BBC (early Sunday): Sharon firm ahead of vote on Gaza

[Jack Rabbit]

From the BBC Online
Dated Sunday May 2 01:09 GMT (Saturday 7:09 pm PDT)

Sharon firm ahead of vote on Gaza

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has signalled his determination to press ahead with withdrawal from Gaza as his Likud party faces a difficult vote.
Party members will vote on Sunday on a proposal calling for Israeli troops and 7,500 Jewish settlers to leave Gaza.
Opposition to the pullout is said to be strong among the 193,000 Likud members and a No vote could trigger a crisis.
Advisers to Mr Sharon have indicated he will push for a Yes vote in parliament whatever the outcome.

Read more.

[Tina H]

1. the old good cop / bad cop n/t

[newyorican]

2. The even older...

bad cop, worse cop...

[Jack Rabbit]

3. The more I think about it . . .

The more I think about it, the less I give a tinker's damn for how this vote will turn out.

Sharon's plan is ridiculous. It will not lead to peace. Its intention is to hold on to land that he cannot hold on to without shedding more blood. The only difference between Sharon and the Likud extremists urging a No vote is that they want even more land for even more blood.

The common denominator of both Sharon and those on his right are that the West Bank and Gaza are Israel's to do as they please without regard to the Palestinian people. It is an inherently anti-democratic proposition. It presumes the right of the GOI to remove Palestinians from their homes or let them stay as it wishes; it is based on the proposition that the welfare of the Palestinian people is not a basic human right, but a gift of the Israeli government to people who are not Israeli citizens.

Until both the government of Israel and the leadership of the Palestinian people fall into the hands of those who are willing to make the necessary concessions to bring about peace and who respect the human rights of all people, this conflict will continue. Whichever way the 200,000 members of Likud vote, it will not bring about those circumstances.

[sushi]

4. I read in a newspaper

that Israel will pull out of four settlements in in WB. Can that be right? Only FOUR?

The common denominator of both Sharon and those on his right are that the West Bank and Gaza are Israel's to do as they please without regard to the Palestinian people. It's an inherently anti-democratic proposition.

And Israel claims to be a democracy!!! And the leader of the greatest democracy in the world agrees that Israel can keep what it wants! The leader of the greatest democracy in the world gives away property he doesn't own! Is anybody going to deny that this is absolutely ridiculous?

[Tina H]

5. The counter-argument I always hear from pro-Likud folks is . . .

If they give back to much land, then the other Arab countries will take this as a sign of encouragement and conquer Israel because that has been their (sometimes explicit, sometimes not) intention all along.

I think this argument is wrong because Israel has many allies that will not allow Israel to be conquered. I think a good US leader should publicly tell Israel, we won't let you be conquered on the condition that you give back a sufficient amount of territory. If you don't want to give back the land, then we are no longer your allies and you can defend yourself without US made weapons. Oh, and by the way, if you use your nukes, we will kill every last Jewish person in Israel. We really don't need a nuclear war over this. That is important and we will not play nice at all if you decide to go nuclear just to hold onto the occupied territories without the help we have been providing you for many years now. Just give back the territories and we will continue to assure that your right to exist as a theocracy in the Holy Land remains intact. So what choice will you make, Likud?

[sushi]

14. The number one requirement

for a solution to the I/P conflict is, imo, an even-handed US leader.
I can't imagine the US ever having the kind of leader you describe!

If they give back too much land, then the other Arab countries will take this as a sign of encouragement and conquer Israel...

They should give back land that is not theirs. And there might be Arab countries dreaming of conquering Israel, but they can't, so there's no need to worry about that.

[elsaamo]

6. Sorry?

To begin with, do you prefer Israel pull out of zero settlements or four settlements? Ariel Sharon, the Prime Minister from the Likud party, the conservative one, that is, agrees to withdraw from settlements. I don't give a damn if it's one settlement or twenty- it is a tragedy that the Likud party voted it down. Hopefully, he'll still be able to push it through the Knesset, which if he does, perhaps the situation will slightly improve, though obviously not become perfect. BTW, which newspaper said 4 settlements? Please quote sources.

