Gaza First

Or No

9

R

A

> •

Talk of Palestinian
self-rule in Gaza
prior to a final peace
> settlement is gaining
ground — even
in the Israeli
government.

IRA RIFKIN
SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS

s the Middle East
peace talks drone on
in Washington with-
out any appreciable
progress, "Gaza first" is
being discussed more fre-
quently as a way to break
the Israeli-Palestinian log-
jam.
Gaza first means consti-
tuting some sort of
Palestinian political entity
in the Gaza Strip —
through either a unilateral
or negotiated Israeli with-
drawal — prior to any final
settlement on the territo-
ries between Israel and the
Palestinians.
Israeli
Ambassador
Itamar Rabinovich, speak-
ing last week to a meeting
of American Jewish jour-
nalists in Washington,
noted that Gaza first "is
now in the mainstream of
government thinking in
Israel" — even if Prime
Minister Yitzhak Rabin
remains publicly opposed
to the idea.
Also last week, the
Jerusalem Post, quoting a
Palestinian newspaper,
reported that "high level"
Israeli and Palestine
Liberation Organization
officials had held secret
meetings in Europe to dis-
cuss, among other things,
"Israeli withdrawal from
Gaza, and the role of the
PLO during the interim
administration there."
Gaza first is not a new
idea. William Quandt, a
former Carter administra-
tion official who helped
negotiate the Camp David
accords, noted that the
idea was discussed during
the Egyptian-Israeli peace
talks in 1978.
But Gaza first appeared
to be a non-starter until
earlier this year, when a
rash of Palestinian attacks
on Israelis led to the clos-
ing off of the territories —
and Israeli Cabinet mem-
bers started publicly won-
dering about the feasibility
of a unilateral withdrawal
from Gaza.
Supporters of Gaza first
say the proposal is a way
to break the current stale-
mate in the peace talks
while politically shoring up
both Israel's Labor govern-
ment and the PLO — both
of which need to show
some progress toward a
peace settlement in order
to retain their constituen-
cies.
Should Labor and the
PLO lose their grips on

An Arab passes nationalist graffiti which reads "No peace without my land."

power, supporters main-
tain, the ascendancy of a
Likud government and
Gaza's Muslim extremists
would effectively end the
quest for a negotiated
peace.
But because Gaza has
been the prime staging
ground for terrorist
attacks against Israelis,
detractors warn that turn-
ing the 141-square-mile,
densely populated coastal
desert strip over to
Palestinian control could
be disastrous.
"The big fear in Israel is
that Gaza first will leave
us with another Lebanon
just 40 miles from Tel
Aviv," said Shmuel
Sandler, a political science
professor at Israel's Bar-
Ilan University, who spent
the past semester at Johns
Hopkins University.
He was referring to the
Arab factional civil war
that racked Lebanon, and
which many observers say
is likely to also break out
in Gaza between Muslim
extremists, such as the
members of Hamas, and
the secular nationalist
camp led by the PLO,
should Israeli troops pull
out.
At
a
Carnegie
Endowment for
International Peace forum
on the issue in Washington
last week, several speakers
suggested that the United
States, as a neutral third
party, should push Gaza
first to make it easier for
Israel and the Palestinians
to officially accept the

idea. But first, they noted,
the White House would
have to break from past
U.S. policy that continues
to reject — in deference to
still-official Israeli policy
an independent
Palestinian state in any
part of the territories.
One of the most vocal
American Jewish support-
ers of Gaza first is Jerome
M. Segal, a research schol:
ar at the University of
Maryland's Institute for
Philosophy and Public
Policy and the director of
the left-leaning Jewish
Peace Lobby.
He argued at the

"There will be
no solution to
the Palestinian
conflict until the
conceptual line
is crossed."

Jerome M. Segal

Carnegie session that a
fully independent
Palestinian state in the
Gaza Strip established
prior to the conclusion of
peace talks would allow
Israelis to "cross the con-
ceptual barrier," a psycho-
logical threshold that now
keeps them from accepting
Palestinian sovereignty.
"There will be no solu-
tion to the Palestinian con-
flict until the conceptual
line is crossed," Mr. Segal
said.

At the same time, he
said, giving Palestinians
responsibility for main-
taining order in Gaza —
including stopping terror-
ism — would provide
Israel with a "relatively
safe" test of living along-
side a Palestinian state.
And because the
Palestinians would want to
gain eventual control over
more of the territories,
they would be motivated to
do everything they can to
keep the peace with Israel,
or risk losing international
support, Mr. Segal said.
"If the Palestinians blow
it, then international
understanding will favor
Israeli reluctance to
extend [Palestinian] inde-
pendence to the West
Bank," he said.
But Palestinians also
have some reservations
about Gaza first — hence
the suggestion that they
would be more agreeable to
it if the proposal was for-
mally put forth by the U.S.
The chief reservation is
that Gaza first will become
Gaza last.
"There is no way any
Palestinian will ask the
Israelis to stay in Gaza if
they want to leave," said
Abdullatif Rayan, a former
Palestine National Council
member now associated Cr,
C)
with the Palestine Affairg C)
Center in Washington.
"But Palestinians want C)
Gaza linked to a final solu- >-
-J
tion first, and to a phased
7
withdrawal from the West
Bank. Palestinians fear

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GAZA FIRST page 54

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