromising battle against a reality that he himself shaped, and against a world view of which he was among the most important and charismatic creators and symbols. He must also face hundreds of thousands of Israelis — not only settlers — who saw him as their admired leader and guide, many of whom now see him as a traitor.
And it makes no difference what Sharon’s hidden motives were when he decided to disengage from the Gaza Strip. He almost always has a hidden motive, and there is almost always some kind of “double- bottomed suitcase” to his proposals and his moves.
Whether his motive is to manipulate or to bring about true change, Sharon is now leading one of the most important processes to take place between Israel and the Palestinians since the 1967 war — a war that Israel did not want, and ended in its occupation of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
The evacuation of the Gaza settlements — and an additional four small settlements in the West Bank — represents an awareness and admission on the right’s part that Israel cannot continue to rule the Palestinians by force.
Sharon would certainly disagree with this definition, but the fact that the idea of disengagement was raised at all demonstrates acceptance of the notion that some time in the future Israel will be forced to withdraw from the other occupied territories it controls as well.
Above all, the majority’s acceptance of the disengagement plan means that the nationalistic and religious ideology of the Israeli right — an ideology that has, since the beginning of the 20th century and to this day, rejected the land’s division into two states — is a complete failure.
Sharon is now acting with great personal and public courage. Unfortunately, however, even while conducting this important and historic revolution, he has not succeeded in freeing himself from the belligerence and short-sightedness that have characterised his entire political career. He is not using the Israeli withdrawal — from the occupied territories and from a rigid ideology — as an opportunity to renew dialogue with the Palestinians and perhaps to move toward a comprehensive arrangement with them. Instead, he is evacuating 7 500 settlers and the Israeli army from the Gaza Strip unilaterally, while totally ignoring the Palestinians. To him, they are not a party to this process.
Consequently, it is important to take a realistic view and understand that what is about to happen is neither a peace agreement nor a peace process. Moreover, the Palestinian resistance to the occupation will continue, for most Palestinian lands will remain under Israel’s control, and — according to international law — Israel’s responsibility.
Sharon does not hide his opinion that a withdrawal from Gaza will be to Israel’s advantage, enabling it to win the approval of the United States (at least under George W Bush) and to “launder” and perpetuate Israel’s occupation of the West Bank.
About 230 000 settlers now live in the West Bank, which is the heart of the settlement movement and its ideological focus. Moreover, most Israelis have a much stronger emotional, religious and national connection to the West Bank than they have to the Gaza Strip.
Thus, by “sacrificing” the Gaza settlements, Sharon is making a move, known in chess as a gambit, in order to save his queen — an Israeli presence in the West Bank.
And perhaps this also explains the extraordinary vigour of the battle the settlers are now waging against the disengagement from the Gaza Strip.
Rabbis and rightist public figures call on soldiers to disobey orders and not to participate in the “expulsion of the Jewish people from its land”.
Israel’s silent majority has been shocked to learn the true price of the admiring and forgiving indulgence that it displayed toward the settlers over the years. Only now — and, perhaps, too late — has the average Israeli awakened to discover that his passive acceptance of the settlers’ behaviour toward the Palestinians has helped them become a danger to him personally, as well as to his government, his democracy and his state.
No, we should not ignore the pain of the thousands who are to be evacuated. But the state of Israel cannot allow this minority to dictate to it and to prevent it from realising a better future.
No one doubts that after Tuesday’s vote, the settlers will continue to fight the disengagement plan with all their might, and some will not be particular about their means. Despite all this, it is possible that Israel has begun a process that may in the future enable it to end the occupation, and to return to a healthier and more optimistic way of life. — Â