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DÉSENGAGEMENT ISRAÉLIEN, RÉENGAGEMENT AMÉRICAIN
plan pour Gaza, politique au Moyen
Orient
Par Zalman Shoval, ancien ambassadeur d'Israël aux Etats-Unis, ancien membre de la Knesset, a participé au 1er Camp David et aux négociations de Madrid
Article paru dans JERUSALEM VIEWPOINTS - No.
520 1-15 Juillet 2004
Résumé-traduction par Bertus www.nuitdorient.com
Le plan de désengagement de Gaza débouchera sur un modus vivendi qui pourra donner aux Palestiniens comme aux Israéliens l'opportunité de commencer à bâtir leur avenir, chacun de son côté, selon une normalité relative. Une paix réelle et contractuelle entre les parties ne peut résulter que d'un changement des mentalités, après une ou peut-être plusieurs générations.
1. Plus d'un Israélien se demande si la vision de Bush d'un état palestinien démocratique et viable, vivant en paix à côté d'Israël, n'est pas un peu trop visionnaire, du fait qu'aucun autre état arabe de la région n'a un régime démocratique. Sur le plan de la viabilité, aucun état palestinien ne peut être géographiquement viable, sauf au détriment de la viabilité de l'Etat d'Israël. Par ailleurs l'Autorité Palestinienne a démontré depuis dix ans qu'elle était incapable de gérer un état. Un état palestinien ne peut être que rattaché ou confédéré avec la Jordanie et l'Egypte.
La politique du président Bush au Moyen Orient est basée sur 3 préalables qui doivent évoluer parallèlement: la solution du conflit israélo-arabe, la victoire consolidée en Irak et des gains substantiels dans la lutte contre la terreur, évolution des pays arabes vers la réforme et la démocratie.
2. Le désengagement unilatéral de Gaza pourrait entraîner du côté palestinien une dangereuse impression de victoire, nourrissant l'illusion d'avoir tiré un avantage de la campagne de terreur menée contre Israël depuis 2000. Les Etats-Unis comme Israël doivent insister sur la réalité de la situation, en montrant qu'en aucune manière on ne peut accepter l'idée qu'un groupe puisse tirer un bénéfice quelconque, politique ou économique de la terreur.
3. Israël s'est engagé dans cette voie faute d'avoir trouvé un interlocuteur fiable dans l'Autorité Palestinienne. Le désengagement unilatéral ne signifie pas un blanc-seing donné à l'Autorité Palestinienne qui doit montrer son désir de parvenir à une paix négociée.
Du point de vue israélien, avoir un vrai partenaire de paix signifie que le leadership palestinien est capable et prêt à abandonner dans les faits l'option de la violence et de la terreur, et à démanteler l'infrastructure terroriste, à arrêter toute incitation antisémite et anti-israélienne dans les médias et dans les écoles, à accepter sur le plan idéologique l'existence d'un état juif, ainsi que la résolution 242 du Conseil de Sécurité de l'Onu (dans son libellé en anglais qui fait foi), comme base de toute négociation.
4. Aux yeux de nombreuses personnes favorables au plan de désengagement de Gaza, la principale justification de ce plan est l'assurance d'un soutien américain aux positions israéliennes, c'est à dire l'annexion de la partie de la Cisjordanie qui comprend de fortes implantations juives et l'installation des "réfugiés palestiniens" dans les lieux où ils se trouvent. Sans le soutien américain, confirmé par une "lettre" de George W Bush, il n'y aurait jamais eu de plan de désengagement. Il y a néanmoins de nombreux Israéliens qui pensent que le statu quo actuel est plus sûr qu'un désengagement, d'autant plus que le soutien américain ne s'avère pas assez "ferme".
5. La plupart des problèmes du Moyen Orient sur tous les plans, politique, économique ou social, n'ont rien à faire avec le conflit israélo-arabe. Comme le dit si bien le leader spirituel du H'ezbollah, Mohamed Fadlallah "Les régimes arabes en faillite ne survivent que grâce en partie à l'excuse du conflit israélo-arabe"
Les raisons de cet optimisme prudent sont les suivantes: les effets encore positifs sur la région de la guerre d'Irak (on entend de plus en plus de voix arabes s'élever pour revendiquer des réformes ou pour dénoncer objectivement la faillite économique et sociale de certains régimes arabes), la faillite politique de l'intifada d'Arafat et la disparition progressive de ce dernier, les succès israéliens dans la lutte anti-terroriste, un réalisme croissant du côté israélien et un réalisme naissant du côté palestinien, atténuation des menaces extérieures venant d'Irak et surtout situation de faiblesse et de désunion des pays arabes.
