Why is Sharon saying yes to the US road map?

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The following article from the International Herald Tribune by a
member of the Council of Foreign Relations expresses a view of
Sharon's current role that is worth thinking about.
In the following comments, I will present a somewhat different view.

It is possible that Bush really does need a "peace" settlement between
Sharon and the Israeli- and US-approved (so far) Palestinian
interlocutor Abbas. (Note, when you think about what kind of
"Palestinian state" is being projected, that while the Palestinians'
negotiators must be approved by Washington and Tel Aviv, they have no
say at all on who negotiates with them.)

If the United States is to get Arab state support for imposing the
military occupation regime on Iraq and crushing the popular opposition
to occupation as "fundamentalist" and "Saddamist" and also, of course,
"Al Qaeda," they must impose some kind of Middle East settlement, and
they seem to be aiming for a much more pro-Israel and anti-Palestinian
Oslo.

Of course, not only can obstacles to agreement be provided as needed,
but after the agreement, the opportunities for Israeli obstructions to
any real concessions to the Palestinians will exist in every nook and
cranny of the convoluted agreements.

The enormous sacrifices that will be demanded of the Palestinians in
the proposed accord can also prepare the way for sharper conflict
among the Palestinians. The US and Israel hope they can force sectors
of the Palestinian upper classes to unleash the Palestinian civil war
which the US and Israeli rulers count on to cripple the Palestinian
struggle indefinitely and shatter the morale of the Palestinian
nation. They failed to obtain this civil war  from Arafat in the wake
of Oslo, and that, I believe, is why the US government went along with
the torpedoing of the agreement by Israel and why both the US and
Israel have agreed that Arafat is no longer acceptable as a
Palestinian leader. (Such a slaughter is unlikely to be successful, by
the way, unless the Palestinian "authorities" are willing to call for
Israeli, Jordanian, and/or US military help.)

What Washington needs primarily is to provide new cover for the Arab
governments to line up with Washington against the people of Iraq,
and, ultimately, in the war drive now being unleashed against Iran.
Broader support for a war against Iran will be needed than existed for
the war in Iraq, because of the much greater possibility of
substantial and sustained resistance before and after victory.  This
may be obtainable since the Arab regimes united in support of the
Iraqi invasion of Iran, which Washington and Paris backed.  But the
needed support will not come without something that can be passed off
as a Palestinian and sundry, complete with Nobel Peace Prizes for all
and sundry.

Why has Sharon gone along so far? One reason is that he is confident
of Washington's backing in the clutch.  The US still requires the
Israeli  colonial-settler martial state they succeed in establishing
their own direct domination over the region much more firmly than
exists today.  Even then, Israel will remain a useful reserve.

However, the primary reason Sharon is going along is that he has
absolutely no choice. Washington has not gone into the Middle East as
a favor to Israel, contrary to the theories that the US government is
now being directed, behind the cover of the smirking Christian Bush,
by a pro-Israel conspiracy of Jewish neocons.

The US is in the Middle East to take radically firmer control of the
oil resources, shipping routes, military-strategic positions, and
state machines of the region.  Israel is a component of Washington's
strategy, but today it is becoming a subordinate part.  For the moment
at least, the direct application of US military power in the Middle
East is the central component.

In military and economic terms, Israel is today a complete dependency
of US imperialism, and it is much more so now that the U.S. military
has, for the time being at least, taken direct military control of
Iraq.  If Sharon got the signal that Bush was ready to squeeze to get
the very modest degree of cooperation he was seeking, and I think he
did, then Sharon -- like every Israeli leader of the past fifty
years -- had no choice but to go along.

And the Israeli rulers, despite the concessions they may make here and
there that they might not enjoy (and Israel must take any steps that
Washington is prepared to genuinely DEMAND) can count on a basic fact.
The U.S. imperialists and the rulers of Israel may have their
significant differences of interest on some issues, but both are
agreed that the Palestinian people are an enemy.  That is not going to
change soon.
Fred Feldman


The International Herald Tribune     June 3, 2003

Has Sharon set a trap for Bush?

Henry Siegman

The road map and the settlements

New York ? President George W. Bush's summit meeting Wednesday with
Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel and the Palestinian prime minister,
Mahmoud
Abbas, is unexpected and extraordinary. The hope it generates for
progress
in the implementation of the American-back peace plan known as the
road map
could not have been imagined just days ago. Nevertheless, it is
difficult
not to view Sharon's and Abbas's acceptance of the road map without a
large
dose of skepticism.

In the case of Abbas, that skepticism has less to do with his
intentions
than with his ability to implement the road map's requirements,
particularly
the demand that he put an end to terrorism. Abbas must contend with
the
likely obstructionism of Yasser Arafat and with the sorry state of
Palestinian security forces, destroyed by Israel.

