Sharon's plan-Steal more land

From:

Sharon's Main Plan Is To
Capture More Land
By Patrick Seale
The Nation.com
10-17-3

Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his friends in Washington are
in a hurry. They are racing to achieve their objectives before anyone
stops them. And when they are in a hurry, they are particularly
dangerous. Syria and Iran are in their sights, with further down the
road Saudi Arabia, and even Egypt. Political and economic pressure,
financial penalties, sanctions, intervention, regime change by
military force, these are their chosen instruments for bending the
Arabs to the will of Israel and its United States patron (slave - G).

Sharon's main objective is the building of a Greater Israel on the
ruins of Palestinian nationalism. His latest instrument is the wall or
fence which is imprisoning the Palestinians on a fraction of their
territory, cutting them off on all sides from contact with their Arab
neighbours. The wall is due to be finished in eight months' time.
Sharon is determined that nothing must prevent its completion.

At the UN Security Council this week, he won a major victory when the
United States vetoed a resolution, proposed by Syria, condemning the
wall. Within hours, a radical Palestinian group attacked the motorcade
of an American delegation in Gaza, killing three Americans and
wounding a fourth. Sharon will no doubt exploit this latest incident
to rally American opinion against the beleaguered Palestinian
president, Yasser Arafat.

Israel's main worry

Sharon's main worry, however, and the reason for his haste, is that
George W Bush could be thrown out of office at next year's US
presidential election - and with him the whole band of pro-Israeli
"neo-conservatives" which have set the Administration's agenda since
September 11, 2001. These are the men who pressed for war against Iraq
as a first step towards reshaping the geopolitics of the entire Middle
East. But the sluggish US economy, the mess in Iraq, and the
anti-American anger sweeping the Arab and Muslim world are now making
Bush look vulnerable. A Democrat in the White House may not be so
tolerant of Israel's foolhardy ambitions or so ready to endorse the
neo-cons' aggressive policies.

Sharon has other worries closer to home. The political fall-out from
the current police investigations of his two sons, Omri and Gilad, for
alleged sharp practice and bribe-taking could drive Sharon himself
from office in 2004. And to compound his fears, the Israeli Left which
for the past two years has seemed terminally ill and politically
irrelevant is showing faint signs of revival.

Leading opposition figures such as Yossi Beilin, Amram Mitzna and
Avraham Burg have joined with Palestinian moderates, led by Yasser
Abed Rabbo, in drafting a detailed peace plan for a two-state solution
- the so-called Geneva Accords.

The plan, the result of two years of secret negotiations funded by the
Swiss government, is due to be signed formally in Geneva next month,
putting flesh on the bones of the tentative agreements reached at Taba
in January 2001.

It represents everything that Sharon and his friends detest and which
he has spent his life seeking to destroy. It provides for an Israeli
withdrawal to the 1967 borders (with some marginal modifications) to
allow for the emergence of a viable Palestinian state; some major
colonies close to the Green Line to be annexed to Israel but those
deep inside Palestinian territory to be evacuated; Jerusalem as a
shared capital; Palestinian sovereignty over the Haram Al Sharif;
Israeli sovereignty over the Wailing Wall and the Jewish quarter of
the Old City; and - a major Palestinian concession - the abandonment
of the "right of return" to towns and villages lost in 1948. An
international force would monitor implementation of the plan while
radical Palestinian groups would be tamed and shut down.

These "Geneva Accords" may, in the present climate, seem hopelessly
utopian. They have no chance whatsoever of being implemented while the
Sharon government, or anything resembling it, is in power. Their
potential importance, however, lies in offering the Israeli public
what it lacks and longs for most - hope that the current nightmare of
killing and counter-killing can be brought to an end. In other words,
a change in Washington, and a move back to the center by an Israeli
public won over by a credible peace plan, could yet pose a threat to
Sharon's ambitions.

He has reacted to the Geneva Accords with barely suppressed rage. "By
what right," he snorted, "are left-wing people proposing moves that
Israel can never do, nor will ever do!"

Formidable obstacles

Sharon has always wanted one hundred per cent of Palestine, an
ambition which would have involved expelling most, if not all, of the
Palestinian population of the West Bank to Jordan, which would then
have become a Palestinian state.

As the obstacles to such a project are formidable, Sharon has opted
for something a shade more modest: the seizure of about 90 per cent of
historic Palestine, confining the Palestinians to some 10 per cent of
the overall territory behind the notorious wall.

No doubt he calculates that, once the wall is finished, it will in due
course come to be accepted by the international community, and by the
Palestinians themselves, as defining Israel's borders. Hence, his
determination, and that of his American supporters, to move ahead with
all possible speed while the regional and international environment is
in their favour.

Sharon's major asset is Bush. Backing off from engagement in the
Arab-Israeli conflict, the Bush administration appears to have decided
to leave Israel to manage the Palestine problem on its own terms.

So much is clear from its veto of UN Resolutions condemning the wall
and Sharon's recent strike inside Syrian territory, from its silence
over continued settlement expansion and from its failure to react to
Israel's massive destruction of Palestinian property at Rafah, on
Gaza's border with Egypt, which this week left 1,500 Palestinians
homeless. As he nervously prepares for his election campaign, his
ratings slipping in the polls, Bush's collapse before Sharon must be
judged one of the blackest pages in recent American history. It has
provoked incredulity in Europe and, more ominously, bitter hatred of
the United States in Muslim communities around the world.

Yet, Sharon has much cause for satisfaction: while Israel faces no
strategic threat, its enemies tremble. A shattered Iraq is under
American occupation; Iran, facing great international pressure over
its alleged nuclear weapons programme, is wracked by internal
conflicts between conservatives and reformers; the Arab Gulf,
seemingly indifferent and content, lies under America's military
umbrella; Egypt, neutralised by its peace treaty with Israel and by
America's annual subsidy, hardly dares open its mouth in defence of
the Palestinians; while Syria faces harsh and threatening pressure on
all sides - from Washington, now preparing to vote into law the
economic and diplomatic boycotts enshrined in the Syria Accountability
Act; and from Israel, which last week sent its planes to strike at
Syria and seems ready to do so again.

Sharon still thinks he can bludgeon the Palestinians into submission.
The attack on the Palestinian camp near Damascus, together with
Israel's repeated incursions at Rafah, are clearly intended as
warnings to Syria and Egypt to halt all support for the Palestinians -
or face the consequences.

But Sharon has not yet found an answer to the suicide bombers who have
traumatised the Israel public, ruined the economy, killed the tourist
trade and cut off foreign investment.

They are a profound embarrassment to Sharon, but he may think it a
price worth paying. His priority is land, not security. That, he
believes, will follow once the wall is built and the Palestinians
surrender.

Patrick Seale is an eminent commentator and the author of several
books on Middle East affairs. The writer can be contacted at:



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