Ariel Sharon has visited Washington to get the green light to sever the connection with the Palestinians and implement Sharon’s unilateral decision to withdraw from the Gaza strip and dismantle the Jewish settlements. By so doing, he has propelled the Arab-Israeli conflict into a period of increased danger, at a time when all Arab sides and the quartet of countries have been pushing the peace process forward through the road map to peace.
Sharon’s demands were simple: Don’t ask us to return to our pre-1967 border and don’t press for the return of Palestinian refugees. These demands not only contravene international law as embodied by the Security Council Resolutions, they also violate the Palestinians’ basic rights acknowledged by previous US administrations, which had become seemingly immutable American policy.
Sharon’s excuse was that the return of Palestinian refugees represents a threat to the Jewish nature of the Hebrew State and since the US is committed to ensuring Israel’s security, Washington must therefore back Israel in this regard. Since Israel had already absorbed Jews who emigrated from the Arab countries, it remains for the Arab states and the Palestinian Authority to absorb Palestinians migrating into those lands
Stubborn and evasive, Sharon took care not lay all his cards on the table, preferring instead to have his desires fulfilled one at a time. He didn’t reveal for example that he wants to postpone final negotiations indefinitely, nor did he specify the number of settlements that he would keep inside the West Bank as clusters dividing Palestinian territories in the West Bank. Neither did he mention that in any case he and his Cabinet totally reject the road map and its contents, which oblige Israel to accept the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.
Sharon and the atmosphere surrounding the American presidential campaign have pushed the US president to agree to the planned disengagement from the standpoint that any withdrawal by Israel is important and encouraging. While we are in agreement on this point, the surprise was hearing the president ask the Palestinians to accept the new geographic reality in the occupied territories and the lands that will be granted to them within the framework of the National Authority and to keep this in mind when the final solution negotiations take place.
It was clear from his words that this wasn’t a request nor was it a decision to cross out the Palestinians’ rights completely. He also took care to clearly say that the dividing wall was temporary, as a way to balance out the two former demands.
These requests drove a high-ranking Israeli official to say that Israel has never heard anything like these statements in its 56-year history and that this was indeed a historical precedent.
The situation has become extremely sensitive as the demands conflict with the internationally accepted and established norms.
The Palestinian issue is the principal reason for the tension in the Middle East. Without an independent Palestinian state, peace will never be achieved and the struggle will continue unabated.
The following demands are fundamental:
• Complete coordination between Palestinians and Israelis to complete the process of withdrawal from Gaza, the latter to be undertaken within the framework of the implementation of the roadmap to peace.
• Establishment of a time frame for the withdrawal from Gaza strip and the West Bank
• An end to the building of the apartheid wall and a time frame for tearing down what has already been built.
• Finding solutions acceptable to all sides through negotiations and not through impositions and decrees.
If these demands are not met, peace will always be under threat. In fact, confrontations which threaten the security of the whole region will increase. The road map to peace will have thus followed it predecessors and been lost in the pages of history.