In Sharon's case, the skepticism has nothing to do with his ability to
deliver on the road map's demands, which he unquestionably can, but
with his
intentions. Since becoming prime minister in February 2001, Sharon has
accepted every peace initiative, including the Oslo accords, the
Mitchell
Commission proposals and the Tenet guidelines, and yet managed to
torpedo
each with "reservations" and "conditions." If anything, the
reservations
Sharon has attached to his acceptance of the road map are far more
destructive than the conditions that enabled him to defeat previous
peace
initiatives while skillfully avoiding blame for doing so.

Skepticism about Sharon's acceptance of the road map is also warranted
by
reports in the Israeli press about "facts on the ground" being
established
every day that are wildly inconsistent with Sharon's new conviction
that
Israel cannot continue its occupation of 3.5 million Palestinians.

According to the Israeli journalist Amira Haas, writing in Ha'aretz,
these
facts on the ground include a new separation wall that is destroying
thousands of acres of the most productive Palestinian orchards and
farmlands
critical to the economy of a new Palestinian state and enclosing
Palestinian
villages and the entire city of Qalqilya. Israel has also built
security
fences around settlements, security roads and bypass roads that
continue to
cut off the Palestinian villages from each other and the villages from
their
land, and has expanded settlements to half the total area of the West
Bank.


These facts may already have determined that the "state" that Sharon
is
willing to accept, and that has so deeply scandalized rightist opinion
in
Israel, will be comprised of three enclaves within the West Bank (not
counting the fourth enclave in Gaza) cut off from one another, with no
direct outlet to neighboring Arab countries, much less to the rest of
the
world.

Another leading Israeli expert on Palestinian affairs, Danny
Rubinstein,
concluded in Ha'aretz that the Israeli presence in the territories is
becoming a permanent one. It is an assessment endorsed by Emunah Elon,
a
leading rightist opponent of Palestinian statehood, who wrote in
Yediot
Ahronot that "the road map is irrelevant, and all that matters is what
the
prime minister does." Elon confirms that what Sharon is doing is
"dividing
the territories of Judea and Samaria into tiny Palestinian cantons,
cut off
one from the other, fenced in and surrounded by a plethora of Jewish
settlers." She assures agitated settlers that the excitement generated
by
Sharon's controversial statements about ending the occupation will be
"a
fleeting episode."

Perhaps the conclusions of these Israeli analysts about the
irreversibility
of the changes already made in the occupied territories are
exaggerated.
What is clear, however, is that only President Bush's personal
involvement
in the peace process and his insistence on the strictest compliance by
both
Israel and the Palestinians with the road map's provisions will
prevent the
plan's failure.

Despite formidable obstacles, Bush's welcome personal immersion in
Middle
East peace diplomacy holds out the hope of significant changes in
Israeli
policy, as evidenced by the fact that Sharon persuaded his government
to
accept the road map despite his own hostility to it. It is not
necessary for
the United States to threaten Israel with sanctions in order to
influence
its policy. It is more than sufficient for the president to convey to
Israel's leaders that obstructionist tactics would damage America's
interests in the region and affect America's perception of Israel as a
peace-loving nation.

With the exception of the ideological core of the settler movement,
the vast
majority of Israelis understand that Israel's security and continued
viability depend on America's friendship. Consequently, a prime
minister who
is seen as responsible for a cooling of America's friendship for
Israel
cannot long survive.

The issue of settlements will tell us what we need to know about
Sharon's
real intentions. It will also tell us what we need to know about
Bush's
intentions. There is no justification for delaying a cessation of all
settlement activity or the dismantling of outposts, for they serve no
security purposes whatever. In fact, more than any other factor,
settlements
are responsible for Palestinian violence and for the absence of
popular
Palestinian opposition to terrorist groups. The settlement enterprise
has
been nothing less than the theft of Palestinian land in broad
daylight, a
theft made possible only by Israel's vastly superior military force.
The
notion that Abbas can confront and subdue terrorist groups while this
theft
continues is absurd.

If Sharon will contrive reasons to delay or undermine the road map's
provisions dealing with the settlements and settlement outposts, it
will be
a clear indication that his real intention is to trap Bush into
lending U.S.
support for his notion of a Palestinian state comprised of several
cantons
on territory fragmented by the settlements. And if Bush insists on
full
compliance with the road map, beginning with its provisions for an end
to
all further settlement activity, this will be a clear indication that
he
intends to remain fully committed to doing what is necessary to bring
the
century-long conflict between Jews and Palestinians to an end.


The writer is a senior fellow on the Middle East at the Council on
Foreign
Relations. These views are his own.

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