ISRAELI DISENGAGEMENT, U.S. RE-ENGAGEMENT
By Zalman Shoval, served as Israel's Ambassador
to the United States from 1990 to 1993 and from 1998 to 2000. A veteran member
of Israel's Knesset (1970-1981, 1988-1990), Ambassador Shoval was a senior aide
to the late Moshe Dayan during his tenure as foreign minister in the Begin
government, including during the Camp David conference, and later he
participated in the Madrid Peace Conference and served as a member of the
Israeli team negotiating with the Jordanian and Palestinian delegations. This
article is partly based on a lecture given at the Washington Institute for Near
East Policy on June 9, 2004.
JERUSALEM VIEWPOINTS - No. 520 1-15 July 2004
A modus vivendi that could give both
Palestinians and Israelis an opportunity to start going their separate ways in
relative normalcy may result from Israel's disengagement plan, while real,
contractual peace will perhaps come only after a generational change.
-More than a few Israelis are wondering whether
the Bush vision of a "democratic, viable Palestinian state" living in
peace alongside Israel isn't a bit too visionary, considering there is
not a single other Arab state in the region to which these characteristics
would apply.
-There is a danger that unilateral withdrawals
would create on the Palestinian side a false sense of having gained an
advantage over Israel as a result of their four-year terror campaign. Israel
and the U.S. will have to disabuse them of the notion that increased terror
begets increased political or economic benefits.
-From Israel's point of view, having a real
"peace partner" means a Palestinian leadership willing and able to
effectively give up the option and practice of terror and violence, dismantle
the terrorist infrastructure, stop anti-Israel and anti-Semitic incitement in
the media and in the schools, ideologically accept Israel's right to
exist as a Jewish state, and accept UN Security Council Resolution 242 as the
basis for negotiations.
-The main justification in the eyes of many of
the supporters of the Gaza withdrawal plan was assuring America's official
backing for Israel's positions in at least part of the West Bank, most of which
coincide with those "already existing major Israeli population
centers" mentioned in the Bush letter. Without such American backing,
there probably wouldn't have been a disengagement plan in the first place.
-Most of the real social, political, and
economic problems in the Middle East have nothing to do with the Palestinian
problem. As Mohammed Fadlallah, the spiritual leader of Hizballah, said:
"The failed Arab regimes survive thanks partly to the excuse of the
Arab-Israeli conflict."
A modus vivendi that could give both
Palestinians and Israelis an opportunity to start going their separate ways in
relative normalcy may result from Israel's disengagement plan, while real,
contractual peace will perhaps come only after a generational change.
The reasons for this very cautious optimism are
the following: (1) the perhaps still possible positive regional effects of the
war in Iraq; (2) a growing sense of realism amongst most Israelis - and some
Palestinians; (3) the political failure of Arafat's "intifada",
including the failure to break the backbone of the Israeli public - and
Israel's by and large successful anti-terror campaign. (4) the fact that some
of the external threats facing Israel have, at least temporarily, been reduced
by the Iraq war - while the Arab world as a whole is experiencing unprecedented
weakness and disunity; and (5) Sharon's plan for "unilateral
disengagements" - backed by the U.S. and partly by Europe.
What about the roadmap? Is it dead or just
comatose? There is no need to declare the roadmap dead, since both the U.S. and
Prime Minister Sharon have declared that it is not - plus it may come in handy
in connection with Sharon's disengagement proposal. Yet more than a few
Israelis are wondering whether the Bush vision of a "democratic, viable
Palestinian state" living in peace alongside Israel isn't a bit too
visionary, considering there is not a single other Arab state in the region to
which these characteristics would apply. In addition, there is the question of
how "viable" a Palestinian state will actually be. After all,
viability is not only a matter of territorial contiguity. The way the
Palestinian Authority has functioned over the last ten years looks more like a prequel
to future Palestinian misgovernance. For it to have any chance, I would expect
there will ultimately have to be some sort of a Palestinian federal or
confederal tie-up with Jordan.
The Bush administration's policy towards the
Middle East, as I understand it, was based on a "tripod" of separate
but interrelated subjects: Victory in Iraq and the pursuit of the war against
terror; an effort to try to reform and democratize the Arab world; and
"solving" the Arab-Jewish conflict. The link between Iraq and the
Palestinian-Israeli equation was based on the assumption that part of the
Palestinian leadership and people understood - some hopefully, some fearfully -
that only with the support of the undisputed powerhouse in the region, America,
would the Palestinians have a chance to realize even part of their aspirations.