Quoting posters who are not fans of Israel as solid sources is almost as absurd as my quoting Rush Limbaugh as a definitive source on Bill Clinton. Israel claims to be a democracy because they have election in which all citizens, male and female, Jewish and Muslim (yes, Palistineans ARE allowed to vote, and even have members of Knesset) are allowed to vote. Do you have another definition of the word "democracy" that I am not aware of? The leader of the greatest democracy inthe world, by which I assume you are referring to the United States of America, did not give away any property he does not own. Mostly because President Bush is not empowered to do so. If by that you are referring to his endorsement of an Israeli plan to give up Israeli territory, let me comment that Israel is entitled to give up any territory it wants, ESPECIALLY when it isn't even theirs in the first place. Yes, that;s right, the West Bank and Gaza Strip are not Israel's. They are disputed. Israel does not want it. So, Israel leaves it, which is absolutely legal for so many reasons I won't even begin to prove them. So, yes, I will deny that this is absolutely ridiculous.

[sushi]

10. I can't quote the source

because I don't have it anymore. So don't believe me. Keep reading your newspapers and listen to news on TV. I'm almost certain that I read Israel's PM intends to dismantle only four settlements in the WB. I think Israel should pull out of ALL settlements on occupied territories.

..the West Bank and Gaza Strip are not Israel's. They are disputed. Israel does not want it.

Are you sure? Israel's PM plans to leave Gaza but keep large chunks of the WB. Recently he left Washington a happy man because the only person that can stop him has endorsed his plan. Nobody, including the leader of the greatest democracy in the world, can give away property he does not own, so how come he agreed that Israel can keep big chunks of the WB? Has there been a vote? Who voted? It practically means giving those areas to Israel, doesn't it? Who is going to stop them? I do think it's absolutely ridiculous. We'll just have to agree to disagree.

[elsaamo]

13. That will probably be how our discussion ends

with us agreeing to disagree, but let me try one more time to present my views in a more mature fashion than I did before.

If this conflict is to ever end, it will be with a large peace treaty, with Palistineans, Israelis, and quite probably American leaders and diplomats sitting in a room and working out a solution. It has been tried in Oslo, it has been tried with Clinton, and it will be tried many, many more times, perhaps with success, perhaps not. It has become a cliche to describe this conflict as eternal, never-ending. I do not believe in battles being eternal. I think peace can and will be found. I do not insist, though, that it be done in one day. Perhaps it would be better for us to do it slowly, small concession in exchange for small concession, building up trust on both sides. If Sharon manages to withdraw the troops and still maintain a reasonable amount of security, that should show to the Palistineans and peopel around the world that he is willing to negotiate. It will also show to the true far-righters in Israel, the ones who voted against the proposal, that peace can be had even while giving the Palistineans land. The advantage of this proposal as opposed to a larger one is that doing it all in one swoop has a much larger risk of failure. Say this plan doesn't work. Say the troops move out, and immediatly the old locations are used as terrorist bases. Or the army pretended to withdraw but doesn't, or something else bad that the Israelis do. Considering it is a relatiely minor proposal, it won't cause an immense amount of damage to the on-life-support peace process.

I won't say that this is a perfect plan, nor that this will finish the conflict. I will say that it is a creative idea that might make this disaster less so.

[sushi]

18. Now we can agree!

If this conflict is to ever end, it will be with a large peace treaty.

Yes, but to get peace they have to negotiate, which Israel's PM is refusing to do.

I also don't believe in battles being eternal. They don't have to be. We are human beings with brains, and if we want to we can compromise. I really don't see how it is impossible for Israelis to feel secure, and at the same time for the Palestinians to be free of Israeli control.

If only they would get together again and talk, and keep talking. It's better than all this killing.

[elsaamo]

19. They do need to talk

but actions are going to have to happen first, and at this point there is virtually no good faith on either side. Rightly or wrongly, stupidly or not, very few Palistineans will trust Israeli promises and very few Israelis will trust Palistinean promises. If some concession, however minor is made by either side, that cannot be a bad thing, in my opinion. It was my hope, and it still is, that Sharon's plan would work, if for no other reason than to show the Palistineans that the Israelis are willing to make concessions, and that a peace process can be effective. I have no dreams that this plan will end it, but it might put some extra weight behind the millions upon millions of words that will be said by negotiatiors on both sides.

