Emily — Levy — End the fake evacuations
Topic(s): Palestine / Israel | Comments Off on Emily — Levy — End the fake evacuationsEnd the fake evacuations
By Gideon Levy
The operation to evacuate the West Bank outposts
undertaken by Ariel Sharon’s government is a farce
that is bad for the peace process. It would be
better to stop this charade as soon as possible,
because its damage is immeasurably greater than
any good it might be doing.
The only ones gaining from this
absurd eviction performance is
the prime minister, the right
wing and the settlers. The
losers are the Palestinians and
mainly, the peace process. The
Americans, who are full
partners to this deceit, should
also pull themselves together
and realize that this absurdity
is no good for peace.
If I were a Palestinian I’d hasten to declare –
no, thank you. This is neither evacuation nor a
confidence-building measure; it is a deception
with a heavy price. This is not the evacuation
of real settlements and more importantly, not
the evacuation of settlers. This is a farce in
which all the actors understand the rules and
are playing their role on the stage only to
accumulate more power and more sympathy, rather
than advance any political process.
The first one to gain from this false spectacle
is of course the prime minister. Half the
nation is again tempted to believe that here is
“a new Sharon,” a “complex” and “fascinating”
figure which has undergone “a historic change,”
an Israeli de Gaulle, the only one who could
make peace.
Sharon has evacuated a few caravans and evicted
a few dozen radical settlers from one point to
another in the occupied territories, and
already he is enjoying the best of all worlds.
His one hand appears to be evacuating while the
other is assassinating.
His only goal – pleasing the American
administration – is achieved in full at zero
cost. The right wing is a little angry, but it
is clear to it too that this is all
make-believe – the right wing knows full well
that Sharon will never evacuate a proper
settlement. Thus the prime minister can go back
to being the evil old Sharon, who orders the
assassination of Hamas leaders in the middle of
an international political effort to achieve a
cease-fire agreement with them.
Thus, in exchange for the pseudo-evacuation, the
Palestinians got 24 people killed in three
days, in a series of assassinations whose harm
to peace far surpasses the good of the fake
evacuations. If these are the first of the
“painful concessions” Sharon had talked about,
it is not clear at all on whom the pain is
being inflicted.
The outposts’ evacuation is good for the
settlers, too. They have paid nothing, but
already they are once again the victims, the
robbed, the usurped. The sound of their
wailings and whinings for every rusty caravan
moved from its place is especially cynical.
They know that the louder they holler, the
smaller the price they will be asked to pay in
the future and public sympathy toward them will
grow. This has always been their way – let out
a wail, never mind about what, and extort the
price.
The pictures of settlers being dragged on the
earth are good for them. Most Israelis don’t
like seeing their people forcibly dragged. The
settlers’ semi-violent resistance to the
evacuation of the outposts, most of which were
built only as stage scenery for this play, may
also convince many that there is no chance of
ever evacuating the settlements, without
terrible bloodshed. If it is so difficult to
evacuate the “Bachelor’s Hill” outpost, how
will we evacuate Ofra? And Ma’ale Adumim?
Ariel?
In the sidelines of the evacuation, it is good
to find out that the IDF, Border Police and
police still know how to clash with
demonstrators in the territories without
shooting them dead with firearms. When have
they ever done so when confronting Palestinian
demonstrators? It is also good to learn that at
least when the demonstrators are Jews, the High
Court of Justice becomes more active and issues
temporary injunctions, and the attorney general
even holds a hearing, in contrast to the custom
of dismissing out of hand most of the appeals
of Palestinians whose homes are about to be
demolished. When it comes to Jews, the High
Court fulfills its duty.
Evacuating all the settlements is a crucial
stage on the way to a just peace. Last week’s
evacuation of outposts is on no account a step
on the way to evacuate settlements but the
opposite, it is an obstacle to it. If Israel
sincerely aspired for peace and building
confidence with the Palestinians, it would have
evacuated a few real settlements, those whose
removal is supported by a broad public
consensus.
For example, Gaza first – evacuating all the
scandalous settlements in the strip, which only
exact a bloody price from Israel and the
Palestinians, could have been an appropriate
start. The United States should have demanded
this of Sharon long ago, the Israeli public
would accept the evacuation with understanding
and the Palestinians would find out that they
have a real partner.
If even this is too difficult for the prime
minister, but he wants progress anyway, as the
heralders of the “new Sharon” claim, he should
have sought for the confidence building
measures elsewhere – in significant
alleviations of the disgraceful living
conditions of the Palestinians.
Removing the hundreds of road barriers from
their way inside the territories and releasing
a large number of their prisoners, would have
helped Abu Mazen establish his position, as the
United States and Israel wish him to do. It
would have infused hope in his people and
signaled real intentions for peace.
Road block or caravan? In the present conditions
it is better to remove the road block first and
let the “hilltop youth” continue running
rampant as much as they want, until Israel
decides that it really wants to evacuate the
settlements.
ACTORS ALL: The evacuation is a theatrical farce that serves Sharon, the
right and the settlers, but not peace.