ARIEL SHARON'S PLAN B

 

  Artículo de Jackson Diehl en “The Washington Post” del 05.05.2003

 

Ariel Sharon, Israel's man of action, has much to gain simply by doing nothing over the next few weeks -- and he knows it. He knows that unless the new Palestinian prime minister, Abu Mazen, is able to convincingly break the connection between the Palestinian Authority and violence and shut down some of the terrorist cells in the West Bank and Gaza, neither Israelis nor the Bush administration will expect the latest Middle East process to move forward, despite what the official "road map" says. He also knows that without continual, concrete, concerted help from Israel, Abu Mazen's already slim chances of overcoming the obstructionism of Yasser Arafat and the extremism of Hamas and Islamic Jihad will shrink to none.

So if Sharon wants to put the brakes on any Israeli-Palestinian settlement, he need only insist -- as he has -- that any steps by Israel be preceded by "100 percent effort" from Abu Mazen. He need only protest -- as he has -- that before the road map can be implemented, Israel must first discuss the 14 objections to it his government recently raised with the White House and circulated to its friends on Capitol Hill. He need only continue -- as he has -- Israeli assassinations and raids against Palestinian militants, thereby inflaming the extremists and making Abu Mazen's security forces appear to be Israel's deputy sheriffs. The new Palestinian prime minister is weak enough as it is; he has no chance against such Israeli stalling.

Why might Sharon wish for Abu Mazen's failure? Because a successful Arab-Israeli peace process, completed on the three-year timetable of the "road map," would almost certainly produce a settlement on terms that Sharon considers unacceptable. Israel would have to give up all but perhaps 5 percent of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, plus the Palestinian neighborhoods of Jerusalem, and relocate tens of thousands of Jewish settlers. Those conditions were accepted by the Clinton administration, the last Israeli government and the overwhelming majority of Israelis; but Sharon sees them as suicide. His central political goal has been to dramatically shift the international consensus on how much land and sovereignty a Palestinian state should have, so that Israel retains, for example, most of the West Bank and all of Jerusalem. He knows that moving the goalposts could take years, maybe even decades -- which is why he has always said his goal is a "long-term interim agreement" with the Palestinians.

All this might make it appear that President Bush's "personal commitment" to pursue an Israeli-Palestinian settlement will prove as evanescent as his promise of a Marshall Plan for Afghanistan or a "vital" United Nations role in Iraq -- particularly as a number of senior administration officials fully share Sharon's views. Yet Bush retains enormous leverage over Sharon. Many Israelis regard him as the most supportive American president in their history and might well turn on their government if it seemed to be thwarting a peace initiative they desperately hope will succeed.

Sharon knows this, too -- which is one reason why, behind the stall, he had readied a more accommodating Plan B. In a visit to Washington three weeks ago, his top aide, Dov Weisglass, quietly laid out a series of possible Israeli concessions to Abu Mazen at a meeting with senior officials from the National Security Council, the State Department, the Pentagon and the vice president's office. They ranged from the humanitarian, such as granting more Palestinians work visas in Israel, to the political, such as releasing a batch of Palestinian prisoners, to the practical facilitation of a Palestinian crackdown -- redeploying Israeli forces from agreed-upon sectors of Gaza, for example, to test whether Abu Mazen's men can keep the peace.

Weisglass's ideas fell well short of Israeli obligations under the road map, but if implemented they would nevertheless be substantial. On settlements, for example, Sharon's envoy rejected the road map's requirement for an early freeze on all construction but said Israel would be willing to take down the dozens of new settlement "outposts" established in the past two years -- a step that, if seriously pursued, probably would force Sharon to break up his current right-wing government and would give Abu Mazen a substantial boost.

Sharon further positioned himself for embrace of a Plan B by granting an interview to Israel's most dovish daily, Haaretz, in which he portrayed himself as an old warrior who has reluctantly chosen to make the sacrifices necessary for peace rather than leave them to the next generation. "I am 75 years old. I feel that my goal and my purpose is to bring this nation to peace and security," he said. The idea of compromises on settlements, he added, "agonizes me. But . . . I feel that the rational necessity to reach a settlement is overcoming my feelings. . . . One has to view things realistically. Eventually there will be a Palestinian state."

So is Sharon now ready to accept the available final settlement? Certainly not; he'd rather see Abu Mazen fail. But he has also decided that if Abu Mazen proves competent and Bush determined, he will strike a deal himself rather than risk fighting a powerful president. Therein lies a slim opportunity -- if Bush should choose to take it up.