Intrsujący Artykłu Patricka Seala

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Sharon, Bush and the race for Greater Israel
By Patrick Seale
October 20, 2003

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his friends in Washington are in a
hurry. They are racing to achieve their objectives before anyone stops them.
And when they are in a hurry, they are particularly dangerous. Syria and
Iran are in their sights, with further down the road Saudi Arabia, and even
Egypt. Political and economic pressure, financial penalties, sanctions,
intervention, regime change by military force, these are their chosen
instruments for bending the Arabs to the will of Israel and its United
States patron.

Sharons main objective is the building of a Greater Israel on the ruins
of Palestinian nationalism. His latest instrument is the wall or separation
barrier which is imprisoning the Palestinians on a fraction of their
territory, cutting them off on all sides from contact with their Arab
neighbors. The wall is due to be finished in eight months time. Sharon is
determined that nothing must prevent its completion.

At the UN Security Council this week, he won a major victory when the United
States vetoed a resolution, proposed by Syria, condemning the wall. Within
hours, a radical Palestinian group attacked the motorcade of an American
delegation in Gaza, killing three Americans and wounding a fourth. Sharon
will no doubt exploit this latest incident to rally American opinion against
the beleaguered Palestinian president, Yasser Arafat.

Sharons main worry, however, and the reason for his haste, is that George
W. Bush could be thrown out of office at next years US presidential
election and with him the whole band of pro-Israeli neoconservatives which
have set the administrations agenda since Sept. 11, 2001. These are the men
who pressed for war against Iraq as a first step toward reshaping the
geopolitics of the entire Middle East. But the sluggish US economy, the mess
in Iraq, and the anti-American anger sweeping the Arab and Muslim world are
now making Bush look vulnerable. A Democrat in the White House may not be so
tolerant of Israels foolhardy ambitions or so ready to endorse the neocons
aggressive policies.

Sharon has other worries closer to home. The political fallout from the
current police investigations of his two sons, Omri and Gilad, for alleged
sharp practice and bribe-taking could drive Sharon himself from office in
2004. And to compound his fears, the Israeli left which for the past two
years has seemed terminally ill and politically irrelevant is showing faint
signs of revival.

Leading opposition figures such as Yossi Beilin, Amram Mitzna and Avraham
Burg have joined with Palestinian moderates, led by Yasser Abed Rabbo, in
drafting a detailed peace plan for a two-state solution the so-called Geneva
Accords. The plan, the result of two years of secret negotiations funded by
the Swiss government, is due to be signed formally in Geneva next month,
putting flesh on the bones of the tentative agreements reached at Taba in
January 2001.

It represents everything that Sharon and his friends detest and which he has
spent his life seeking to destroy. It provides for an Israeli withdrawal to
the 1967 borders (with some marginal modifications) to allow for the
emergence of a viable Palestinian state; some major settlements close to the
Green Line to be annexed to Israel but those deep inside Palestinian
territory to be evacuated; Jerusalem as a shared capital; Palestinian
sovereignty over the Haram al-Sharif (Temple Mount); Israeli sovereignty
over the Wailing Wall and the Jewish quarter of the Old City; and a major
Palestinian concession the abandonment of the right of return to towns and
villages lost in 1948. An international force would monitor implementation
of the plan while radical Palestinian groups would be tamed and shut down.

These Geneva Accords may, in the present climate, seem hopelessly utopian.
They have no chance whatsoever of being implemented while the Sharon
government, or anything resembling it, is in power. Their potential
importance, however, lies in offering the Israeli public what it lacks and
longs for most hope that the nightmare of killing and counter-killing can be
brought to an end. In other words, a change in Washington, and a move back
to the center by an Israeli public won over by a credible peace plan, could
yet pose a threat to Sharons ambitions.

He has reacted to the Geneva Accords with barely suppressed rage. By what
right, he snorted, are left-wing people proposing moves that Israel can
never do, nor will ever do!

Sharon has always wanted one 100 percent of Palestine, an ambition which
would have involved expelling most, if not all, of the Palestinian
population of the West Bank to Jordan, which would then have become a
Palestinian state. As the obstacles to such a project are formidable, Sharon
has opted for something a shade more modest: the seizure of about 90 percent
of historic Palestine, confining the Palestinians to some 10 percent of the
overall territory behind the notorious wall. No doubt he calculates that,
once the wall is finished, it will in due course come to be accepted by the
international community, and by the Palestinians themselves, as defining
Israels borders.

Hence, his determination, and that of his American supporters, to move ahead
with all possible speed while the regional and international environment is
in their favor.

Sharons major asset is President Bush himself. Backing off from engagement
in the Arab-Israeli conflict, the Bush administration appears to have
decided to leave Israel to manage the Palestine problem on its own terms. So
much is clear from its veto of UN Resolutions condemning the wall and
Sharons recent strike inside Syrian territory, from its silence over
continued settlement expansion and from its failure to react to Israels
massive destruction of Palestinian property at Rafah, on Gazas border with
Egypt, which this week left 1,500 Palestinians homeless.

As he nervously prepares for his election campaign, his ratings slipping in
the polls, Bushs collapse before Sharon must be judged one of the blackest
pages in recent American history. It has provoked incredulity in Europe and,
more ominously, bitter hatred of the United States in Muslim communities
around the world.

Yet, Sharon has much cause for satisfaction: While Israel faces no strategic
threat, its enemies tremble. A shattered Iraq is under American occupation;
Iran, facing great international pressure over its alleged nuclear weapons
program, is wracked by internal conflicts between conservatives and
reformers; the Arab Gulf, seemingly indifferent and content, lies under
Americas military umbrella; Egypt, neutralized by its peace treaty with
Israel and by Americas annual subsidy, hardly dares open its mouth in
defense of the Palestinians; while Syria faces harsh and threatening
pressure on all sides from Washington, now preparing to vote into law the
economic and diplomatic boycotts enshrined in the Syria Accountability Act;
and from Israel, which last week sent its planes to strike at Syria and
seems ready to do so again.

Sharon still thinks he can bludgeon the Palestinians into submission. The
attack on the Palestinian camp near Damascus, together with Israels
repeated incursions at Rafah, are clearly intended as warnings to Syria and
Egypt to halt all support for the Palestinians or face the consequences. But
Sharon has not yet found an answer to the suicide bombers, who have
traumatized the Israel public, ruined the economy, killed the tourist trade
and cut off foreign investment. They are a profound embarrassment to Sharon,
but he may think it a price worth paying. His priority is land, not
security. That, he believes, will follo