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Dry Bones
Separation Strategies
T
he world is watching as two democracies
struggle to find sensible exit plans. For Israel,
it is the settlements — with the Gaza Strip
first and then some parts of the West Bank to come.
For the United States, it is Iraq.
The Gaza settlements have been a mixed success.
They have clearly helped establish the principle that
Israel has rights and responsibilities beyond the 1967
Green Line. But defending them has required large
sacrifices — lives lost and money spent on defense that
could have been better used for core social issues like
education. The beachfront Gaza settlements are as
lovely as anything farther north, above Tel Aviv, but
despite the turnout of 70,000 pro-settlement demon-
strators last week, they do not make the 6
million Israelis within the Green Line any
happier or more secure.
Although the settlements can be justified
historically, they have come at a huge price of econom-
ic and social hardship for the Palestinians. Much of
that is the Palestinians' own fault for tolerating the ter-
rorists in their midst instead of working for both toler-
ation and commercial development. But at least part of
it is the reality of a Jewish presence the Palestinians feel
was thrust on them.
Now, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, in the face
of the Palestinian refusal to restart negotiations by sup-
pressing their terrorists, has forwarded a clear plan for
separation. The security barrier and the unilateral
boundaries are not perfect, but at least he has laid out
a map for a better future that does not require Israeli
soldiers to dictate so many of the details of daily
Palestinian life. The fact that his own Likud Party
rejected it, predictably, poses a political problem for the
prime minister but does not forever doom the idea.
gone. But whatever other objectives
America had — and it has never
been clear what they are or should
have been — these goals are not
being achieved.
We have not destroyed caches of
weapons of mass destruction because
we haven't found any, and they prob-
ably never existed in any meaningful
amounts. We have replaced some of
the infrastructure — water supplies,
power, medical services — destroyed
by the invasion, but we are not even
close to the social stability that we
sought.
The cost to America's
standing in the world has
been enormous. To some
observers, we look more and more
like a bully with huge military power
and little respect for any internation-
al agreements. Although we are mak-
ing some progress in training Iraqis
in how to run a government and a
police force, too often we seem con-
fused without a clear focus or direc-
tion. We can't always control our
own soldiers — the ones who tor-
mented the Iraqi prisoners at Abu
Ghraib, for example — and we can't
deal with insurgent populations in
Fallujah or Najaf.
We need to hone a plan that
achieves a clear set of time-sensitive
objectives and doesn't leave our sol-
diers like sitting ducks — or we need to simply get
out.
If Israel can live with a Gaya Strip that will be run by
Hamas, America can live with an Iraq that will have
more in common with Islamic Iran on its east than
with the more secular Turkey on its north.
President George W. Bush must enunciate a clear set
of steps and a credible timetable for getting the soldiers
EDITO DIAL
Iraq Timetable
The American invasion of Iraq is also turning out to
need a clear plan for getting the troops out soon.
The world is much better off without Saddam
Hussein in power in Baghdad and the families of the 1
million people he killed surely are glad to have him
No Reward, Bad Idea
Jerusalem
my time will tell whether Israeli Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon's plan for unilateral withdrawal
from the Palestinian territories is good or bad.
Missing in the debate, however, are the details upon
which success or disaster hinges. That crucial questions
remain unasked repeats the same lack of thinking that
led us into Oslo and the war in which we are now
engaged.
Sharon's gamble is based on the belief that Israel can-
not sustain a prolonged confrontation with Palestinian
terrorism. It is a clear admission of defeat.
0
Moshe Dann, a former Detroiter, is a writer
and journalist living in Jerusalem. His e-mail address
_
is moshedan@netvision.net.il
home, while inviting the rest of the world to step in
through the United Nations to assist the development
of Iraqi self-government.
It won't be any easier on Bush than on Sharon, on
America than on Israel. But we must start on what will
be the hard path of restoring ourselves in the eyes of
the rest of the world without whom our superpower
status makes us, like Israelis, a target rather than a
people to be admired. ❑
Underlying his plan for unilateral withdrawal
eventually).
is the belief that in the ensuing struggle for
Escalating attacks against Israel is more seri-
control, Palestinian terrorist groups will either
ous and likely, and the P.A. will deny responsi-
implode into civil war or explode and create
bility while giving support as they do now
such havoc that a massive Israeli retaliation will
Terrorism would be devastating enough to
be sanctioned by the world community; and
keep the pressure on, but not so catastrophic
the entire Palestinian enterprise (or large sec-
as to invite obliteration.
tions of it) will be wiped out. Both scenarios
Meanwhile, as a sovereign country, the P.A.
1 40 SHE
are fraught with danger.
can develop a massive armed force assisted by
D ANN
If, instead of fighting each other, terrorist
many countries and supporters throughout
Sp ecial
groups work together (albeit temporarily, as
the world.
Corn mentary
they do now) against their common enemy,
As President Bush said, without responsible
they will strengthen each other — at least in
institutions and leaders in place, without end-
the short run. They might even impose some
ing terrorism and incitement as a policy, and
kind of internal order as partners in the new
without recognizing Israel's right to exist, no solution is
Palestinian Authority.
possible. Why then unilateral withdrawal? It doesn't
They will certainly receive international recognition,
make sense.
approval and support (with American participation
DANN on page 32
■
5/ 7
2004
31