Since taking office in March 2001, the Israeli leader has portrayed himself as a moderate, pledging “painful concessions” for peace and conditionally accepting the Roadmap toward a Palestinian state. Optimistic souls still hope that Israel’s old warrior has changed, and will eventually destroy his lifetime achievement, the Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza. Alas, they overlook the recurring pattern in Sharon’s actual policy–ever-tougher preconditions for negotiations. Sharon’s Palestinian state is like the castle in Franz Kafka’s famed novel. The Palestinians may wish to get there, but they can’t ever get permission to enter the driveway.
Time and again, Sharon has raised the ante for negotiations. At first he pledged not to talk under fire and demanded “full cessation of terror, violence and incitement.” The next demand was for a thorough, multidimensional reform of the Palestinian Authority, including leadership change. More recently, Israel asked for a “dismantling of the terror infrastructure” as step one in the process. It has now added Arafat’s ouster to the equation.
Sharon’s critics at home usually blame him for having no strategy. They are wrong. Sharon’s government has an obvious, though undeclared, strategy: to keep control over the occupied territories and retain the settlement enterprise, viewing it as essential for Israel’s security. At the most, Israel is ready to allow the Palestinian Authority to handle education, garbage collection and even security in the West Bank and Gaza. But there is no intention of giving Arafat a fully functioning sovereign state.
Sharon did not invent this policy. Since the peace process launch in 1991, successive Israeli governments have adhered to the same strategy, though each has used different tactics. Yitzhak Shamir merely said no. Yitzhak Rabin brought Arafat from Tunis to “put Gaza in order without courts and human-rights activists,” but refrained from removing even the tiniest settlement. Moreover, he built a modern road infrastructure for the West Bank settlers. Shimon Peres postponed further withdrawal until after the election. Benjamin Netanyahu quarreled with the Clinton administration to slow the process. Ehud Barak made generous but virtual concessions while accelerating settlement construction.
Sharon feared that after Barak’s far-reaching proposals, Israel could no longer hang on to its territorial assets. So he’s worked to avoid substantive negotiations. His battlefield experience has taught him that one must cling to one’s positions to prevail–and wait for the other side to collapse first. Hence, by avoiding concessions, Israel can bring the Palestinians to surrender. This is the real thinking behind the latest cabinet decision and other forceful Israeli steps.
