Yesterday, Sharon finally won the backing of US President George W. Bush. Yasser Arafat and Ahmed Qurei, two of the most inconsequential “leaders” in the world today, immediately branded Bush’s support of Sharon’s plan as the “end of the peace process” and warned of a renewed round of terrorist attacks against Israel.
This response by Arafat and Qurei should prove to anyone who still needs such proof that the Palestinian aim is not the creation of a state of their own, but rather the destruction of Israel. That is the only explanation for such an outburst, when Sharon is handing them – for free – the next building block of their state. True to the 1974 “Phased Plan”, they didn’t even so much as say thank you before pledging yet more terrorist attacks.
It is this terrorism, not anything else, that has ended the "peace process". Yet they have the gall to blame Bush for it. He has “adopted the Israeli position”, they say. What did they really expect him to do, issue a statement supporting Palestinian terrorism?
President Bush has now shown himself to be Israel’s best friend to ever occupy the office of US President. While the rest of the world was considering how to respond to Sharon’s move, Bush became the first president ever to openly state that “large Israeli communities” would remain in Judea and Samaria, and that the Palestinians would not have the “right of return” to places inside the State of Israel. These are two huge victories for Israel, and credit should be given to Sharon for achieving them, as well as to Bush, for finally recognizing the reality that exists in Israel – including that of Palestinian terrorism and of Jewish permanence in Judea and Samaria.
But while the statements by Bush, and by Arafat and Qurei serve to greatly clarify matters, the position of Ariel Sharon still remains quite murky. All day long, I have been asked what Sharon will gain by his plan. What benefit will accrue to Israel from an Israeli abandonment of these 25 communities? And to all such questions, only one answer is possible: I don’t know.
Ariel Sharon has not indicated what Israel will be getting in return for the implementation of his plan. In two weeks, the 200,000 members of his party will be asked to vote on the plan, and they cannot do so in an educated fashion without knowing what the benefit to Israel will be from its acceptance.
22 years ago, Israel underwent the most painful episode in its history with the abandonment of the Jewish communities in Yamit in northeastern Sinai. This was done as part of the peace treaty with Egypt – a treaty that today provides at best a non-belligerence situation along the Sinai border. The proponents of the abandonment of Yamit – led by the very same Ariel Sharon – claim that Yamit was given up in the interests of peace with Egypt, and that 25 years of such peace is ample reward for the anguish that was felt then.
But the people whose homes were destroyed in those communities now live for the most part in the Gaza Strip. They can tell you first hand that had Yamit not been abandoned, the smuggling tunnels that are being discovered nearly every day in the Rafiah area, and which are used to arm the Palestinian terrorists who continue to attack Israelis throughout the country, would not exist.
Now Sharon wants to make another similar step. He proposes to remove 7500 Israelis from their homes and forcibly transfer them to other communities in Israel – something that if it were proposed for the Arabs would raise the ire of practically the whole world and more than half of Israel’s citizens. But it would also result in the removal of Israeli military presence from the Gaza Strip, and an absence of any form of prevention while the terrorists who rule there are allowed to re-arm and rebuild their threat against Israel. And those tunnels would now reach to Sderot rather than ending in Gush Katif.
It is very difficult to see any positive gain from this plan. The negatives are quite plain, and it is indeed shocking how many supposed right-wingers in Israel are prepared to support the plan without any real clarifications from Sharon. The Prime Minister owes it to Likud voters – and indeed to the rest of the nation – to explicitly clarify what Israel stands to gain from his plan. Otherwise it is doomed to bring greater catastrophe to Israel.
Copyright 2004. All rights reserved. Yehuda Poch is a journalist living in Israel. Reproduction in electronic or print format by permission of the author only.
