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Wednesday, September 07, 2005
The Sharon Tail Continues to Wag the American Dog
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The Sharon Tail Continues to Wag the American Dog
September 7th, 2005
by Carlton Cobb
“It cannot be Gaza only.” -- Condoleezza Rice in an interview
with the New York Times on August
18, 2005.
"In our view, the message to Prime Minister Sharon from people in New
York should be one of congratulations, not one of new pressures." -- A senior administration official quoted
by the New York Times on
September 4, 2005, in anticipation of Sharon's speech before the UN
this month.
In the span of less than three weeks, U.S. policy on Israeli peace
steps for "the day after disengagment" has shifted from a position of
speaking truth to a government used to getting its way and letting the
Americans follow along, to one of the Americans just following along.
Once again, the U.S. is throwing its hat in with Sharon at a
time when it should be encouraging both sides to sit down at the
negotiating table.
It is a familiar Israeli/American game. Israel threatens to
elect the even-more-hawkish Benjamin Netanyahu, and American officials
cower. Yet Sharon is unlikely to be less hawkish when it comes to what
counts -- the West Bank and Jerusalem. Will American Jews who support
former
prime minister Netanyahu in the expected contest for Likud
party leader this fall be put off by this U.S. interference in Israeli
politics in favor of Sharon?
Sharon may be congratulated for
withdrawing from Gaza, but he should also move forward on a positive program of recognizing and dealing with
a Palestinian state, as his Ministry of Foreign Affairs claims in a recent
publication. Issued under the title "Paying the Price for Peace: The Human Cost of
Disengagement," its opening paragraph concludes: "Israel’s ultimate goal is to establish good
neighborly relations with a Palestinian state."
If this change in position is truly the Sharon government's policy, U.S. officials may have reason to be
hopeful about the future of the peace process.
Such a positive statement, however, is at variance with Sharon's lifelong goal of undermining Palestinian
nationalism and denying its aspirations for statehood. As evidence, we can add another quote, this one from Dov
Weisglass, a top adviser to Prime Minister Sharon in an interview
with Ha'aretz last fall:
"The disengagement is actually formaldehyde. It supplies the amount of
formaldehyde that's necessary so that there will not be a political
process with the Palestinians...Effectively, this whole package that is
called the Palestinian state, with all that it entails, has been
removed from our agenda indefinitely. And all this with authority and
permission. All with a presidential blessing and the ratification of
both houses of Congress. What more could have been anticipated? What
more could have been given to the settlers?"
What Weisglass means is that Palestinians will have to be satisfied for
the next X number of years with a fraction of their people having
freedom, narrowly defined and entirely controlled by Israel. Gaza and the northern corner of the West Bank are one-third of
the Palestinian population west of the Jordan River. All of the main West Bank cities remain surrounded by the Israel Defense
Forces, separated by hundreds of checkpoints that daily hassle the population.
As the better of two evils, the administration apparently wants Sharon re-elected. This is a formula for more
violence that will fuel anti-Americanism throughout the Muslim
world and lead to more terrorism against America and our allies, at home and abroad.
U.S. support for Israel's intransigent position on settlement growth in
the West Bank, targeted assassinations, continued annexation and internal separation brought by
the apartheid wall, and the encirclement and isolation of Jerusalem
encourages the worst elements in Israeli politics to create
new "facts on the ground" with impunity. In the April meeting with Sharon in Crawford, Texas, President Bush called for "no expansion of settlements," yet when the settlement expansion continued, the administration fell silent.
It is an indication of how deeply ingrained is the Sharon view that
Times reporter Steven R.
Weisman notes that "the administration frequently
[calls] on Israel to ease checkpoints and
roadblocks in the West Bank and take other actions, but often in vain."
We still ignore the fact that the United States, more than any other
country, has the leverage necessary to further the peace process. All
it takes is the political will to exercise it. Unfortunately, the
Sharon tail continues to wag the American dog. And peace remains
elusive.
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posted by Somebody @ 9:24 PM Permanent Link
 
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