Response: why dismantle settlements now, and not earlier to help Abbas?
February 12, 2004

This response to today’s email was sent by Brian, a senior undergrad at Harvard.

yo mr. t,

i don't really get why sharon is doing this NOW and why he didn't do it BEFORE when he could have helped Abbas like Friedman suggested in his op-ed today. what's your take on sharon's seemingly misguided strategy? is it possible that sharon really wants to act unilaterally so that he ensures that israel will get more territory than it would normally get under a negotiated strategy? by acting unilaterally, even though it loses the settlements maybe israel gets more land in the end-- this is my simplistic interpretation of sharon's strategy...of course, i don't really know what i'm talking about...what's your take?

brian

Brian:

I think you have a good point -- and there are many like Tom Friedman who feel Sharon should have acted earlier in order to boost Abbas’ credibility. Could things have turned out differently had Sharon been more willing to make concessions to lend Abbas a hand? Possibly – it might have in the least helped made him seem more credible in the eyes of Palestinians. And it might have created an image of Abbas a man who could get things from Sharon.

But, on the other hand, I think the reasons Abbas was ultimately unsuccessful remain regardless of anything Sharon did or didn’t do – the blame for Abbas' failure can’t lie with Sharon. These Gaza settlements aside, I really doubt anyone sees Sharon’s policy now – unilateral measures and the construction of a security barrier – as something that would have helped Abbas, if he were still in power.

ABBAS:

In March, Arafat named Abbas as the first Palestinian prime minister, and in April Abbas was sworn in.

1) Abbas’ chief task was to face down the fundamentalists and prevent them from attacking Israel. In this, he failed. Apparently, he never actually attempted to arrest the terrorists. He tried vainly to negotiate a truce with Hamas, saying, “We insist on this dialogue…but in the end we will not force anybody to do so.” He wasn’t willing to go after them with force, and that’s why he failed. What should Sharon have done here to help? Gone after the terrorists himself more vigorously? Offered to organize joint Israeli-Palestinian anti-terror raids?

2) Israel and the U.S. did in fact take action to boost Abbas, even if not as much as Thomas Friedman would have liked. In June 2003, Sharon did dismantle a few uninhabited West Bank outposts – nothing too substantial, but a symbolic gesture to Abbas to indicate his seriousness, and a partial fulfillment of his road map obligations. In July, Sharon released a couple hundred Palestinian prisoners, and dismantled ten checkpoints to ease Palestinian movement. The U.S. sent Abbas $20 million and CIA agents to train Palestinian policemen. Again, maybe he could have done more, but remember that at this point in time progress was supposed to be predicated on reciprocal action.

3) Abbas never had popular Palestinian support; it hovered around 3-4%. He was widely seen among Palestinians as a quisling. Maybe Palestinians simply didn’t like his moderate, anti-Intifada message.

4) Arafat, in typical dictator fashion, never relinquished any power to Abbas. He blocked decisions, packed the cabinet with cronies and retained control over all 12 PA security agencies. He even tried to thwart an Abbas-Sharon meeting that was to discuss a cease-fire. The al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, a group Arafat controls, refused to participate in any cease-fire talks.

5) Another point to remember: with the exception of Lebanon, every single Arab prime minister is an anonymous, toothless functionary. There are at present 21 Arab governments, and every single one of them is some variant of autocracy: some brutal fascists like Bashar Assad of Syria, others are monarchies like Saudi Arabia, Jordan or Dubai, or Presidents-for-Life like Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and, of course, Arafat. The point is that these types of leaders never share power. What suggests that Abbas would have been the first empowered Arab prime minister?

Most realize by now that no peace deal is possible with Arafat at the head of the PA – and Israel and the U.S. made this into official policy a while back. At Camp David in 2000, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak made the farthest reaching concessions ever: withdrawal from 95% of the West Bank and 100% of the Gaza Strip, compensation for the missing 5% from Israel proper, removal of all settlement save three blocks contiguous to Israel, shared sovereignty over Jerusalem, limited refugee return and compensation for the rest, and, of course, a Palestinian state.

Arafat walked away from the offer, to the frustration of President Clinton, surprising even Palestinian negotiators. Prince Bandar, Saudi Arabia’s man in Washington, called Arafat’s move a “crime” against the Palestinian and the region in The New Yorker. Jacques Chirac also blamed Arafat.

The Israelis and Americans tried to circumvent Arafat through Abbas. The skeptics – mostly conservatives – weren’t optimistic about the unpopular Abbas, predicting that Arafat would block him at every turn and that he would never have any real power to confront the terrorists. They were right. Without a credible negotiating partner in the PA the peace process cannot move forward.

ENTER UNILATERAL DISENGAGEMENT:

Remember that uniteral action operates according to a different logic than negotiations and reciprocal concessions. I don’t see it as “misguided”; it’s actually pretty logical, given the circumstances. As it is now, Israel has suffered 107 suicide bombings – not to mention tens of thousands of machine-gun, grenade, mortar, sniper and rockets attacks – since September 2000, that have left hundreds of Israelis dead and disfigured. Such a status quo cannot continue.

Does Sharon want more territory? It is some kind of cynical land grab – give up Gaza, and take more of the West Bank? Maybe, but that doesn’t seem to be the likeliest explanation for him suddenly deciding to dismantle settlements in Gaza after he had long resisted – and even feared – doing so. No, more likely it is motivated by security, as the current policies – occupation and raids – doesn’t seem to be working. And clearly there’s no sense in waiting for some kind of empowered moderate to emerge in the West Bank.

If Sharon withdraws troops unilaterally, you’re right: Israel will set the border, probably east of the Green Line and including some settlement blocs; a better deal than if it was worked out at a table with Palestinian officials. But again, the border will be based on security considerations, and it will be lined with a security barrier to fence off Israel from Palestinian areas. If the Palestinians aren’t satisfied with such an outcome, they have the right to negotiate. The Palestinians will get a better deal this way. But it means that have to take action, and no Palestinian leader seems willing to do so.