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Hard Questions, Tough Answers with Yossi Alpher - March 14, 2005

Q. What are options for Sharon in the aftermath of the Sasson Report? Q. What are the implications of the Hizballah mass rally?

The views of Yossi Alpher, Israeli Security Expert, do not necessarily reflect those of Americans for Peace Now or Peace Now.

Q. In the aftermath of the Sasson report, with its devastating description of Israeli governmental connivance in building the outposts, and in view of the prime minister's commitment to dismantle them, what are Ariel Sharon's options?

A. On Sunday March 13 the government appointed a ministerial committee to look at ways to carry out Sasson's recommendations. Committee chair Tzipi Livni, minister of justice, declared pointedly that her main priority would be to seal all the administrative gaps through which funds for outposts had been released in past years in order to ensure that no additional outposts were established. Minister of Defense Shaul Mofaz added that preparations would be made to dismantle the existing outposts, but no action would be taken until after the successful completion of the Gaza and northern West Bank disengagement this summer.

So much for the government's immediate bureaucratic reaction. Beyond it, and in order to understand Sharon's options regarding the outposts, we have to explore his motives for having appointed former state prosecutor Talia Sasson to investigate them in the first place.

Sharon has been under constant pressure from the Bush administration to dismantle the outposts and stop settlement expansion, all in accordance with specific commitments he gave to Bush and with his parallel roadmap commitments. It is fairly obvious that Sharon, perhaps the key architect of the settlements and the outposts, did not need Sasson to tell him how funds were (mis)appropriated and laws and regulations bent in order to facilitate their construction. He appears to have commissioned Sasson--and a parallel detailed documentation of the land and construction status of every single settlement by Brig. Gen. (Res.) Baruch Spiegel, carried out in coordination with US Ambassador Dan Kurtzer--for several reasons.

One was (and still is in the case of Spiegel's investigation, which is ongoing) to gain time, initially in order to avoid a confrontation with the settler leadership, ultimately in the hope of not exacerbating the confrontation over disengagement. A second appears to be to show the Bush administration that he takes its admonitions seriously. Then too, he presumably sought to prepare an "alibi" that will reduce the anger of the right wing toward Sharon specifically if and when he does begin dismantling outposts. Sasson's findings are so compelling that Sharon can say to the public, especially the settler leadership, that his hands are now tied: he has no legal alternative but to dismantle the outposts. To the left, he will emphasize Sasson's findiƮg that every Israeli government in recent years had a hand in their illegal construction; only Sharon can and will remove them. Presumably he hopes in this way also to reduce criticism focused at him personally as the principal architect of the entire settlement map.

In any case, the dismantling of outposts is not likely to happen in the coming months, as Livni and Mofaz indicated. Politics aside, there are two sound operational reasons for this delay. First, neither the government nor the IDF wants to repeat the disgraceful scenes of hundreds of soldiers removing a handful of frantic "hill youth" from a lonely trailer home, only to witness the trailer replaced on the same hilltop and reoccupied a week later. The problem here is that, as long as the hilltop remains under Israeli occupation, the extremist settlers have much easier access to it than the IDF. The solution, it is hoped, will be recognized when the disengagement in Gaza begins: land cleared of a settlement will be turned over to the Palestinians, while the Gaza fence will prevent a settler return. In this regard the easiest operational solution for the outposts is to include them in future disengagements.

A second operational consideration is more psychological than logistic: the army and police are gearing up for Gaza and the northern West Bank, while compensation and resettlement efforts are underway in an effort to blunt settler protest. Under these circumstances, the last thing the security establishment needs right now, before the big confrontation, is a mini-confrontation that distracts everyone's attention and escalates emotions.

As long as Sharon's government is on track toward disengagement, i.e., in the course of the next few months, it appears unlikely that the Bush administration will pressure him to act on the Sasson report and dismantle outposts. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in her visit to Israel last month, appears to have reflected the administration's order of priorities when she stated that there is "an opportunity to do something pretty dramatic" that must not be ignored "when we look at the other issues, important as they are".

While the administration and the Sharon government have divided outposts and settlements into separate issues, it is important to understand that they are all settlements: the outposts are merely settlements established after Israeli governments had undertaken not to build any more; they have been situated relatively close to existing settlements so they could be defined as neighborhoods or outposts. The outposts' illegality under Israeli law is irrelevant in the eyes of the international community, which considers all settlements and outposts illegal. As if to affirm this lack of distinction, in Gaza the government is dismantling 17 settlements and a handful of outposts together.

That, hopefully, will be the approach in the West Bank, too, in a second stage of disengagement that involves both settlements and outposts.

