bitterlemons-international.org
Middle East Roundtable /
Edition 3
An Israeli View:
Worst case scenario
by Yossi Alpher In recent
weeks a small but growing number of opinion-makers in the Israeli public,
including former senior security officials, have begun advocating a new
departure in Sharon government policy concerning the disengagement from
Gaza.
Rather than risking bloody and divisive clashes between the Israel Defense
Forces and settlers who refuse to leave on their own volition, these people
suggest that the government should simply present the settlers with an
ultimatum: cooperate with the IDF, receive generous compensation and leave
by a designated date--or you will be abandoned. We will seal off the
settlement area, cut off electricity and water supply and phone service, and
you will be on your own. The recalcitrant settlers, according to this
scenario, will not last long on their own. They will soon request
repatriation, their tails between their legs.
This is an irresponsible proposal. It advocates that the government of
Israel abdicate its sovereign responsibility toward the settlers, including
the obligation to remove them. It assumes that the more obstinate settlers
can be coerced into leaving by passive means. It ignores the hardliners'
capacity, under these circumstances, to use violence against their
Palestinian Arab neighbors, as well as the likelihood that Palestinians
would use violence against them. It assumes the settlers, reinforced by
thousands of supporters who are already moving into Gaza, will not have
accumulated large supplies of food and water, ammunition, generators, fuel,
and whatever else they need to survive on their own. In short, it replaces
government by anarchy, with near certain disastrous consequences.
It is almost inconceivable that PM Sharon's new disengagement coalition
would even consider such an option. For the sake of the future of Israeli
state sovereignty, the state must be prepared to use absolute force against
those who would themselves oppose legitimate state decisions by force.
Yet a variant on this scenario, a more chaotic option, is certainly liable
to evolve in the course of the disengagement operation. Suppose, for
example, that a few fanatic settlers open fire on IDF soldiers, while
fanatic young settler mothers use their babies as human shields to defy the
troops. Suppose that after 7,000 settlers have been removed from Gaza there
are three dead and 30 wounded, including several babies, while 1,000
extremists remain barricaded in two settlements, with supplies to last a
year. Just as, in 2000, PM Ehud Barak's peace coalition disintegrated the
closer he got to Camp David, so Sharon's disengagement coalition begins to
fall apart: the rabbis leading the religious parties, whose sole motive for
joining the government was to obtain budgetary allotments for their flock,
now refuse to countenance the shedding of any more Jewish blood; new Likud
"rebel" members of Knesset, appalled at the scene in Gaza, threaten to vote
against their own government. !
The IDF, which has a contingency plan for everything, informs the prime
minister that it is ready to storm the remaining two settlements; it
estimates there will be another 20-50 dead, soldiers and settlers. Under
these circumstances, even PM Ariel Sharon might consider simply abandoning
the remaining settlers and waiting them out.
This sort of worst-case scenario, or something chaotically similar, is
easily imaginable in the reality that is unfolding before our eyes. This is
where the state of Israeli-Palestinian security relations becomes of
paramount importance. Has this drama unfolded while Palestinian militants
are lobbing rockets and mortars at the settlers and the soldiers, even as
they fight one another, thereby possibly strengthening the hand of those who
oppose disengagement on security grounds? Is there a modicum of liaison and
coordination between the IDF and Palestinian security authorities that might
enable them to develop some new "rules of the game" to handle such a
contingency in which Israel abandons Israelis deep inside Palestinian
territory?
At the time of writing this was not the case. Indeed, following the ugly
incident at the Karni crossing on January 13, in which Palestinian security
forces ostensibly loyal to PLO/PA leader Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) appear to
have allowed Palestinian terrorists to attack and kill six Israeli civilians
whose job it was to facilitate the flow of food and other vital goods to the
Palestinian population in Gaza, Israelis have more doubts than ever whether
Abbas can make good on his campaign pledge to end Palestinian violence.
The scenarios discussed here are Israel's creation and Israel's dilemma. The
worse they get, the more likely it is that this will be not only the first
but also the last attempt to remove settlements--a disastrous prospect for
the long-term well being of both Israelis and Palestinians. These
contingencies, like everything else in the Israeli-Palestinian reality, will
be heavily influenced by the durability of Israel's government, together
with its ability to coordinate its moves with a strong Palestinian
government.
At this point there is room for concern whether either government will prove
capable of delivering the goods.- Published 17/1/2004 (c)
bitterlemons.org Yossi Alpher is
coeditor of bitterlemons.org and bitterlemons-international.org. He is a
former director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv
University and a former senior adviser to PM Ehud Barak.
Bitterlemons-international.org is an internet
forum for an array of world perspectives on the Middle East and its
specific concerns. It aspires to engender greater understanding about
the Middle East region and open a new common space for world thinkers
and political leaders to present their viewpoints and initiatives on the
region. Editors Ghassan Khatib and Yossi Alpher can be reached at
ghassan@bitterlemons-international.org
and
yossi@bitterlemons-international.org, respectively.
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24-01-2005 |