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April 15, 2003

An optimistic scenario

By Robert Rosenberg

Despite everything, here's a scenario that is not illogical and indeed quite reasonable, offering a modicum of hope. It might sound far-fetched, at least certainly to those with preconceived notions about some of the people involved, but it could be done, precisely because of the personalities, pressures, interests and economics involved.

I'll start with the bottom line -- Israel, Syria, the Palestinians and Lebanon could all have peace deals within a year. There are several reasons for this, but they all hinge on a combination of the American success in Iraq, Israel's failure to quell the Palestinian resistance to the occupation and the economic disaster the intifada has caused in Israel, Palestinian desires to live normal lives in which suicide bombers are not the equivalent of pop stars, Syrian isolation as a result of its support for the Ba'ath regime in Baghdad, traditional Lebanese pragmatism, and the global economy's need for a land route between Africa, Asia and Europe, which is only possible if there is peace between Israel and all its Arab neighbors.

To believe this is possible, one must believe the following assumptions: Ariel Sharon does not want to go down in history as a warmonger and more than anything is a survivor -- he's the last of the veterans of the War of Independence still running Israeli politics; George Bush, or more precisely, the neo-conservative ideologues who influence him, are actually the heirs of John F. Kennedy's inaugural address promise that America 'shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.'; Abu Mazen is a Palestinian patriot but also a pragmatist; and Bashar Assad is not a complete fool, which is hard to believe since apparently he spent much of his time during the last few weeks playing with his PlayStation.

It's a tall order to accept all those assumptions, but it is not unreasonable. Why not?

Because when all is said and done, given the choice between America, Russia and China, which vied for world hegemony in the post-Hiroshima/Auschwitz era, the vast majority of people on the planet would choose America to win, and it was obvious since the 1950s, given the technologies involved, that whoever won between those three would indeed be the imperial power of the 21st century (since prophecy was given to fools after the destruction of the second temple, I won't suggest anything beyond this century). And now, the Americans are more powerful than the Romans, Greeks, Babylonians and Chinese in their day; more powerful now in their world than Britain, France Spain, Russia and Japan and China – combined – were in their worlds.

So, here's the choice facing the Arabs and the Jews alike. What do they prefer, their religious ideologues and nationalist dreamers of past glories and future last stands, or to do business with the Americans (and therefore each other)?

In Israel, this means Sharon has to choose between President Bush and Zambush. Zambush is Sharon's point man in the settlements, who meets with the prime minister 'in four eyes,' the Hebrew expression for one-on-one sessions, almost weekly, with maps of 'Judea and Samaria,' also known as the West Bank.

Bush figures Israel would do best to cut a deal for a two-state solution, knows it means tearing up the mystic-nationalist dream of reviving the entire Biblical homeland (which despite Arab propaganda does not extend to the Euphrates and Tigris, but does cover the east bank of the Jordan) of Yesha, that strange acronym for Yehuda (Judea) Shomron (Samaria) and 'Aza (Gaza). Yesha is also the acronym in numerological Hebrew for Jesus, which means salvation/savior.

Trouble is Bush also says he's gone Biblical, that it helped him to stop drinking and taking drugs -- and Arik Sharon (meaning an heir to the Biblical legends) is the only Israeli Bush has ever had a four-eyed meeting with, including one fateful trip as Texas governor after Arik was ruled by an Israeli tribunal incompetent to be defense minister (for his Sabra and Shatilla imbroglio in Lebanon in the early 1980s) and before he'd begin to think that it was seriously possible he'd end up prime minister (despite what his sycophant, Uri Dan said, when Arik left the defense ministry. Dan said then, 'those who don't want Arik as defense minister will get him as prime minister,' one of the few bits of local prophecy passing as journalism in our time that has actually come true).

Sharon is human. The Right in Israel has correctly identified his weariness with age and say he has lost his taste for war. That they attack him for that has less to do with his weakness that they decry and more to do with their delusions about God being on their side and therefore victory for their position (the Palestinians are an enemy that must be routed out of the Land of Israel that the Bible says belongs exclusively to the Israelites) is inevitable, even if it takes an eternity.

