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April 15, 2001, U.S.
Edition
Secretary of
State Sharon
Since
his goals are not our goals, America should not let the Israeli P.M. drive
our policy
By
Fareed Zakaria
In sending Colin Powell to the Middle East, America finally appears to be taking control of its policy in the region. Since it came into office, the Bush administration has attempted a hands-off policy toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But for the world's superpower to have no policy is itself a policy. Whether intended or not, Washington's laissez-faire attitude has had the practical effect of subcontracting American policy to Ariel Sharon. His decisions have affected U.S. interests in the entire region. This is a bad idea because America's goals in the region do not coincide with Sharon's.
President George W. Bush has been entirely correct to say that Yasir Arafat has failed to demonstrate a commitment to peace. One could say more; Arafat is a terrible leader, a curse on his people. But Ariel Sharon has done little to inspire confidence either. It is Sharon who, after all, joined Arafat in rejecting the Clinton-Barak peace plan; who went to the Temple Mount in September 2000, a move that many Israeli commentators predicted would instigate Palestinian riots; who decided to ignore a CIA-brokered ceasefire last summer and continue pre-emptive assassinations of suspected Palestinian terrorists. It was Sharon who ignored the Arab League's resolution, dangling the prospect--for the first time ever--of normal relations with Israel and all the Arab states. And it is Sharon who initially paid no attention to the president's call that Israel withdraw "without delay" from the occupied territories.
The Palestinian resistance to Israel's occupation has turned into a guerrilla war. In such circumstances, military operations like Israel's will work--but only temporarily. They crush opposition for the moment but in the long run they enrage the local population, strengthen resolve and radicalize a new generation. That is what happened to the French in Algeria, the British in Ireland and the Americans in Vietnam. Consider the effect the current Israeli operation has had on Arafat. Sharon wants to make him "irrelevant," but the Israeli onslaught has turned Arafat into the hero of the Palestinians, indeed the Arab world.
Military tactics work only if pursued in tandem with an intelligent political strategy. That's why after September 11, America did not just flatten Afghanistan--much as it was tempted. It made sure that the conflict did not spill over into a "clash of civilizations"; it allied with all non-Taliban forces in Afghanistan to achieve a national-unity government; it cultivated Pakistan as a key Muslim ally. Britain solved its Irish problem not through clever military operations alone but through political negotiations as well.
One of the criticisms of Sharon's military operation is that it is purposeless. This is not true. It has two goals. First, it is a totally understandable and justifiable effort to disrupt future terrorism. No society would allow suicide bombers to wreak havoc on it, and Israel should not be faulted for responding forcefully to them. But the scale and scope of the operation suggests Sharon's goals are much broader than that. Over the past week Israeli forces have ransacked and destroyed the Palestinian Statistics Bureau, the Education Ministry and other public buildings. They have destroyed the compounds of Arafat and his security chief, Jibril Rajoub, one of the most moderate Palestinians around.
Sharon is, in other words, obliterating the Palestinian Authority. This makes little sense if you assume his goal is deterring terrorism. After all, chaos and destruction could easily produce more terrorism, not less--as Sharon's last major military operation, the invasion of Lebanon, demonstrated. But Sharon's real aim is to cripple the PA, and thus crush the instrument of collective Palestinian nationalism, leaving behind a decentralized and largely disarmed population. Israel could then deal with local Palestinian leaders like the mayor of Gaza and the mayor of Nablus. Even if there were some rump entity called a Palestinian state, it would be irrelevant since Israel would remain firmly lodged in the West Bank and Gaza.
One does not have to be particularly creative to divine this goal. Sharon is the first major Israeli politician to have suggested that there never need be a Palestinian state--that in fact Jordan is the Palestinian state. As minister of Agriculture, he planned the building of dozens of Jewish settlements in far-flung parts of the territories, designed to make Israeli withdrawal from these territories impossible. Last January, when asked in an interview about dismantling settlements as part of any peace plan, he refused, saying bluntly: "All the settlements will remain where they are, period." He has recently made some comments that suggest he may have moderated his views, but when pressed, little seems to have changed. When asked what he meant when he said he was willing to make "painful concessions" for peace, he explained that he would be willing not to reoccupy Palestinian towns in the West Bank and Gaza. Since his election as prime minister, 34 new settlements have been built, which violate not only the Oslo accords but also Sharon's own agreement with his coalition government.
Sharon's goals are not America's. Bush has called for a solution that creates a Palestinian state that, along with Israel, has secure borders. Like every president before him, he has criticized the building and expansion of settlements. He has also asked that Israel ease up on checkpoints and searches that humiliate and enrage Palestinians. These goals are not simply in America's best interest, they are also in Israel's. Israel cannot survive as a democracy without peace with the Palestinians. Out of fear and desperation, Israelis have put their faith in Sharon's military offensive. The task of a true friend--and Bush has earned that status--is to tell Israel when it is damaging its own future.