[elsaamo]

7. What?

I'm confused. "Its intention is to hold on to land that he cannot hold on to without shedding more blood." So, you're arguing that Sharon is trying to hold onto land, by giving up land. Apparently not shedding blood is not better than shedding blood. The more I try to read your first paragraph, the more confused I become.

"It is an inherently anti-democratic proposition." Okay. Democracy means that leaders are selected via elections. Israel is going even beyondthat, having referendums about specific policies, something which we, I might add, do not have. You may dislike the proposal, hate it, think it's appalling, whatever, but HOW is it anti-democratic? Ariel Sharon wants to withdraw troops from the West Bank with no strings attached. Gone. They won't be there. No killing, no bombing in that specific area, nothing. The far right in Israel HATES this proposal. They thing it is appalling, disgusting, whatever. So, the left in America hates it too? I agree that it is distrubing that at times I find myself in agreement on this issue with peopel like Pat Robertson. Do you find it disturbing that you find yourself in agreement with far-right people in Israel?

[The Magistrate]

8. A Few Small Points, Sir

Though my friend Mr. Rabbit is more than capable of defending himself....

Sharon's plan is not a benign search for peace; it is at best an attempt to cut losses and secure the bulk of desired gains by unilateral action. Basically, Sharon intends abandoning Gaza, subject to certain military oversight measures legally short of occupation status, in order to hang on to the widest possible extent of settlements in the Jordan valley, without any meaningful retirement from these confiscations. It will doubtless be possible to fortify that line sufficiently to render the citizenry of Israel largely safe from violence by the various Arab Palestinian irregular bodies; once the thing is done and in place, it will be extremely difficult, at best, to create anything that could meaningfully be viewed as a state of Arab Palestine.

There is little doubt in my mind that Sharon has the power to do this, to impose this solution on the situation, as things are now. It is worth pointing out that the intransigence of Arab Nationalist leadership in Arab Palestine has contributed greatly to the condition in which it is possible for Sharon to do this, and in which it will probably be acceptable to the great majority of Israelis if it is turned to an accomplished fact.

None of this makes Sharon's plan into anything like an optimal solution for this conflict. It is nothing more than a regularization of routine injustice, and disregard for the legitimate aspirations for statehood of the people of Arab Palestine. You say that this plan is opposed by the most rightist elements in Israel, and that is true: it is also opposed by leftist elements in Israel. The right opposes it because the right, like some mad mirror of Hamas and the rejectionists who have so misled the Arab Palestinian people, clings to the idea that one day all the land west of the Jordan, and possibly even much of the land east of it, will be Israel. The left opposes it because it is a unilateral imposition, without regard for anything but the power to do so, and destroys any possibility of an Arab Palestinian state arising through negotiated compromise.

To act in a way that will deny a people any hope of self-determination and statehood can rightly be spoken of, it seems to me, as anti-democratic, in a most profound sense. Mr. Rabbit and I have gone several rounds on the meaning of democracy, and while in my view the more restricted political meaning is sufficient, there is certainly a larger meaning to the term, that is rightly applied to some circumstances.

[elsaamo]

11. Interesting

I will agree with you that this is certainly not an optimal solution, as I doubt if either Sharon thinks that the conflict will end should he do even a small withdrawal. I must maintain, though, that a withdrawal of any settlements in the area has to be considered to be a good thing, and something laudable for a conservative politician like Sharon to back (for those of you who consider it to be more black and white (in the good/bad sense, not racial), you might compare it to LBJ trying to pass the 1957 Civil Rights Act, albeit a weak one, but nonetheless a dramatic first step.) I only hope that Sharon will be as successful as the former Majority Leader.

I can understand your argument that a state will not directly come out of this action, but I would not go so far as to say that it denies any hope of self-determination. As in, the situation being currently as bad as it is, I cannot imagine that this would make anything worse, and in fact it would probably improve things.

