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Hard Questions, Tough Answers with Yossi Alpher - September 19, 2005

Q. What was significant about the content of Sharon & Abbas' speeches? Q. ...how is Israel's unilateralism now seen by Arabs and others?

Q. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas gave landmark speeches on the occasion of the completion of the Gaza withdrawal. Besides general advocacy by both of a peace process, what was significant about the content?

A. The content of both speeches tells us a lot about the intentions of the two leaders, both regarding the coming months and with regard to the peace process in general.

Abbas, speaking on September 13 on Palestinian television, made all the gestures one would expect on the occasion of the "liberation" of Gaza: homage to those Palestinians who had fallen in the cause, including Yasser Arafat; a call to maintain law and order and praise for adherence to the ceasefire thus far; and a focus on the dual tasks of independence and peace, and construction and development. Indeed, he enumerated a long list of development projects planned for Gaza and elsewhere to emphasize the exclusive role of the PA/PLO in recruiting and channeling international aid, and stake Fatah's claim to the votes of Gazans in the January 25 national elections.

But Abbas added two important elements that point to the direction of his policies in the months ahead. First, he emphasized that Gaza does not yet enjoy "all the elements of national sovereignty" and that the occupation had not come to an end: "Gaza's crossing points with the world, parts of its land, water and air and the link with the West Bank are still outstanding issues threatening to transform Gaza into a big prison." In other words, according to Abbas, there is no basis for pressuring the Palestinians to declare a state, even in Gaza. This caution reflects Abbas' resolute rejection of phase II of the roadmap, wherein Palestinians declare a state with provisional borders. He fears--not without reason, in view of Sharon's known positions on final status borders--that such an entity would evolve into a long term fait accompli and that the international community would then abandon the Palestinian cause without a return to the 1967 borders. Hence he also mentioned those borders and East Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state--both demands rejected by Sharon.

But Abbas went further: he argued that "the occupation effectively ends when we achieve the objectives of the peace process", including "a just and agreed resolution of the refugee problem according to [UNGA] resolution 194". Since when does the occupation have anything to do with 194, which Palestinians understand as mandating the refugees' right of return to Israel? By equating the occupation with an element of the peace process that does not involve territory, Abbas appears to be saying that he will not countenance any attempts at all to achieve a partial solution (e.g., resolving border issues but not the refugee issue), and that his relatively hard-line views on the right of return have not been modified.

Notably, the official Palestinian media omitted this far-reaching reference in their summaries of Abbas' speech. Perhaps he thought better of it after the fact.

Turning to Sharon, his United Nations General Assembly speech of September 15 was notable both for its political timing and tenor on the one hand, and its lack of substantive innovation, on the other.

Sharon's resounding endorsement of an Israeli-Palestinian peace process and his Rabin-like commitment, as a long time soldier, to devote the remainder of his public life to peace, placed him squarely in the dovish camp of Israeli politics. They also served notice on his own party, the Likud, that in his effort to remain party leader Sharon would make no verbal concessions to his hawkish critics, led by Binyamin Netanyahu. While Sharon later defined his devotion to peace as the "true Likud", he was also in effect stating that if and when he lost the leadership battle within the party to Netanyahu, he would remain in politics and almost certainly form his own center party to compete in the coming election. Once again, as with the Gaza withdrawal, he was audaciously upping the political stakes and placing his future on the line.

Yet regarding substance, Sharon offered no new concessions. True, he did not repeat his pledge to continue developing the settlement blocs; he left that for later press interviews. But even as he determined to make his appeal for reconciliation and compromise "my calling and my primary mission for the coming years", he insisted that disengagement offers an "opportunity for advancing towards peace in accordance with the sequence of the roadmap", thereby implicitly contradicting Abbas' evasion of phase II. He also reiterated that the Palestinians still had to begin by "fulfilling their commitment to put an end to terror and its infrastructures". And his emotional commitment to "united Jerusalem, the city of the Temple" signaled that his vision of territorial compromise ("painful concessions") was limited to other areas of the West Bank.

Palestinians, then, heard in Sharon's speech a too limited commitment to territorial compromise, no end to settlement construction, and an ongoing conditioning of any peace progress upon a dismantling of the Hamas infrastructure that Abbas clearly does not intend to carry out. Israelis, on the other hand, heard a dramatic challenge to the Likud central committee either to fall in line behind the new, more moderate Sharon, or risk his embarking on a dramatic new political initiative.


Q. In the aftermath of the successful Gaza pullout, how is the notion of unilateralism as a possible device for future progress seen by Arabs and others?

A. After Gaza, unilateralism is seen far more positively than before. Prior to the pullout, Palestinians tended to view Sharon's unilateral plan as a conspiracy, designed to "lock them in a big jail", to enable Israel to consolidate control over the West Bank, etc. While those criticisms are still heard, we also hear Palestinians expressing a readiness to investigate the advantages of unilateralism for their own cause.

For example, the prominent Palestinian scholar Ahmad Khalidi, who is close to Mahmoud Abbas, published an article in The Guardian to this effect (August 24), arguing that Palestinians should now adopt "parallel unilateralism" and concentrate on consolidating their territorial gains on their own, without a peace framework.

Moreover, the latest poll published by Khalil Shikaki's Palestinian Center for Policy & Survey Research finds that 56 percent of Palestinians "view the Israeli withdrawal as the end of occupation and the start of independent Palestinian statehood", while 60 percent believe "that further withdrawals will take place from West Bank settlements in the future". And, while fully 84 percent "see the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip as victory for Palestinian armed resistance", 77 percent support the current ceasefire.

A positive view of unilateralism was even reflected in the off-the-record remarks of a very senior European Union official who deals with the Middle East, who noted in late August that the roadmap--essentially an international formula for a negotiated peace process--could now be broken down into unilateral components.

Unilateralism was embraced by Sharon about two years ago, at least partly in response to pressures to implement the roadmap or the Geneva Accord. In other words, Sharon saw unilateral withdrawal from Gaza and the northern West Bank as a tactic for avoiding a peace process. This reflected the lack of faith in a negotiated peace process shared by Sharon and much of the Israeli public-at-large. At the same time, unilateralism was met by skepticism in Israel (where people simply didn't believe Sharon would ever dismantle the settlements he himself had built), and in the Arab world and the international community, where conspiracy theories prevailed.

But the concept evolved considerably over time, to involve a number of cooperative elements that bolstered confidence. The departure from the scene of Yasser Arafat and advent of Mahmoud Abbas' leadership was one key factor that encouraged Israeli-Palestinian coordination; another was Sharon's recognition that disengagement would be smoother and more successful if the international community was involved in the economic aspects, and Egypt in the security dimension. These developments, in turn, gave the Palestinians and several third parties, including Egypt, the US, and the EU, a genuine stake in the success of disengagement.

Now that it has succeeded, and given the ongoing low probability of a peace process, i.e., of crisis resolution, these parties are evidently prepared to experiment with additional forms of unilateralism as an effective means of at least exercising crisis management.