Sharon’s plan for “disengagement” now unfolding in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza Strip, illuminates not only what is transpiring today but also what he intends to establish in the months and years ahead. Not since the early days of Israeli rule in the occupied territories has an Israeli leader been able to play such a dominant role in establishing the foundations that Sharon believes will consolidate permanent Israeli rule over these areas. Building upon the pattern of settlements that Sharon has been constructing for almost three decades, Israel intends to preserve the territorial advantages of its 1967 victory by maintaining direct, permanent control over half of the West Bank and perhaps 20 percent of Gaza.
One decade after the beginning of the Oslo process raised the prospect of Palestinian sovereignty in East Jerusalem, the government of Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon is implementing a program that aims at undermining not merely the option of a sovereign Palestinian political presence in the city, but also its historical role as the hub of Palestinian civic and economic existence.
The Bush Administration’s road map was launched with great fanfare at the June 2003 Aqaba summit. Nevertheless, the temporary reduction in killing and mayhem it achieved has been erased by a resumption of violence and terror. The road map’s failed diplomatic and security agenda may well be resurrected. But it cannot succeed if it continues to focus on the violent symptoms of the conflict and ignores the issue at its heart—the struggle between Israelis and Palestinians for control of land and its resources.
Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon has rejected a comprehensive halt to settlement expansion and frustrated the evacuation of settlement “outposts” established after March 2001, both of which are required by the road map.
The territorial division of historical Palestine has entered its most decisive stage since Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in June 1967. Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon is the prime instigator of this process, against which the vaunted road map, a creature of multilateral diplomacy now championed by the Bush administration, struggles to remain relevant.
Four months after the plan was finalized, the Quartet’s “Elements of a performance-based road map to a permanent two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” has been formally placed on the diplomatic agenda.
Israel has just elected Ariel Sharon for a second term, an expression of public support not bestowed on an Israeli prime minister since Menachem Begin. International efforts to fill the diplomatic vacuum created by the destruction of the Oslo process continue to proceed in fits and starts, without much confidence of success.
Land is at the heart of the century-old contest between Israelis and Palestinians. Settlements are the most noteworthy manifestation of this continuing competition, the clearest barometer of relations between the two peoples and the most potent obstacle to the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
The Quartet’s “roadmap,” which aims at filling the diplomatic vacuum created by the failure of the Oslo process and the Sharon government’s rejection of the Palestinian Authority as “an entity that supports terror” has only confirmed the assessment of diplomatic paralysis.
The roadmap is based upon assumptions rejected by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and offers phased “performance-based” promises unlikely to be considered sufficient by Palestinians. An Israeli government led by Ariel Sharon is not interested in a diplomatic solution. One led by Amram Mitzna, Sharon’s challenger in upcoming elections, is championing ideas and a vision of Palestinian statehood far bolder than contemplated by the roadmap’s architects.
Since the national unity government headed by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was formed in March 2001, more than 50 outposts have been established, according to Peace Now. The government acknowledged in July 2002 that 69 outposts had been established since 1996, but put the number during Sharon’s tenure at 34. A June 2002 IDF report determined that 61 outposts were “illegal,” that is, they were established in contravention of Israeli statutes regulating planning and construction. The violation of international prohibitions concerning settlement in occupied territory–which makes all Israeli settlement illegal under international law–is not a constraint upon Israeli officials, and certainly not a concern for settlers.
The continuing Palestinian intifada against Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip has sparked the most significant reassessment of the role and value of settlements since June 1967. Palestinian attacks in Israel as well as on settlers and settlements are forcing unprecedented changes in Israeli perceptions of the settlement enterprise. They are also altering perspectives on the relationship between settlements and Israeli security as understood by policymakers and the public. It is still too early to conclude how or whether the settlement enterprise will adapt to the challenge posed by the intifada or be undermined by it.