A new Sharon, Friday, September 16, 2005

To the full text of the Sharon speech

The speech was universally praised in the mainstream press as being pragmatic and idealistic, full of love of Judaism and Israel as well as recognition of the fact that the Palestinians have as much right to a sovereign state as the Jews.

For the first time, said leading commentators, Sharon spoke of readiness for peace and reconciliation and sounded believable because he had done what no Israeli prime minister had ever done before him – faced down the settlement movement, which over the last 38 years has claimed to have an exclusive arrangement with God and the politicians in Jerusalem to be able to do whatever it wanted. The fact that Sharon practically speaking taught the settlement movement everything it knows about getting what it wanted has been forgiven him, for he surely used that knowledge to defeat them in Gaza and south of Jenin.

The Sharon speech was almost immediately tagged Sharon’s divorce papers to the Likud. This morning’s newspapers were reporting that the rebels in the Likud certainly think so – and that meanwhile, Binyamin Netanyahu’s camp is girding itself for a loss in the upcoming central committee vote on whether to hold early elections in the Likud.

Not unexpectedly, Palestinian politicians were less convinced than the Israelis that there’s a ‘new Sharon.’ PA Foreign Minister Nasser Kidwe looked positively bored during the Sharon speech, as poker faced during the section on how Jews longed for the Land of Israel for thousands of years as he was during the section in which Sharon explained that Israel understands and recognizes the need for compromises so the Palestinians can have a state of their own. Saeb Erekat meanwhile called for Sharon to prove he means reconciliation by undertaking direct final status negotiations. Curiously, at least as of noon today, neither Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas nor his prime minister, Ahmed Qurei’ had issued public statements about the Sharon speech.

True, they were busy with quelling the apparent anarchy that took hold in the former settlement areas as the last Israeli soldier left earlier this week. And the anarchy does appear to be subsiding. The Egyptians – and the Palestinian Authority police – are making more substantive efforts to maintain the border between the two Rafahs that had been separated for decades by the Israeli buffer zone between Gaza and Egypt.

Despite the uproar in Israel, mostly in hawkish circles with an ‘I told you so’ approach, over the free flow of traffic between Gaza and Egypt, security sources were admitting that by their estimates, only a few hundred weapons were brought into Gaza by today. Even PA National Security leader Jibril Rajoub was back on Israel Radio, telling Israelis in Hebrew that yes contraband, including weapons, drugs and cigarettes had gotten through. And according to Israel Radio's reporter in the territories, the Gazans found someplace cheaper than Gaza -- El Arish has been bought out by tens of thousands of celebrating Gazan Palestinians, announced Avi Issacharoff, who admitted it was hearsay from Palestinians back from Egypt. Anything that can be bought, from cigarettes to sheep were swept up by partying Palestinians out of their camps for the first time -- for many in decades. Inside Gaza, the scavenging in the settlements goes on, but the Gazans can hardly be blamed for trying to find anything of value in the rubble left behind by the Israelis.

Sharon is making clear to everyone he meets in New York that Gaza is the test for the Palestinians. If they can make Gaza work, there’s something to talk about for the West Bank. If they can’t make Gaza work – and by Sharon standards that means ‘old Sharon’ measures: an end to terror – then Sharon will carry on as now, building the separation/security/fence/wall between Israel and the Palestinians to include the main settlement blocs so the fence pierces the West Bank in a number of places like fingers but only takes up about 8 percent of the entire area.

For the Gazans, of course, things are not as easy as Sharon makes them out to be. The Hamas is planning to hold its big rally today celebrating the Israeli evacuation of the Strip, claiming credit for the eviction. Presumably, Hamas will be much better organized than the very poorly executed rally run by the Palestinian Authority earlier this week. Hamas self-discipline is what keeps the still tenuous ceasefire in place nowadays. Some say it is a harbinger of what will happen in the January 2006 elections: superior organization and discipline will lead the Hamas to victory. Perhaps.

Much depends on just how forthcoming the ‘new Sharon’ is with Abbas in the coming few months until then. A large prisoner release, combined with high profile easing of checkpoints in the West Bank, a surge of new employment opportunities in a Gaza that is clearly heading toward reconstruction and not more confrontation, could make a big difference. It might be too much to ask of Abbas and Sharon, whether new or old. But it is certain that without some breakthrough between them, all Sharon’s visions of reconciliation and peace will soon begin to sound very hollow.

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