Malcolm Rifkind, Britain’s Foreign Secretary from 1995 to 1997, recently wrote that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon carried ‘a credibility with the Israeli public that no other politician shares.’ In this Rifkind is correct. Sharon made moves that were impossible for previous Prime Ministers because his long career as a hawk general made his disengagement appear less dovish than strategic. His forceful and violent tactics in the arena of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict gave him the harsh military background that Israeli voters find so necessary, and his bid for the Premiership came at a moment when the Israeli public became disillusioned with the idea of actively making peace. He was elected in a landslide vote, and his very offensive Defensive Shield of 2002 only increased his popularity, as it struck hard at the Palestinians whom Israelis incorrectly saw as their pushers into the sea. Yet the Israeli public still wanted peace, just as any group hopes for an end to violence against them. This created the political moment for Sharon to put his name down in history as the definer of Israel’s borders and the arbiter of peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
But one must keep in mind what kind of peace Sharon sought to implement. He has been lauded as a ‘man of peace’ for his initiative in leaving Gaza, yet his plan left Gaza completely controlled from without by Israel, in reality becoming One Big Prison, in the words of Israel’s leading human rights organization. And even as he braved the controversy within Israel for evacuating the Gazan part of the illegally occupied Palestinian territories, he tightened his stranglehold on the West Bank, which comprises sixteen times more land than Gaza, is home to twice as many Palestinians, and harbors the most significant water supplies in the Israel-Palestine region. Sharon relinquished the strategically unimportant Gaza in order to further solidify Israeli control over the strategically significant and agriculturally rich West Bank. This was a move for control, not peace.
Rifkind writes that Sharon’s break with Likud to form the more centrist Kadima demonstrated his push for ‘a Palestinian state with viable borders, a working economy and the normal characteristics of sovereignty.’ But that is exactly what Sharon’s strategy in the occupied Palestinian territories has made impossible.
Sharon insisted upon further developing illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank at the very same time that he mobilized evacuation troops for Gaza. In August, while speaking of the select West Bank settlements to be withdrawn, Sharon reiterated the permanence of Israel’s largest, most problematic settlements. Referring to Ma’ale Adumim and Ariel, he stated, ‘These settlements will remain in our hands and will be linked territorially to Israel.’ He described the Gaza disengagement as a ‘one-time’ event, guaranteeing that ‘there are no more stages of disengagement.’ (1) Despite late-coming warnings from Washington against the move, Sharon approved construction of 300 new homes within Ma’ale Adumim’s municipal boundaries, boundaries that cover more land that of Tel Aviv.
As Ma’ale Adumim literally gains more ground, Ariel, the next largest settlement, is getting absorbed into Israel through the construction of Sharon’s separation wall. The wall snakes up and down the West Bank, inside the 1967 borders and hence on and through Palestinian land. Whether the wall is intended for Israel’s safety or just pays lip service to safety while imposing more control over Palestinians, it succeeds in confiscating more land, along with the water resources underneath it. The plan of the wall has been underway since Sharon won office in 2001, and has become more of a stark reality each year. Every year it further divides Palestinians not just from Israel, but from other Palestinians, further trampling Palestinian freedom of movement, even within their own territory.
Even after the much applauded August disengagement, Gaza remains controlled by Israel, which surrounds it completely and retains the ability to invade at any moment. This already happened in the end of December, when the Israeli military set up a ‘buffer zone’ along Gaza’s northern border into which Palestinians travel. Palestinians and foreigners wishing to enter Gaza must first receive Israeli permission, and Israel has already used this to hinder the democratic process of elections by refusing passage to Palestinian political candidates. Even the bus transport connecting Gaza to the West Bank, demanded by United States and European Union, has yet to actualize. The Gazan economy remains in ruins, hardly able to recover from the economic devastation of the formal occupation so long as Israel continues to supervise all movement through its two agricultural ports and to deny seaport and airport operations.
Sharon’s assault on the West Bank, masterfully executed behind the screen of the Gaza disengagement, makes a future viable Palestinian state less and less of a plausible reality. Palestinian politicians face populations divided by the unconnected West Bank and Gaza. A future government will preside over Bantustans disconnected by Israeli–only roads and Israeli checkpoints, not to mention concrete walls and electrified fences. The government will share no border with other countries—save the 11 kilometers between Gaza and Egypt still supervised by Israel—because of the current buildup of illegal settlements in the Jordan Valley. Unless major changes occur in Israeli control over Palestinian land and movement, any future Palestinian economy will have no chance to succeed, and a state will follow suit.
Rifkind labeled Sharon’s ill health ‘disastrous for the peace process,’ as he was Israel’s ‘best chance of making peace.’ But in truth, there is no peace process of which to speak. Sharon himself threw out the process when he rebuffed his Palestinian counterparts and made the Gaza disengagement a unilateral decision. He also threw out the peace, as his government enhanced the Labor-designed matrix of Israeli controls in the West Bank.
In the end, Likud was too intransigent to approve Sharon’s strategy because it necessitated change in the status quo of occupation—nevermind that the change only served to further debilitate the Palestinians. Kadima was Sharon’s chance to seal his career with a victory because it severed him from the uncompromising Likud, but his compromise of giving up some settlements in order to secure larger resource consuming settlements is simply another nail in the coffin of the peace process that died in 2000.
If Sharon offered ‘the best chance of making peace,’ then we are defining peace as separation with an absence of violence. We are defining peace not as peaceful justice for both parties, but as peace and quiet—Israelis live quietly as they please on their side of the wall, and Palestinians live quietly as Israel pleases on the other side of the wall. This type of peace comes through unilateral decisions of the powerful, rather than through discussion and negotiation between conflicting parties. As a necessary result, Palestinians and Israelis live the peace that Israeli leaders want, and justice is left out of the equation. This is the peace of Sharon, but we cannot call that real peace.
(1) ‘More W Bank Settlements To Go,’ BBC International, Aug 29, 2005.