Promises,
promises
By Ze'ev Schiff
On the day of the funeral of assassinated Egyptian president
Anwar Sadat, U.S. secretary of state Alexander Haig met with
foreign minister Yitzhak Shamir at the Holiday Inn hotel in Cairo.
Shamir was accompanied by defense minister Ariel Sharon and
interior minister Yosef Burg.At the time, the Americans were
concerned about the increased influence of Islamic elements in
Egypt and were wondering what could be done to keep them from
getting any stronger. Haig's suggestion was to step up the pace of
the talks on autonomy for the Palestinians and to freeze the
establishment of Jewish settlements in the territories. Everyone
at the meeting immediately looked at Sharon, who said that there
were still another 10 settlements that had to be established to
complete Israel's settlement program. Once they were established,
Sharon assured Haig, Israel would announce a freeze on new
settlements.
Sharon made the same promise, using the very same words, when
Haig met with the interministerial committee on autonomy. Sharon's
former adviser, Major General Avraham Tamir writes about that
meeting in his book, "A Soldier in Search of Peace: An Inside Look
at Israel's Military Strategy." According to Tamir, the
participants in the meeting who were filled with hope when they
heard Sharon's comments did not know him very well. They took him
at his word and were elated; however, the next day, Sharon planned
the establishment of dozens of new settlements.
Sharon treated Haig with kid gloves but would adopt a different
attitude toward another American secretary of state, James Baker,
a few years later: Whenever Baker would visit Israel in the
context of his mediation attempts, Sharon would make sure to lay
the cornerstone of a new Jewish settlement.
This is only part of the story, which continued during the
first Likud government headed by Menachem Begin. When a cabinet
debate was held on settlement programs for the territories, two
plans were considered. Defense minister Ezer Weizman's plan, which
had been prepared by the unit for national security, proposed
focusing on the establishment of settlements in six blocs on the
West Bank, with a seventh bloc earmarked for the Gaza Strip.
Sharon's plan called for the creation of settlements, even very
small ones, throughout the West Bank. Everyone was aware of the
dangers involved in Sharon's proposal, whose political goal was to
sabotage any possibility of territorial contiguity for the
Palestinians and, thus, to prevent the establishment of a
Palestinian state. Sharon had a similar goal in mind when he
supported the creation of the Gush Katif settlements in the Gaza
Strip. These settlements, which ate up the scant land reserves of
the densely populated Gaza Strip, would later be referred to by
Yitzhak Rabin as "political" settlements.
Although the majority of cabinet votes supported Weizman's
settlement bloc plan, Sharon was not prepared to give up so easily
on his idea. Ignoring the government's decision, he went ahead
with his own plan, but implemented it slowly, stage by stage. This
tactic recalls various moves Sharon made in the military sphere in
the context of the Israel Defense Forces' retaliatory operations
and in the context of Israel's wars: Sharon would, on his own
initiative, expand the scope of military operations, sometimes
without permission and sometimes giving his own interpretation to
the decisions and orders of his superior officers, but, in most
cases, at a heavy price.
Now, however, Sharon was following the same pattern in a
non-combat context. When the residents of these settlements
complain about the hardships of living in isolated communities, it
should be recalled that this was precisely the reason for setting
them up: They were meant to be cut off from Weizman's settlement
blocs despite the risk involved for the residents of such isolated
settlements. However, instead of encircling Palestinian cities,
these settlements have themselves ended up as remote
communities.
If Sharon is elected prime minister, he will not have to take
orders from anyone nor will he have to circumvent the decisions
made by any of his superiors. Is he capable of taking actions that
would violate the concepts of the world-view that has guided him
since 1967? Sharon does not see the withdrawal from the
territories in the same terms as he saw the withdrawal of Israeli
troops from South Lebanon; furthermore, in his view, the idea of
giving up settlements in the territories is like amputating an arm
or a leg.
The isolated settlements are today a military, human and
political problem all rolled up in one, and, with regard to that
issue, it really does not matter whether Sharon or Ehud Barak is
Israel's next prime minister. Regardless of who sits in the prime
minister's office after February 6, these settlements will remain
where they are if the present situation - a military confrontation
combined with a partial occupation - persists, or if a single
state - which will be neither Jewish nor democratic - is gradually
established for the Palestinians and the Israelis
