[Peace-discuss] Sharon/Bush

[C. G. Estabrook]

[I hope that the following account -- from the excellent blog
<billmon.org> -- is wrong, but I'm afraid it's not.  --CGE]

The End of the Road

I finally had a chance to read Bush's statement from his press conference
with Sharon today, and then I read it again -- closely, word for word.

That's the way you have to read any document about the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict, because any word -- even an article or a preposition -- may end
up being the deal breaker.

The first wire reports I saw this afternoon didn't really reflect what an
enormous victory Sharon and his neocon heavies have won. But it seems to
be sinking in now:

    "In an appearance with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and in an
exchange of letters to be made public later today, Bush accepted
essentially all of what the Israeli leader had sought. The move
substantially changes U.S. policy toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,
softening the American objection to Israel's settlements and dropping a
reluctance to dictate terms of a final peace settlement."

Sharon came to Washington hoping that Bush would endorse -- by name -- a
list of West Bank settlements that could be kept by Israel as part of any
final settlement under the so-called road map process. This would have
cleared the way for a land grab so enormous as to make any future
Palestinian "state" a collection of postage stamp-sized bantusans.

In the end, Bush refused -- which seemed at first glance to verify
pre-summit promises from the usual anonymous administration (read: State
Department) officials, who promised the text of the statement would be
vague enough to keep the peace process stumbling forward.

But to me the statement looks like an Israeli ten-strike. Small wonder
Sharon emerged beaming from his audience with boy emperor. If Bush didn't
actually delineate the future borders of Greater Israel, he did everything
but:

    "In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing
major Israeli populations centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the
outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to
the armistice lines of 1949 ... It is realistic to expect that any final
status agreement will only be achieved on the basis of mutually agreed
changes that reflect these realities."

This is a shameful capitulation. As the Reuters story notes, the statement
overturns in one stroke almost 40 years of official U.S. policy -- a
policy Shrub's father actually showed a fair amount of political courage
in defending. For decades, Israeli leaders (Likud and Labor alike) have
worked to create those "new realities on the ground" -- as the statement,
with the usual neocon arrogance, describes them -- through illegal land
expropriations, relentless discrimination against Palestinian landowners,
and lavish government subsidies for Jewish settlers. And for decades, the
U.S. government has refused to accept Israel's bully boy tactics, despite
the relentless, continuous efforts of the pro-Israel lobby in Washington.

That's gone now -- and probably for good, as I'll explain in a moment.
Today's statement essentially guts the road map (itself a largely gutless
process) by deleting the essential principle that the final status of the
territories will not be determined by unilateral action on either side
(which in the real world, means on the Israeli side.) It also negates the
fundamental premise of UN Resolution 242 -- the bedrock of all peace
efforts over the past 40 years -- that territory will not be acquired by
force.

Indeed, Sharon actually ends up with something better than an approved
settlement list from Bush. He gets virtual carte blanche to keep any
settlement he wishes to keep -- and indeed, to grab any part of the West
Bank he wishes to grab, as long as it can be connected in some way to
those "existing major Israeli populations centers." And if you know
anything about Israel's settlement policies in the occupied territories,
you know how good they are at connecting things.

By stipulating, in the broadest possible way, the "facts on the ground"
that must be incorporated into any final status agreement, the neocons
have made a complete mockery of the U.S. commitment to a viable
Palestinian state:

    "The United States supports the establishment of a Palestinian state
that is viable, contiguous, sovereign, and independent, so that the
Palestinian people can build their own future in accordance with the
vision I set forth in June 2002 and with the path set forth in the
roadmap."

And what must Sharon do in return for all these concessions. Precisely
nothing:

    "The Government of Israel is committed to take additional steps on the
West Bank, including progress toward a freeze on settlement activity,
removing unauthorized outposts, and improving the humanitarian situation
by easing restrictions on the movement of Palestinians not engaged in
terrorist activities."

And who will define these weasel words -- additional steps, progress
toward, easing restrictions? Who will decide how many illegal outposts
will have to be removed? Take a wild guess. And since, as the Marines have
been learning in Fallujah, entire populations can be engaged in "terrorist
activities," it appears hatever minimal constraints the statement imposes
on Israeli conduct in the territories can be easily side-stepped.