But while they complain that Sharon has turned weak, since he has been consistent in his declarations about readiness for a Palestinian state and 'painful concessions,' in fact, Sharon has never been so politically powerful as he is now. He knows that when Abu Mazen presents the Palestinian government, the road map will begin and the extremists in his cabinet -- the National Union, the National Religious party, and most importantly, Binyamin Netanyahu and some other Likud ministers -- will leave. That's all right as far as Sharon is concerned. Labor will step into the breach if Sharon moves ahead on the road map parallel to the Palestinians. Indeed, if he does so, even the Arabs in the Knesset will vote for his government.

Arik is human, and he is a survivor -- he knows that choosing Zambush means conflict with the U.S., which means no peace with the Arabs, no economic prosperity for Israel when so much prosperity is there for the offer. A land route to Europe would be Israel's greatest security, since it would mean peace with all its neighbors, guaranteed by the Americans, making business for all -- imagine Iraqi oil flowing to the Mediterranean through Jordan, then Palestine, then Israel, or to Palestine and Israel, all three taking less in taxes calibrated to pipeline meters than stupid ships that pollute the seas. Why, it's practically Shimon Peres' new Middle East -- especially if the money earned from the oil, in Iraq through two (and Syria too, for three Arab countries, if they make peace) as well as Israel, is earmarked for education in each of those countries.

Arik's problem, however, is that Zambush believes he is an heir to more than the founding fathers of Zionism, who have been spinning in their graves from the day Moshe Levinger went to Hebron and claimed, in the name of the Jewish people, the entire town. No, Zambush, whose real name is Ze'ev (wolf) Hever, meaning Ze'ev Friend, originally Friedman, also believes he is heir to the tradition of the zealots who challenged the Hellenists, the Jews who believed that it would be possible to worship their God and still remain loyal to the Greek empire; Zambush (inspired by Levinger) believes he and his movement, which Arik supported for so long, are the heirs to the Kana'im and Tzudkim (Sadducees) who followed the strictest lines of all, until they led the people of Israel to civil war, and then had the gall to turn it into a war against Rome (in which Jesus was the preacher of a particularly passive form of civil disobedience), thus guaranteeing the destruction of the second Israelite commonwealth and temple.

But Arik is human, somewhat of a glutton, and like most farmers, he is greedy. So, he has a choice. He can go with Zambush, turning his back on America, because Zambush is working as Sharon' proxy to grab as much land in the areas that are supposed to become the Palestinian state, or he can go for a much larger prize -- peace with Syria and Lebanon, Iraq and the entire Arab, indeed Muslim world, including Libya and possibly Iran.

All he has to do is say, okay, we’ll give back the Golan, including the 100 meters on the Kinneret's edge that Barak was afraid to give back, in exchange for a full peace with Syria, the dismantling of the Hezbollah's military apparatus in Lebanon (which would quickly follow Syria to peace), and open roads from Egypt, through Israel (and Palestine) to Lebanon and Syria and Europe.

We'll take in 100,000 refugees over the next decade, but only if their property is still in the hands of the guardian of abandoned property and if they have first degree relatives in Israel (and at the same time, by relinquishing East Jerusalem to the Palestinians, no longer be responsible for some 250,000 Palestinians in the Holy City) -- but that's it on the right of return. All other citizenless Palestinians in their Diaspora can go to the new state of Palestine. All the territories taken in 1967 are given back -- any changes negotiated, for example, keeping Ariel an Israeli-annexed town, are traded 1:1 for territory around Gaza. A high-speed train is built from Africa's Egypt to Asia's Baghdad and beyond, through Gaza and Hebron, across the Negev.

That's Bush's vision. And the new American empire might be able to deliver that deal, if they apply the proper use of carrot and stick -- not so much on the political leaders but on the people, on all sides, who choose the future, and not the past, if they can persuade the Jews and Arabs both that democracy means stability, even if it looks like chaos. Remember -- those same Iraqis shouting this week on street corners they still don’t have electricity or medicine, will have it within a few weeks. A month ago, if they had stood on the corner screaming at the authorities they didn’t have electricity or medicine, they would have been shot. Democracy is as simple as that.

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