« home

MARK A. HELLER:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the meantime

Let’s begin by dispensing with a couple of nonsensical myths about the so-called Geneva Initiative. The first is that a group of individuals led by Yossi Beilin has somehow undermined or usurped the legal authority of the elected Israeli government by negotiating with a "foreign government or any officer or any agent thereof" (the words of the American Logan Act).

In fact, a group of individual Israelis with no power or pretense to commit the State of Israel or its government met with a group of equally powerless (though perhaps equally influential) Palestinians to see if they could agree on the terms of Israeli-Palestinian peace — a "Draft Permanent Status Agreement."

In short, they have done what dozens if not hundreds of other Palestinians and Israelis (including this writer) have done in recent decades — only in far greater detail and specificity and with far more publicity.

The second myth is that by endorsing a variety of concessions, they have weakened Israel’s bargaining position and prevented future negotiators from getting a "better deal."

In fact, this deal gives Israel everything it could possibly want from a deal except more territory. And anyone at all familiar with the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in all its manifestations knows that there is not the slightest chance of getting a better one, not the one that Ehud Barak tried to secure and certainly not one (whatever it may be) that the government, the right-wing, or the settlers would endorse.

By contrast, the Palestinians in this Track-II exercise gave away everything they have previously refused to concede no matter how much territory they were given or offered — recognition of the right of the Jewish people to statehood, limitations on Palestinian sovereignty, renunciation of any further claims, and the definitive end of conflict — without even a mention of the "right of return" or a restriction on Israel’s right to determine unilaterally how many and which Palestinians will be allowed to move to Israel.

So what is the problem? It is that neither the authoritative government nor the majority of opinion on either side is ready for it.

In Israel, most people either oppose the Israeli concessions under any circumstances or are not prepared to make them as long as they have no confidence in the other side’s willingness to live up to its part of the bargain.

And for Palestinians, the only thing that appears attractive about a deal that involves renouncing a 100-year national narrative is the fact that it is so distasteful to so many Israelis. So even if it provokes a long-delayed serious debate on both sides, this deal is not going to happen, at least not for a long while.

Consequently, the question of how to relate to this draft agreement has to be considered simultaneously with the question of what to do in the meantime. For Israel, that means what to do about ongoing terrorism until negotiations start and even while they proceed. The answer is: everything that makes the counter-terrorism campaign easier, more efficient in the use of national resources, and more effective. That includes the same measures currently employed (patrols, ambushes, preemptive attacks, targeted killings of terrorists); you can fight and talk at the same time.

Secondly, it includes acceleration of work on the fence. But it also means evacuating the most remote and exposed civilian positions beyond the fence, including places like Itamar, Kiryat Arba, Netzarim, and Gush Katif.

These places have no negotiating value, because their location already makes their evacuation a foregone conclusion if any agreement is ever to be reached. In other words, eventually giving them up is a necessary condition for peace.

Is it also a sufficient condition? Almost certainly not. So why give them up even before the price has to be paid? Not because they are the cause of terrorism — there was terrorism before these settlements existed, before the occupation began, even before the State of Israel came into being.

The reason is because they are a day-to-day burden in the struggle to minimize the "successes" of the terrorists. Because they demand the continuous investment of more manpower, more money and more lives in order to hold onto something that — unlike Metulla or Eilat or Tel Aviv — can be kept only on condition that the war goes on forever.

The strongest argument against evacuation of such places before a political agreement is reached is that it will be interpreted by Palestinians as a victory for terrorism, that is, an incentive to intensify the terrorism in order to secure even more victories.

That sounds like an intuitively appealing argument, but it is impossible to prove. Indeed, in a situation where Palestinian suicide bombers are blowing themselves up every chance they get, it is difficult to imagine how the motivation of terrorists could go even higher. On the other hand, the opportunity for them to act would decline as the most exposed and vulnerable targets are withdrawn — not just the few dozen families in a place like Netzarim, but the battalion of troops needed to guard them.

It isn’t possible to know if a virtual agreement such as the Geneva Initiative can be turned into a real agreement with the Palestinians unless the government itself tries to find out. And until it does, the "peace‘ plank of its ’peace and security" platform will remain a dead letter.

Meanwhile, it could at least put ideology aside and do something more effective about the "security" plank.