Separation Moves Nearer (A sensible plan for peace)

(March 8) - In his address to the nation two weeks ago, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon announced plans to construct a security buffer zone to block the infiltration of suicide bombers. Previous leaders, including Binyamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak, considered similar ideas, but Sharon's concept is more developed, including concrete walls, electronic fences, and trenches.

The emphasis on separation also reflects the mood of a wide range of Israeli public opinion. Polls, talk-show discussions, and debates within the political parties repeat the demand for physical barriers. The remaining members of Peace Now have replaced the old slogans with calls for unilateral withdrawal. In the Labor Party, Haim Ramon's leadership campaign is based on a platform of separation, and he has a good chance of succeeding.

The escalating terror attacks of the past week have underscored the importance of barriers between the Palestinian and Israeli populations. The alternatives - a military campaign to dismantle the terrorist infrastructure and political initiatives that could lead to agreements - are uncertain and will take a long time. IDF sweeps through the refugee camps to destroy weapons and explosives will be accompanied by increased attacks in Israeli cities and towns. Eventually, Israel can prevail, but the cost will be very high.

On the diplomatic front, the "Saudi initiative" appears to link acceptance of Israeli legitimacy as a Jewish state ("normalization") to a return to the 1949 cease-fire lines. However, the speed with which Riyadh walked away from the regional discussions after the Madrid conference in 1991 provides a basis for skepticism. Even if Crown Prince Abdullah stays the course and gains wide support in the Arab summit meeting scheduled for Beirut at the end of March, the framework is sketchy and progress, if any, will be slow.

Given these difficulties, separation and disengagement remain important options. However, limited security separation schemes, as formulated by Sharon, will not provide much defense. The Swiss-cheese map created by the failed Oslo process left many small Jewish enclaves surrounded by Palestinian areas. With no clear boundaries to defend, and thousands of kilometers of security fences and roads to guard, no army could provide credible safety. As long as the Israeli and Palestinian communities in Gaza and the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) remain interlocked, real security separation is impossible.

As a result, whether by design or inherent logic, security separation will evolve into political separation. As a strategist, Sharon should understand this intuitively, although as a politician and ideologist who created the settlement map, he may be reluctant to acknowledge reality. This reality shows that effective separation and creation of defensible borders that make sense will require the abandonment of some settlements.

The tiny outposts in the middle of Gaza and near Jenin, for example, provide no tangible benefits and are major defense burdens. Each meter on the roads, as well as the checkpoints leading to these small settlements provide Palestinian gunmen with easy targets. This situation also allows Palestinian terrorists to infiltrate past roadblocks with ease, and a network of disjointed walls, fences, and trenches will also fail to block infiltration significantly. By consolidating the major settlement blocks that are located near the pre-1967 cease-fire lines (the term borders is a misnomer) and closing the other isolated communities, Israel will be able to create more defensible borders.

On the other side of the boundary, Palestinians will be able to travel freely, and will no longer face Israeli checkpoints (entry into Israel will require passports and visas, and will only be possible at a few border crossings). At the same time, in terms of their economy, health care, and other public services, the Palestinians will no longer have access to Israeli facilities, and will have to learn to fend for themselves. Indeed, this was one of the major goals of the Oslo process, and one of its primary failures. Without the crutch of "occupation" which has been used as an excuse for tolerating the corruption in Arafat's regime, Palestinian society must start to take responsibility for its own fate.

From an Israeli perspective, the most significant barrier to unilateral separation is political. The Israelis who built communities in the disputed territories after 1967 have always stood firmly against any withdrawal, and equated small settlements in Gaza with Efrat or Ma'aleh Adumim. Any Israeli leader who finally confronts this reality will have to work hard to overcome this opposition, and given his past identification with the settlement movement, this will be Sharon's primary test of leadership.

In addition, there is a legitimate fear that Israeli withdrawal will be seen as weakness, like the withdrawal from Lebanon, and encourage more attacks, not only by the Palestinians but also by Saddam Hussein and others in the region. This concern needs to be addressed in choosing the timing and process of withdrawal. The IDF will need to act firmly to deter Palestinian attacks against the barriers and rockets launched at Israeli cities.

At the same time, unilateral disengagement is, at best, a means of managing the conflict, and will not bring instant peace. In addition, disengagement in Jerusalem will require a complex regime with continued security barriers that extend beyond the political lines.

Despite the complexities, unilateral disengagement looks like the most viable way out. Unless one of the other military or diplomatic approaches suddenly looks serious, political separation is the next item on the agenda.

But all the Palestinian groups--Fatah, Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, Al Aqsa Martyr's Brigades, etc., want Israel at its pre-1948 borders...you know, out of existence, from the river to the sea. I don't think that's a negotiable position on their part, so where's the solution?

That's why it has to be done unilaterally, they won't negotiate. Borders have to be drawn which are defensible and Israel has to get about the business of annexing the land and moving some settlements within the new borders, and effecting a total separation. The Palestinians will have their state on what’s left. The borders will be sealed. Two separate countries. Attacks would be acts of war, and could be dealt with more aggressively.

It will be a long process, but at least an end point would be in view. If the Palestinians decide to renounce terror and come to the table as it’s going on, fine. If not, they’ll have their state.

I like the idea. Putting a wide swath of land between the two parties--a defensible no-man's land--will give Israel protection she needs.

The Pals want a state & now they're going to get it, one way or another. My concern is that if the Pals are recognized as a state, what's to prevent Iraq, Syria, the French, etc. from arming them to the teeth, including nukes, for their *final solution* towards Israel?

I just hope I see it in my lifetime. I can't see the terrorists stopping their attacks against Israel unless there's an incentive for them--right now, they're funded by a number of other countries & private sources so they can continue with their terrorism. It seems to be their only source of income. What's going to replace that?

They Palestinians could have had a state, maybe much larger than the one they will end up with, peacefully. They are fighting for nothing -- simply for the pride of being able to "win their independence" in war, and to kill Jews. F that. Now they may get their state, a much smaller state, with no share of Jerusalem, and no refugees returning.

WTG, Arafat, you missed another opportunity because it's more important to you that you kill Jews and destroy Israel than develop the Palestinian society.

I heard one report this morning (don't ask me which program--one of the cable news shows) that privately, one of Arafat's top aides said that he (it wasn't clear if it was the aide or Yassir) regretted not taking the Camp David deal. Because my hubby was still in bed, I cursed at the screen quietly, but intensely. I thought of all the dead Israelis murdered because of Arafat's crass stupidity and his willingness to sacrifice his people for a losing cause.

Right now, they're toast & they know it. Instead of having Israel "from the river to the sea," they're going to get almost nothing. Then again, they're getting what they deserve.

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