[The Magistrate]

15. My Objection, Sir

Is not that a state of Arab Palestine will not come directly from this plan of Sharon's, but that implementation of Sharon's plan will likely prevent any viable state of Arab Palestine coming to being at all. Sharon clearly means to hold everything within the security barrier being constructed east of the Green Line, and some blocks beyond even the present extent of that. He just as clearly intends to preserve the Jordan itself as an Israeli military zone fronting the Kingdom of Jordan, which will require a system of military easements streching between the security barrier and that garrisson. The result will be such an extreme fragmentation of the areas in which the population of Arab Palestinians is concentrated, and in which any authority of their political leadership can be exercised without fetters, that the comparison to South African bantustan schemes often raised by the more vociferous supporters of the Arab Palestinian cause must be acknowledged a fair one. Without geographic continuity, a state is impossible.

It would seem to me to insult Sharon's intelligence to pretend he is unaware of this, and so it seems only corteous to accept that it is a part of his intention to achieve this effect of preventing any meaningful statehood for the people of Arab Palestine in the future. The argument that some of these things are meant to be only temporary has a certain plausibility, but does not bear much weight to me, as in this place the temporary has a way of streching into permanence, as an accomplished fact on the ground.

[elsaamo]

16. Perhaps

It is possible that your image of what will happen will be correct, but I do not believe that it is yet certain that we can assume it. Even if we do assume that that is the goal of Sharon, I do not believe that we should therefore oppose every proposal of his, especially when one of them is removing settlements. The issues you raise are serious ones, and will need to be discussed. My point is that I do not think that they are on the table right now, but instead smaller, more peripheral issues are being discussed. Let us first respond to the little problems and build sufficient momentum to tackle the larger ones.

[Jack Rabbit]

9. Response

So, you're arguing that Sharon is trying to hold onto land, by giving up land.

Sharon is attempting to hold on to some land to which Israel is not entitled by giving up some other land to which Israel is not entitled. Eventually, Israel will have to deal land for peace IAW Resolution 242, which emphasizes that it is unacceptable to gain territory through war. By hanging onto to one acre of land gained in the 1967 conflict without negotiating for it, Israel will be violating the spirit and the the letter of that Resolution.

Democracy means that leaders are selected via elections . . . . How is it anti-democratic?

Democracy means that all people who have a stake in the process have an equal say in the process. No Palestinian voted in this election, which concerns the fate of land beyond Israel's recognized borders in territory where Palestinians are 92% of the population. That is undemocratic.

I agree that it is disturbing that at times I find myself in agreement on this issue with peopel like Pat Robertson. Do you find it disturbing that you find yourself in agreement with far-right people in Israel?

I am not in agreement with the Israeli right on this matter.

Sharon wants to withdraw troops from the West Bank with no strings attached.

On the contrary, Sharon's plan would hold on to large parts to the West Bank and Gaza, without negotiation, regardless of the wishes of the Palestinian people. As far as the Israeli right is concerned, Palestinians have no say in their own future and the land belongs to them. Consequently, they oppose Sharon's plan.

Now, I happen to believe that the Palestinian people are entitled by natural right to control their own future on their own land. Consequently, I believe they should be allowed to establish a sovereign, independent state on the land where they live; furthermore, it is my hope that such a state will evolve into one that is democratic, although I recognize that it would not likely be one if such a state came into existence tomorrow. Nevertheless, a state where Israeli Jews have more rights than Palestinian Arabs, where the GOI removes Palestinians from their homes to make way for Israeli settlements in which the Palestinians cannot live and is accessed on roads on which they cannot travel, is not democratic by any stretch of the imagination. It is undemocratic and unjust.

Israel has occupied the land since the 1967 war. As long as that occupation is for Israel's security, I believe that occupation is right. Security is a legitimate concern and Israel has good reason to fear attacks from Palestinian militants. The Israelis can continue that aspect of the occupation until a legitimate and credible Palestinian leader agrees to a non-aggression pact with Israel, or, barring that, until the cow jumps over the moon. However, when Israel makes any claim over the territory or uses it for her own purposes, such as building settlements and transferring parts of her own population to live permanently in the occupied territory, then the occupation assumes some other purpose than Israel's security. That I do not support. While the occupation should continue until Israel's security is guaranteed, the rights of the Palestinians residents of the occupied territory are to be respected. This they have not been.

Perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps the Palestinians want to have their homes bulldozed to make way for Jewish-only settlements and segregated roads; perhaps Palestinians want to be beaten and have their orchards vandalized by gangs of settlers; perhaps they like stopping at checkpoints between villages. Show me that is the case, and I will be silent.

[elsaamo]

12. Well, some of my points will be repeated

but I suppose one cannot avoid that.

Let me explain my thinking on the situation. The Israeli army is currently effectively in possession of a large amount of territory that will most likely have to be granted to the Palistineans as their own state eventually. I think that the settlements/ army should eventually move, though I understand that the Israeli position must be secure enough to avoid destruction when that occurs, which while I doubt that they will be removed, I still feel is an issue that must be watched out for. This plan will not conclude the conflict- I doubt if any plan will in one fell swoop. What it does do is make things slightly better. Ariel Sharon is offering to withdraw some troops from the West Bank, meaning that with some luck, perhaps there will be some trust gained on both sides to allow them to enter more serious negotiations. Currently a large amount of the roadblocks to peace have occured that neither side is willing to make the first move for peace. Sharon seems to be saying that he is willing to make some concessions as a starting-off point, which will perhaps not lead to anything, or worst yet to a worstening of the situation, but nonetheless seems to give an opportunity for true negotiations to occur.

I agree that the Palistineans do not want their homes to be bulldozed, etc, but I do not see how that is up for debate here. This isn't the end of the negotiations, peace will not come today, nor, under all likelihood for quite a long time. I think that this proposal would reduce the amount of homes bulldozed, and while perhaps it will never lead to peace, I do not see how it can make things worse, and I think there is a legitimate chance to ameliorate the situation.

[Jack Rabbit]

17. You're a lot more optimistic than I am

I do not believe that a unilateral effort will bring about peace. This is an effort that will result in some settlements being dismantled, but will still leave large parts of the West Bank as a virtual part of Israel. The difference between Israel proper and this West Bank extension of Israel is that in the former Israeli Arabs are citizens who have rights, at least on paper, whereas in the new, Greater Israel the inhabitants of the land have no rights at all.

This arrangement simply gives the Palestinian people a legitimate grievance against the Israeli occupation. One should not expect that an entire population should be given reason to believe that they will driven from their homes and that there will be no resistance.

Sharon's unilateral plan changes very little on the Israel side of the equation. By the very fact that it is unilateral, he is not asking for the Palestinians to change anything on their end, and they should not be expected to change anything. Does he seriously think that by throwing them a bone they will be content? Since no Palestinian has been asked to agree to anything, there is no agreement by which any Palestinian is bound. Nothing will change.

"Nothing will change" means more bloodshed. Until an Israeli leader and a credible Palestinian leader sign a piece of paper spelling out borders and security arrangements, there won't be anything to crow about.

Sharon has spent a lifetime trying to figure out how he can turn Palestinian farms and villages into Jewish settlements without asking any Palestinian for leave to do so. He has been a major part of the problem. His latest plan solves nothing.

[elsaamo]

20. I don't think he thinks

that this will end the conflict either. I don't that anybody is under the impression that a "bone" will make them content, and rightfully so (that they shouldn't be content, I mean). No Palistinean is bound by anything from this deal, but the one interesting part is it says that Israel is willing to make some concessions. Maybe not all of them, but it shows that they are willing to go to the negotiating table and put offers down and will back them. That isn't to imply that the Palistineans wouldn't do the same, butright now, for whatever reason (and many of them are good, many of them aren't, but it is the situation nonetheless) neither side trusts the other. This won't stop the bloodshed, but I think it does help the negotiators on both sides to know that concessions are being willing to be made. This doesn't solve anything, but I think there is a chance that it puts cards on the table and gives options to people who desperately need them.