The same logic apparently applies to the West Bank Wall -- the
euphemistically named "security barrier" that Israel is constructing
around and through the territory, cutting thousands of Palestinians off
from their land, their villages and their neighbors. The wall, the
statement says, must be a security, rather than a political barrier -- "as
the Government of Israel has stated."

Consider the Orwellian implications of that last statement. If the Israeli
government says the wall is merely a temporary security measure, then
that's what it must be -- no matter where it runs or how long it stays up.

To call this document the most craven, under-handed and one-sided
agreement ever negotiated by the U.S. government would be unfair. There
are, after all, those 19th century Indian treaties to take into account.
But it's pretty clear that, rumors of their demise notwithstanding, the
neocons are alive and kicking, and still have a death grip on the
U.S.-Israeli relationship. It seems almost inconceivable to me that having
plunged America into the bloody quicksand in Iraq, the neocons are now to
receive as their reward an only modestly reduced version of their dream of
a Greater Israel. Fuck up and move up indeed.

The net result of this nasty little backroom deal won't just be further
violence and random butchery in the territories and in Israel proper. It's
also going to contribute to the progressive degeneration of the war
against terrorism into the war against the Arabs -- if not the war against
the entire Islamic world. The line in front of the Al Qaeda recruiting
office is going to get a little bit longer; the struggle to stabilize a
rebellious Iraq is going to become a little harder, and a future in which
a large part of a major American city disappears in a nuclear firestorm is
going to become a little more likely.

But the worst thing about this neocon smash-and-grab job is that it's
probably irreversible. In the loopy world of the "special relationship," a
presidential statement like this is regarded as the equivalent of a treaty
with Israel ("Ratification? We don't need no stinkin' ratification!") It's
a commitment that can't be walked back by any subsequent administration --
not without triggering the mother of all battles with the America Israel
Political Action Committee and its various assets and instrumentalities on
Capitol Hill.

So there you have it: George W. Bush, the accidental president, has now
locked the United States into permanent, full-fledged support for the
creation of an apartheid Israel -- complete with bantustans. And even if
Bush gets the pink slip in November, there doesn't appear to be a damned
thing John Kerry can do about it, even if he wanted to, which I strongly
suspect he would not.

An ironic consequence is likely to be a fairly abrupt switch in the
political rhetoric of the two opposing camps. Having spent his political
career arguing that there must never be a Palestinian state in any part of
Eretz Israel, Ariel Sharon is now going to insist on one. And the PLO,
having lost any hope for even a viable bantustan, is likely to return to
its original demand for a single, secular, democratic state, organized on
the principle of one person, one vote and (if Chairman Arafat had his way)
one time.

Even more ironically, the only way the short-term consequences of this
catastrophe can be mitigated is if Likud Party members reject Sharon's
withdrawal plan in a scheduled May 2 referendum. This would at least would
keep the pot from boiling over right away.

Right now, the vote is expected to be close -- although Bush's endorsement
may be enough to push Sharon over the top. There are still plenty of Likud
bitter enders who insist on owning every square inch between the Jordan
and the sea. The settlers movement is also loaded for bear (which means
Ariel Sharon better remember Yitzak Rabin's mistake and be extra careful
with his personal security.)

Politics definitely does make strange bedmates, when a old Peace Now
supporter like me is rooting for the ideological partners of Kahane Chai
to win an election. But what the peace camp desperately needs right now is
to prevent another fait accompli like the one that went down in Washington
today. A year from now, Sharon and Bush may both be gone, and Israelis and
Palestinians alike may be more willing to give peace -- real peace --
another chance.

A forlorn hope, I know -- but better than no hope at all. Unfortunately,
no hope is what I think we can realistically expect from the political
process here in America. Bush's statement marks the effective end of any
realistic chance that the United States will play a constructive role in
resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Washington truly is
Likud-occupied territory now, and resistance is almost certainly futile.
For all intents and purposes, the world's only superpower has been bound
and gagged.

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