The danger in this was that if any of the tripod's legs failed, the whole
structure would come tumbling down.
The peoples of the Middle East, including the
Palestinians, who during the Clinton administration had mostly regarded the
U.S. as a "paper tiger," at first looked in awe, though not always
with glee, at America's decisive military victory over Saddam Hussein. But if,
as a result of the problems America faces in Iraq today, this perception should
change - or worse, if the U.S. should cut and run, though I don't believe this
will occur whatever happens in November - this would lead not only to a
radicalization of Palestinian positions, but also to an upsurge in
worldwide terror. Arafat's media already applaud every act of violence against
the coalition in Iraq. The perception of who wins in Iraq will have a huge
impact on the rest of the Moslem world and, in particular, on the ability of al-Qaeda
to spread its terror.
At the same time, a nuclear and
terror-supporting Iran is of great and growing concern. One wonders how much of
the momentum that existed initially to deal with this problem is still there.
Syria remains an additional focus of concern that wasn't dealt with when it
might have been. Syria has now become an active supplier of arms, and not just
a conduit, to Hizballah, is an active supporter of al-Qaeda in Iraq, and is
probably a willing depository of part of Saddam Hussein's money and WMD as
well.
Why
Unilateral Disengagement?
For a long time there has been a growing
sentiment in Israel to unilaterally create a de-facto situation of separation
on the ground - geographically, demographically, and economically. The main
thrust of the Sharon plan calls for a complete withdrawal of all Israeli
civilians and military from the Gaza Strip and from four small settlements in
northwestern Samaria - except from the "Philadelphi" corridor
separating Gaza from Sinai where the army would remain for the time being.
All this is to be started by March 2005 and concluded by the end of that year.
There will be different ministerial and professional committees to deal with
the technical, legal, and economic implications of the withdrawal, some of which
are already functioning. There is no formal sequencing or formal
conditionality with regard to what the Palestinians will or won't do - but nor
is it a blank cheque to the Palestinians.
There is a danger that unilateral withdrawals
would create on the Palestinian side a false sense of having gained an
advantage over Israel as a result of their four-year terror campaign. Israel,
both militarily and politically, and the U.S., diplomatically and financially,
will have to disabuse them of the notion that increased terror begets
increased political or economic benefits.
Why act unilaterally? The answer is that not
only does Israel not have a negotiating partner, but at this time one cannot
realistically envision a formula for a final, formal peace agreement that would
be acceptable to both Israel and the Palestinians. Therefore, the argument
goes, the way to deal with this impasse and not to allow the situation to
continue to drift is for Israel to try to move ahead, establishing physical
security lines and deciding for itself, with American backing, what is
important in the long run. The de facto situation thus established could
eventually be superseded by de jure, permanent arrangements, once
conditions become more propitious.
Actually, unilateral disengagement could pave
the way to formal agreements in the future, as there may be Palestinian leaders
who, while being loath to sign formal agreements with Israel, could
accept de facto arrangements - this being a step toward statehood -
without obligating either side to finally and formally renounce their
respective positions with regard to a future permanent status agreement,
including such tricky issues as Jerusalem and final borders.
Though the plan is referred to as "unilateral
disengagement," there is, of course, an element of multilateralism
about it. There are agreements with the U.S., there is indirect leverage on the
Palestinians, and there are possible roles to be played by the
"Quartet," Egypt, and Jordan.
Most Israelis, conditioned by more than 100 years
of Arab terror, violence, and violations of all previous agreements, are now
inclined to be skeptical about negotiations and agreements with the
Palestinians. It is not only because of the failure of Oslo and of the debגcle at Camp David and Taba, both of which resulted in an upsurge of
terrorism, but also because they see little evidence that there exists anywhere
on the Arab side a significant body of opinion which has ideologically
recognized the Jewish state's right to exist. That perception was
reinforced not only by Arafat's non-response to the Clinton-Barak proposals,
but also when a Palestinian public opinion poll showed that even if Israel were
to make all the far-reaching concessions envisaged in Yossi Beilin's so-called
"Geneva Accord," only 25 percent of Palestinians thought this would
suffice to put an end to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
From Israel's point of view, having a real
"peace partner" or "negotiating partner" means, in the
first place, that there must be a Palestinian leadership willing and able, once
and for all, to genuinely and effectively give up the option and practice of
terror and violence, dismantle the terrorist infrastructure, stop anti-Israel and
anti-Semitic incitement in the media and in the schools, and ideologically
accept Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state. This also means a Palestinian
partner that accepts the principles of UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and
338 in all their aspects, and not just in the narrow-based Soviet-French-Arab
interpretation, as the basis for negotiations on permanent status.
