There is little argument that the second Palestinian uprising is effectively terminated, despite the fact that the causes which led to its inception remain in place. This claim does not deny the looming prospect of a third revolt, nor does it undermine the unbroken will of the Palestinian people to carry on with their resistance by any channel available.
However, unfolding events in the occupied territories, topped by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s declared intentions of “disengaging” from the Gaza Strip, with a first phase scheduled for August 2005, have shifted internal Palestinian focus, even if temporarily, from confronting the Israeli occupation to settling factional and political grievances.
As far as the Israeli Disengagement plan is concerned, Sharon’s real motives are starkly clear and require little political know-how. In a noteworthy policy speech delivered in Cesaria, Israel on June 30, 2005, Sharon, said:
“We concluded that we are going to leave Gaza, where there is no chance of establishing a Jewish majority,” he said. “It is clear to everyone that Gaza will never be part of Israel in any final agreement. At the same time, we are turning our resources to the most important areas, which we need to safeguard for our existence: The Galilee, the Negev, Greater Jerusalem, the settlement blocs, and security areas.”
Sharon has once more demonstrated that he is anything but a changed man. Meanwhile, audiences worldwide watched with shock and amazement Israel’s overpublicized clashes between Jewish settlers and soldiers. “Israeli vs. Israeli in Gaza”, read a Christian Science Monitor headline. Media all around the world did their best to diminish the ingrained conception that Sharon’s commitment to the illegal settlements is everlasting.
But there is more to “Arik’s horror show” in Gaza, wrote veteran Israeli journalist and peace activist, Uri Avnery, following a noisy clash between settler youth and Israeli troops on June 29, 2005. He asked: “Why were the riots not put down everywhere,” as was the case in the Gaza sideshow, which was well attended and covered by the media?
“There is no escaping the simple conclusion. It is in (Sharon’s) interests that TV screens in Israel and all over the world show the scenes of the terrible riots. That’s how he sows in the heads of the viewers the natural question, ‘If the evacuation of a few small settlements causes such a huge uproar — how can one even dream of removing the big settlements in the West Bank?’”
On the political front, the disengagement serves a great purpose and compels one to recall remarks made by Sharon’s lawyer and most trusted advisor, Dov Weisglass not long ago. Weisglass told the daily Ha’aretz of Sharon’s political ploy that has prompted the disengagement. He revealed that the “The ‘disengagement’ would actually supply the amount of formaldehyde necessary so there would not be a political process with the Palestinians.” And indeed, there was no political process and none should be expected. The highly touted meetings like that between Sharon and Abbas in Jerusalem on June 21, 2005 were simply used by the Israeli premier as a way to pacify any censure for neglecting the peace track in favor of his unilateral moves across the occupied territories. The meeting was just another opportunity where Palestinians were duly reprimanded for not doing enough to curb violence and uproot the “terrorist infrastructure” and so on.
And if anyone has still any doubts about Sharon’s real objectives, his speech on March 5, 2002 should remove them. “It won’t be possible to reach an agreement with them before the Palestinians are hit hard. If they aren’t badly beaten, there won’t be any negotiations. Only after they are beaten will we be able to conduct talks. I want an agreement, but first they have to be beaten so they get the thought out of their minds that they can impose an agreement on Israel that Israel does not want.”
But Sharon is mistaken if he thinks he can have his way. After all, it was a Palestinian who once wrote, “like the trees we die standing,” a phrase that has been ingrained in the Palestinian psyche for generations and was demonstrated in heroic resilience throughout the occupied territories, echoing from Jenin, to Hebron to Rafah and Gaza, on every street and in every corner.
But neither Sharon nor most of Israel’s decision makers seem to be proficient students of history. They are damned to repeat the same mistake again, and with every unlearned lesson, squandering an untold number of lives and countless opportunities for a genuine, just and lasting peace.
