The Disengagement Plan initiated by Israel is a bold move on the part of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon given that the this former military General, known to be an uncompromising hardliner, had for over four decades been the main force behind Israeli settlement construction in lands claimed by the Palestinians for their future State. And despite vehement opposition - including accusations that he was betraying the settlers and attempts by hard-liners to topple him Sharon has pushed ahead with the withdrawal plan. For Jewish settlers it has been a time of emotional outpouring faced with imminent eviction. Men cut their shirts with scissors-a traditional sign of mourning in Judaism. Some irate settlers employed Nazi-era imagery – including stars of David on their T-shirts - to protest their forcible removal by troops. As the soldiers arrived, settlers shouted at them: “Nazi!” “Refuse orders!” and “Jews don’t expel Jews.” The pull-out from Gaza must indeed be a painful step but one that is eventually necessary for the Israeli nation to ensure security while allowing the aspiration of the Palestinians for a separate State.
The disengagement plan must be seen within the broader context of the long drawn conflict situation in West Asia. Not only is it a region of importance in a geo-political sense–a meeting ground of three continents, Asia, Europe and Africa with the presence of large deposits of oil reserves–but it is also the birth place of Islam, Christianity and Judaism. Further the creation of Israel in 1948 had led to wide spread resentment in the Arab world with persistent hostility between the Arabs and Jews. Atop these the Palestine problem continues to elude a solution. Many analysts in the region also say that there was a direct causative link between the Israeli policy of building and expanding settlements in the West Bank and Gaza strip and Palestinian violence.
In the longer term, most agree, Gaza’s isolation and poverty must be eased if it is to stop being a breeding ground for militants. While Israel says its pullout represents an end to its occupation of Gaza, and that it will consider the area to be foreign territory in which Tel Aviv has no jurisdiction, Palestinians contend that this will not be true until Israel relinquishes control of Gaza’s sea and air space and allows the free movement of goods and people. That part of the arrangement must be worked out by the two sides if any uncertainty is to be removed on nature of borders in this region.
The evacuation of 8,500 Jewish settlers from Gaza and 500 from the northern West Bank, in reality marks the first time Israel is abandoning land the Palestinians want for a future state. It must be remembered that this land for peace deal was written into the historic Oslo Accord signed in 1993 by Nobel laureates Yitztak Rabin and Yasser Arafat.
Whether this can lead to new peacemaking also depends largely on Palestinians’ ability to rein in militants, Israeli willingness to negotiate a solution rather than impose an agenda, and the Bush administration’s willingness to play a greater role at mediation.
While the Palestinians may have gained from the intifada to the extent that the world has come to recognize the centrality of the settlement issue, for Israel it derives home the point that it did enjoy greater measure of security when it was dealing with the Palestinians than when it was trying to crush them. For Israeli and Palestinians though the big challenge is to not allow extremists on either side to derail the land for peace agreement which is the only sensible policy in solving their conflict.
