Today's Situation

The plan behind the Sharon plan

Thursday, March 18, 2004

Sharon met yesterday with ‘the defense establishment’ to hear its recommendations on a disengagement plan. As expected, the army, through Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz -- is proposing a complete withdrawal from Gaza – except the Philadelphi route corridor between Gaza and Egypt – and a very minimal, merely symbolic withdrawal from a handful of settlements in the West Bank.

It is not at all certain Sharon will abide by the Mofaz recommendations. More likely, agreed political analysts and commentators, Sharon was coopting defense officials like Chief of Staff Moshe Ya’alon and Shin Bet chief Avi Dichter, by giving them the feeling they were taking part in the decision making process and thus reducing their public objections to ‘the plan.’ On the Right, almost every spokesman against ‘the plan’ cites objections heard (somewhat obliquely) from Ya’alon and (in private) from Dichter. Now, say analysts, the defense establishment has put in its two cents worth on ‘the plan’ and therefore will be committed to whatever Sharon decides. Not that anyone knows what Sharon will decide.

Furthermore, Israel Radio, quoting ‘senior army officers,’ pointed out that ‘the plan’ – whatever it is -- will only be implemented late next year. ‘First the prime minister has to convince the Americans, then the government, then the Knesset and there has to be a national referendum, and legislation and then Israel has to await the outcome of the American elections, and then there will be the negotiations with the settlers for compensation,’ said radio army reporter Carmella Menashe, ‘so the earliest anything can happen is late next year.’

inisters on the Right, like the National Union’s Avigdor Lieberman and the National Religious Party Effi Eitam, are meanwhile campaigning internationally against Sharon’s plan. Lieberman summoned U.S. Ambassador Dan Kurtzer, to tell him Sharon doesn’t have a majority in the government for the plan. Eitam held a press conference in New York saying the same thing. Sharon is getting annoyed enough to raise the idea of passing a government resolution that explicitly prohibits ministers from speaking out against government policy when overseas. But the problem, as Lieberman caustically noted this morning, also on Israel Radio, ‘since Sharon has not brought the plan to the government for a vote – which right now, Sharon would lose – the plan is not policy, so there’s nothing to prevent any minister from speaking out against it.’

On the Left, Yossi Beilin has joined the attacks on the still vague and undefined plan as a ‘reward for terror’ because the prime minister refuses to engage the Palestinians in a dialogue, while over Beilin’s shoulder, former Meretz chairman MK Yossi Sarid meanwhile continues to be extremely skeptical about the plan.

Sarid told Israel Radio ‘Sharon’s plan is an egg that hasn’t been laid and won’t be hatched. The whole thing started with a word, disengagement, but what’s the plan? where’s the plan? Every day the plan changes, there’s no timetable. There’s no plan, only talk about a plan. Ehud Olmert, and Tommy Lapid,’ said Sarid, noting that the two are the closest ministers to Sharon, ‘said the process would begin by June of this year. But now we hear talk about it only taking place in another 18 months – and that’s an eternity here. Who knows what will be here in another year and a half?’

According to Sarid, ‘the disengagement plan was only meant to confuse the world and Israeli public, to cover up the government policy of outposts and settlement expansion. Have you heard anything about outposts lately? No, because the entire subject has evaporated, under cover of the disengagement plan. It’s not a plan, it’s a means to implement the old, traditional policy of Sharon. He can only rub his hands with glee, as after each meeting with members of the so-called opposition of the Labor party they say that he is serious.’

he Egyptians, however, seem to believe the Israelis that Sharon is serious about some form of unilateral withdrawal from Gaza – Osama el Baz, the last of the working diplomats who accompanied Anwar Sadat to Jerusalem, and still the closest of advisors to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, was in Ramallah yesterday for what both Egyptian and Palestinian sources were calling ‘a tough’ meeting with Yasser Arafat. Egypt wants to know what the Palestinian Authority is doing to reduce the mounting anarchy in the streets of Gaza, where the Israelis are saying the Hezbollah is now directing all the terror operations.

And the routine of the conflict continues: Police announced they had ‘several Palestinians’ in custody as suspected terrorists, who were arrested during a March 2 alert in Tel Aviv. A Palestinian Authority customs official told Army Radio the PA was cooperating in the investigation of the container that carried the perpetrators of Sunday’s terror attack in Ashdod port from Gaza, through the Karni junction border crossing (where security checks on both sides failed to discover the double-compartment built into the container that carried the two teenaged bombers). Troops near the settlement of Itamar found a five-kilo bomb that they neutralized.

Overnight, troops left the Rafah area, after failing to uncover any new smuggling tunnels, and killing four Palestinians -- including two teens – in response to armed resistance to the incursion. The army says it will continue ‘pinpoint’ operations in Gaza against Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and army correspondents are pouring plenty of cold water on bombastic declarations made this week after an unusual ‘security cabinet’ session approving the army’s plans. Anyone expecting massive raids into Gaza to draw out gunmen will be disappointed, is the prevailing view right now. Instead, the press is claiming, very pinpoint operations aimed at assassinating specific Hamas and Islamic Jihad operatives will be undertaken – with nobody, from Sheikh Ahmed Yassin down to street operatives, being immune.

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