Finally, at the personal level one is left to ponder what Sharon is really thinking and planning. On the one hand, the Sasson report is yet another illustration of his knack for destroying his own grandiose plans, whether settlements in Gaza or the 1982 invasion of Lebanon. On the other, he has yet to dismantle a single settlement; if he does complete the withdrawal from Gaza and the northern West Bank, his intentions regarding the rest of the West Bank remain extremely difficult to divine. Finally, the one strategic lesson he appears to have learned in the course of some three decades of politics and statesmanship is never to contradict a determined American president.

But how determined is Bush regarding the settlements, the outposts, and the Palestinian issue? We are only likely to find that out after disengagement is completed.

Q. On March 8, Hizballah held a mass rally in the heart of Beirut that appears to have taken the wind out of the sails of the anti-Syria movement there. What are the ramifications for President Bush's drive to deliver freedom and democracy to Lebanon?

A. The huge Hizballah rally was estimated to involve between half a million and a million demonstrators, mostly lower class Shi'ites from the southern Beirut suburbs. It has been followed by smaller scale rallies in the Shi'ite towns of southern Lebanon. In parallel to these events, Syria has begun seriously moving its forces out of Lebanon, and outgoing Prime Minister Rashid Karami, a pro-Syrian, has undertaken to form a new government.

These are the key elements of the Syrian and pro-Syrian "answer" to the smaller anti-Syrian demonstrations and American presidential rhetoric that followed the assassination of Rafiq Hariri. They appear to be part of a well coordinated counteroffensive in which Syria is lowering its profile while Hizballah is occupying center stage. Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah's speech on March 8 was unusual not merely because he delivered it on Lebanese Sunni and Christian "territory" in the heart of Beirut's business district, but because he did not talk about Israel, support for Palestinians or the "liberation of Jerusalem". Rather, he spoke like a Lebanese politician; while expressing support for Syria, he called for dialogue among all of Lebanon's many religious and ethnic factions.

Nasrallah appeared to be ignoring, or challenging, the fact that Lebanon's antiquated confessional democracy (conceived by the French in 1941 when Shi'ites constituted 15 percent of the population) relegates the Shi'ites to the bottom of the parliamentary pecking order where, at best, they can hold the post of speaker of parliament. Instead, he was representing the Shi'ites of 2005, some 40 percent of the Lebanese population. He was saying, in effect, that if the Syrians go, Lebanon will have to deal with Hizballah.

On a broader level, the Hizballah demonstration means that a more democratic Lebanon is likely to be one under greater Shi'ite influence-not too different from what is happening under American-imposed "freedom" in Iraq, where the Shi'ite community is now dominant. If, as in Iraq, the non-Shi'ites oppose this reversal of the traditional balance of power among the two branches of Islam, the results could be devastating for Lebanon. As Joseph Samaha wrote in the Lebanese daily as-Safir on March 9, "Yesterday was the sort of day in which homelands are founded or destroyed. . . . These are pivotal moments for Lebanon. We are either marching toward compromise or toward suicide".

Judging by the reaction of Iran, champion of Lebanon's Shi'ites and patron of Hizballah, the March 8 rally symbolizes the triumph of Tehran's cause: "Revolutionary Islam which was born in Iran has found its way in Arab countries", trumpeted the hard line Iranian daily Kayhan. If the current trend "leads to a civil war in Lebanon", added the conservative Hamshahri, "America's and Israel's allies in Lebanon are not powerful enough to resist the Islamic-nationalist movement".

Iranian hyperbole aside, the attempt by Hizballah to exploit events in Lebanon and emerge as a key power broker reflects an aspect of Washington's democracy drive in the Arab world that does not appear to have been adequately considered by Bush's planners: how will the Sunni Arab mainstream react to the Shi'ite bid, which is perfectly legitimate in democratic terms of one-man one-vote, for a greater share of power? Like in Iraq? Or by compromising?

In Israel, security thinkers are of two minds regarding developments in Lebanon. Some accept that the rise of Hizballah is a fair price to pay for Syria's weakening and removal from Lebanon. Once given a greater share of power, the Shi'ites under Nasrallah would hopefully become more responsible, and cease undermining the Palestinian Authority by supporting Palestinian extremists. Others value the relative stability on Israel's northern border that the Syrian presence has provided, and fear the consequences of renewed anarchy in Lebanon, particularly in view of Hizballah's strengths.

One key issue that Israelis will be watching is the fate of Nasrallah's private army of some 20,000, which controls southern Lebanon. If Hizballah becomes more mainstream politically, will this militia be dispersed, merged with the Lebanese Army, or remain distinct, and a constant threat to Israel?

The precedent about to be established by Hizballah is of particular interest in view of the decision by Hamas--also an Islamic terrorist movement with strong popular roots and a cadre of men under arms--to participate in next July's election for the Palestinian National Council.