Advancing the disengagement schedule

Wednesday, August 04, 2004

ational Security Advisor Giora Eiland, briefing the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on the state of the disengagement plan, did manage to convince at least Yahad MK Ran Cohen that the disengagement plan is serious, with the MK from the opposition Zionist-Left party admitting that for the first time he believes Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is determined to go ahead with the plan.

Eiland explained that the planning was now for all the Jews of Gaza – and the soldiers – to be out of the Strip by September 2005, seemingly a three month advance on what Sharon has been saying, ‘by the end of 2005.’ And Yahad elder statesman MK Yossi Sarid, while still skeptical about Sharon’s determination, did say that he has heard from sources in the government that Sharon intends to advance from March 2005, to October this year, the promised vote on dismantling and evacuating settlements.

Such an October vote – denied almost immediately by Likud MKs – would only be possible with the new coalition that Sharon is trying to form. Sharon is meanwhile applying the same kind of pressure on United Torah Judaism as he applied on Shinui, trying to force the ultra-Orthodox Haredi party to drop its boycott of Shinui, just as he forced Shinui to drop its boycott of the party. Both Yedoth Ahronoth and Maariv polls this morning showed Shinui has lost 2 Knesset seats worth of popularity in the last few days, but that 43 percent of Shinui voters are willing to see Lapid sit at the same cabinet table with United Torah Judaism, while a third would prefer to see the party quit the government if any ultra-orthodox party joins.

The Yedioth poll also shows that 47 percent of the public wants a secular-unity government (Likud-Labor-Shinui), and while only 15 percent want that coalition supplemented by the Haredi United Torah Judaism, 22 percent would be happy with a government that includes Likud, Labor, and both Haredi parties. And if new elections were held today, with the same people leading the parties, the results would be almost identical to the current Knesset – but Shinui would lose two seats, one apparently to Yahad-Meretz.

Woman Crucified # 10 by Silvia Rosenberg, mixed media on recycled paper, 20x30 cm.

t is still far from clear if Sharon will manage to form a new coalition that will be any more stable than the current one, and that, after all, is the purpose of the ongoing negotiations. The Shinui-UTJ contretemps could yet result in Shinui out of the coalition, there’s talk about Shas coming in along with UTJ, and there’s still opposition inside Likud to Labor. One report this morning said Sharon is trying to persuade Shimon Peres to drop the demand for the foreign ministry portfolio, which would greatly reduce Silvan Shalom’s opposition. But Finance Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is speaking out against bringing in Labor, because, he says, Labor would try to foil his economic program.

Meanwhile, as Yasser Arafat’s 75th birthday passed without special ceremonies at the Muqata, IDF troops were closer to the Jabalya refugee camp in northern Gaza, still trying, to no avail, to put an end to Qassam rocket fire at townships in the Negev. In a move that no doubt redoubled IDF determination, a Hamas Qassam cell issued a videotape, in which a masked man, speaking in Hebrew, explained to the ‘residents of Sderot’ that the Qassams will continue to fall on their town as long as the army remains in Beit Hanoun, where it has been for the last month, trying to prevent Qassam launches, which are now taking place on the average of one to two a day. Many Sderot residents, at least those living on the western side of the town, which has been hit by dozens of the simple rockets in the last two years, have picked up their bags and left their apartments this summer, moving to elsewhere in the country in the hope that by the time the school year resumes, the Qassam problem will be solved.

How it will be solved is the real question, and it came up yesterday in a statement by Military Intelligence chief Aharon Ze’evi Farkash, who told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that there is ‘no bottom’ to the terror ‘barrel,’ using the metaphor used by Shin Bet chief Avi Dichter, who says there is a bottom to the barrel. The dispute is not merely semantic – it is about whether it is possible to use force alone to end terrorism or whether political moves are necessary. If there is no bottom to the barrel, meaning there is no end to the motivation for terror, then something must be done about the motivation, meaning, something political – and presumably, something that gives Palestinians a reason not to attack Israelis.

If there is a bottom, as Dichter says has been proven in the West Bank, then all that needs to be done is repeat the strategy in Gaza that was used in the West Bank – a total reoccupation of the area, something the army is loathe to do. Presumably, if Sharon does manage to bring Labor into a coalition, and the disengagement goes ahead, the debate will be subsumed by the disengagement process and how it influences the terror rate. According to the MI chief’s report yesterday, the army expects a drop in Palestinian attacks from Gaza if there is disengagement.

And meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority made a formal request today to Israel for a high-level meeting between PA and Israeli security officials to discuss ways to coordinate the return of armed Palestinian policemen to the streets of the West Bank to help restore law and order. Army policy is to regard all armed Palestinians as hostile, and therefore legitimate targets for shooting, which has rendered the Palestinian police somewhat impotent. While Israel has confirmed the PA request, it is non-committal about what it will offer the Palestinian police – if indeed the meeting takes place. Israel Radio’s report on the issue, in any case, sounded very skeptical. One meeting that might take place, however, said Haaretzi this morning, is between European Union investigators and Palestinian prisoners, whom the EU officials want to question about how funds provided by donor countries to the PA ended up in the hands of groups such as the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, and other armed groups deemed terrorist by Israel and at least some Western countries.

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