What Is Behind the Gaza Pullout?

Political observers listened with interest to the Israeli prime minister’s decision to dismantle all Jewish settlements in Gaza and the West Bank, not out of a feeling that at long last peace might be near but because Sharon’s decision completely contradicts his colonialist tendencies and greediness for more Palestinian land.

He has long preached a policy of takeover — he is known as the godfather of the Jewish settlement movement; it was he who came up with plans to encircle Palestinian cities with Jewish settlements, who built the roads cutting through Palestinian land with the aim of dismembering the Palestinian state and turning it into cantons and it was he who is responsible for the apartheid wall. His statement regarding the disengagement from Gaza and the abandonment of settlements doesn’t hold up against his exploits in the various posts he has held in the Israeli government. Some are of the opinion that the second Intifada, the heavy economic losses it caused and the fear that the Palestinian resistance movements have been able to sow in the Israeli street converged within that decision. That it is a repeat of the pullout from Southern Lebanon. We need to look deeper; for there are far more sinister reasons.

First, Israel claims that the hostility and aggression between the two sides has made it impossible to reach an agreement. In reality, Sharon was the one who raised the level of tension with inhumane military operations. He was thus able to shirk all commitments prescribed by the Oslo, Camp David and Taba agreements as well as avoiding the implementation of the Mitchell Committee recommendations, the Tenet Plan and Zinni projects and it was he who finally paralyzed the road map.

It was Sharon who essentially destroyed the ability of the Palestinian National Authority to exert any power over its territories. In so doing, he was able to claim that a final agreement must be postponed for 10 to 15 years after which it might become possible for Palestinians and Jews to co-exist.

Sharon’s objective is to make an independent Palestinian state impossible, for Palestinian claims to Jerusalem to disappear along with their right of return and the right to dismantle the settlements built on Palestinian land — rights that are enshrined in both international law and UN Security Council resolutions.

Second, Sharon’s claim that he will dismantle Jewish settlements in Gaza may consolidate his position with the US as a “man of peace” with the additional hope of improving his image in Europe and the rest of the world.

Third, the idea that the ultimate aim of the pullout is peace may secure his position at a time when he faces a possibility of being accused, along with his sons, of bribery and corruption.

With Sharon’s decision we are back to square one, the beginning of the so-called peace process and the Madrid Conference. This comes at a time when all Arabs have accepted the peace process and come to believe that negotiations are the only option if peace is to reign in the Middle East. Sharon’s decision to dismantle the settlements in Gaza and some in the West Bank are expressions of his radical policies that aim to kill the road map, destroy American endeavors in that regard and ultimately deny the Palestinians an independent state. His image is certainly not of a man of peace that he seeks to promote.