bitterlemons-international.org
Middle East Roundtable /
Edition 4 Volume 1
An Israeli View:
It all depends on the leaders
by Yossi Alpher
The "Athens Plan", the joint Israeli-Palestinian
program entitled "Disengagement toward re-engagement" that is being
published for the first time by bitterlemons, is such an obviously
constructive idea that it is painful. If only the two sides could work
together on the security and economic aspects of Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon's disengagement plan, its chances of success would be radically
improved and, more importantly, the plan would be far more likely to serve
as a positive precedent for moving from conflict to constructive separation
and ultimately to a successful two state solution.
A week ago I would have written in this space that, due to the absence of
positive leadership, the plan had little chance of being implemented. After
all, neither Sharon nor PLO leader Yasser Arafat nor US President George W.
Bush has a realistic strategy for peace--in the absence of which
disengagement is liable to be truly unilateral. An Israeli pullout from Gaza
and the northern West Bank may be a positive step from the standpoint of
Israel's need to remain a Jewish and a democratic state, i.e., from the
demographic standpoint, and insofar as it keeps the two-state solution
alive. But it will only serve as a positive precedent for further Israeli
withdrawals or as a point of departure for a return to peace negotiations if
the Palestinian side takes advantage of Israel's disengagement to restore
order and security, thereby enabling the international community to begin
rebuilding the Gazan economy. That's what the Athens Plan is all about.
Now we confront the possibility that the negative leadership paradigm
described above will be undergoing radical change. In the Palestinian camp
we don't yet know Arafat's fate, but it is certainly possible that the era
of his leadership is ending, and one can at least hope that the successor
regime in Ramallah will better appreciate the opportunity presented by
disengagement as well as the relevancy of the actions, described in the
Athens Plan, that need to be taken in order for Palestinians to benefit from
Israel's departure.
In the United States, a Kerry presidency or even a second term Bush
presidency presents an opportunity for the administration to deal more
constructively and more energetically with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Only in Israel was it made clear last week that no leadership change is
about to take place, as Ariel Sharon rebuffed the right wing challenge to
his initiative to leave the Gaza Strip and northern West Bank.
Sharon's stubborn commitment to disengagement is striking. But he is
invoking his plan at least in part because he does not want, indeed, does
not believe in, a peace process with the Palestinians. And his intentions
regarding the rest of the West Bank remain murky, to say the least, thereby
sparking endless conspiracy theories among Palestinians. Nevertheless, his
disengagement plan is potentially good for Israel and good for Palestine.
If Sharon were soon to be confronted by a new, more moderate and rational
Palestinian leadership and a more determined US administration, he would be
hard put to rebuff pressures at least to enter into some sort of
disengagement-related dialogue. This in turn would seriously improve the
domestic Israeli political chances that disengagement would actually be
carried out, insofar as some of the Israeli disengagement skeptics, even on
the right, object precisely to the absence of a partner rather than to
leaving Gaza. The Athens Plan is a timely and suitable agenda for such a
dialogue. The Palestinians who wrote it evidently understand that
disengagement is more an opportunity than a conspiracy.
True, this is a best-case scenario. The situation in both Palestine and
Washington might not play out this way. Arafat could recover and return, or
Palestine could deteriorate into Somalia-like chaos, or Hamas or Palestinian
warlords could launch a series of coups, or the successor regime in Ramallah
could be too weak to act decisively--the list of potential negative
scenarios is endless. And the next US administration might remain so
preoccupied with Iraq and perhaps Iran that it will refuse to exercise
pressure or offer incentives to either side in order to make good on
disengagement.
But the fact that six distinguished Israelis and five distinguished
Palestinians sat down and worked out a comprehensive agenda for exploiting
disengagement in order to implement Israeli-Palestinian reengagement, offers
at least a grain of hope that we can now begin moving in the right
direction.- Published 1/11/2004 (c) bitterlemons.org
Athens Plan
Yossi Alpher is coeditor of
bitterlemons.org and bitterlemons-international.org. He is former director
of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies 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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02-11-2004 |