In his interview with the Jerusalem Post, former Bush aide Elliott Abrams says that former Israeli P.M. Ariel Sharon decided to withdraw from Gaza in 2005 for political/tactical reasons: to take people's attention away from the Geneva Accord, which would put a Palestinian state on most of the West Bank, granting Israel a bunch of settlements around Jerusalem. Geneva had wide support and wasn't all that different from Clinton's Taba discussions in January 2001. Here's Abrams:
[W]hen Sharon came to visit Bush's ranch in
Crawford, the president asked him about it. Now, obviously, what
politicians and statesmen tell each other is not necessarily exactly
what they think. But Sharon's answer, as I recall, was that, after the
defeat of the intifada, a vacuum was left in the Israeli-Palestinian
front. And it was being filled with many, very energetic diplomatic
proposals – mostly emanating from Europe – that were all damaging to
Israel, all saying that now was the time for final-status negotiations.
"Let's have a conference," they were saying. "Let's reconvene Madrid."
And some Israelis and Palestinians came up with the Geneva
Initiative, which Sharon hated. According to Sharon, these bad ideas
were growing in importance, and he needed something to fill the vacuum
that would be good, rather than bad, for Israel. Disengagement was it.
I've
heard different theories from others, of course… I've also heard
the "poison pill" theory, according to which Sharon did not believe
that, given this opportunity to rule Gaza, the Palestinians would prove
to be able to have a democracy that would show all Israelis that if
Israel then pulled out of the West Bank, they'd be getting a peaceful,
friendly, democratic neighbor. This theory goes that Sharon thought the
Palestinians would blow it, and that this was a way of showing the
world that a two-state solution had to be delayed until such time as
the Palestinians could govern themselves properly. If that was his
theory, it seems to have worked.
Few comments. Note the utter alignment of Abrams's thinking with Sharon's. He makes no effort to pressure Sharon to accept a state on those lines–no, he's right with the P.M., throughout this interview. Note the casual cynicism on Abrams's part about the Palestinian capability to even qualify as human beings who possess the right to self-determination.
Note that at the same time as Sharon is trying to get everyone to forget about the Geneva Accord, Bush's braintrust, the American Enterprise Institute, which helped start the Iraq war to distract anyone from looking at the Israeli occupation, holds a panel packed with Abrams's neocon cousins, on Why Israel can't give up the West Bank because it needs to have defense forces all over the West Bank.
Note that Jimmy Carter, who supports Geneva, comes out with a book a year after these shenanigans warning about apartheid on the West Bank, and he is smeared everywhere, including by the Democratic Party. Note that 2 years after that, Sharon's successor, Olmert, warns about apartheid and no one smears him.
Note that Sharon is Kadima. Meaning that in Israel's current constellation, he's considered center-left!
And of course, note Sharon's trickery. OK: all states are tricky. But how many years can Israel trick Palestinians out of self-determination without the world rising up against Israel on the issue? And how long can the U.S. conspire to help Israel trick the Palestinians without everyone just hating us more and more?
(Phil Weiss)