The supposedly imminent "demographic
threat" to Israel is more of a psychological and political concern than an
actual reality. Yes, there are about three and a half million Arabs in the
territories, plus a million and a quarter Israeli Arabs, compared to five and a
half million Israeli Jews. The gap is probably going to narrow in the coming
years, though not as quickly as some people say. But few Israelis and none of
the major political parties see the future of most of the territories and their
Arab inhabitants as being an integral part of the State of Israel.
There exists a theory, not totally implausible,
that one of the reasons why Arafat seems to be less than enthusiastic about
becoming the president of a Palestinian mini-state is his hope that by
perpetuating the present situation, the concept of a separate Palestinian state
would ultimately be replaced by the idea of "one state for two
peoples" - or, in other words, the end of Israel as a Jewish state. He
apparently believes he can wait till then.
I realize that there are some people,
especially on the anti-Semitic fringes in Europe, like former French Socialist
prime minister and present member of the European Parliament Michel Rocard, who
recently declared that the establishment of the State of Israel was "a
mistake." They would like Israel to go away, and thus piously declare how
wonderful for peace in the world the idea of "one state for two
peoples" would be.
In his letter to Prime Minister Sharon,
President Bush said that Israel "must have secure and recognized
borders," adding that "in light of new realities on the ground, including
already existing major Israeli population centers, it is unrealistic to
expect...a full and complete return" to pre-1967 borders, adding that
"it is realistic to expect that any final status agreement will only be
achieved on the basis of mutually agreed changes that reflect these
realities." On the matter of Palestinian refugees, Bush wrote:
"It seems clear that an agreed, just, fair, and realistic framework for a
solution to the Palestinian refugee issue [would require] the settling of
Palestinian refugees in a Palestinian state, rather than in Israel."
There are three significant components to the
American side of the disengagement plan: (1) the relationship between the large
"settlement blocs," or, as they are called in the Bush letter,
"major Israeli population centers," and secure borders; (2) the part
about the refugees; and (3) understandings about the security fence. All in
all, the agreements and understandings which Sharon had reached in Washington
were indeed very significant, and the U.S. Congress has now also adopted them.
Most of the Israeli public supported them as well.
Michael Oren of the Shalem Center, in recent
articles in Ha'aretz and the Wall Street Journal, discussed the
issue of Gaza: "Threatened with destruction since its birth, Israel exists
thanks to an unwritten agreement between the state and its citizens. Israelis
allow the state to send them off to battle, and perhaps to die, but only when a
solid majority believes that their vital security is at stake." The
attitude of most Israelis toward Gaza is that it is not worth dying for. While
a majority of Israelis indeed want to get out of Gaza, the same majority
supports the recent military operations against weapons smuggling tunnels in
Rafah and Kassam rocket workshops elsewhere in Gaza because they also realize
that these operations, including the loss of Israeli lives, had nothing to do
with defending settlements but with preventing terror from Gaza toward Israel.
Arafat and his crowd understand that unilateral
steps by Israel could mean their ultimate political demise. The Palestinian
leadership is rightly worried not only about American support for the plan by
both Bush and Kerry, but more basically because the plan would deprive them of
their previous blackmailing and stalling tactics.
Some Israelis find it ideologically
unacceptable in principle to dismantle any settlement or give up any territory
in the Land of Israel, especially if it means removing Jews from their homes.
They may recognize rationally that there are changed realities and
requirements, but they feel themselves emotionally and morally unable to be a
party to it. Many also see it as an unjustified prize, even an inducement, to
terror. Then there are those who, no doubt genuinely, think that there is no
need to hurry, that a stalemate is actually preferable from Israel's point of
view, and that the American commitments given to Sharon will remain in force
whatever happens. All of these arguments have at least some validity.
Israel has no problem with settling permanent
status issues by negotiations, once there is a genuine Palestinian negotiating
partner. But the underlying basis for the Sharon initiative remains that the
U.S. will back Israel's positions regarding its future borders and on refugees,
especially once there are permanent status negotiations. Frankly, the main
justification in the eyes of many of the supporters of the plan for the
pull-out from Gaza was assuring America's official backing for Israel's
positions in at least part of the West Bank, most of which coincide with those
"already existing major Israeli population centers" mentioned in the
Bush letter. Without such American backing, there probably wouldn't have been a
disengagement plan in the first place.
Only of slightly lesser importance than the
territorial aspects was the president's statement about Palestinian refugees,
though one may have preferred stronger language than that "a
solution...would require the settling of Palestinian refugees in a Palestinian
state, rather than in Israel." In other words, this part of the
Bush letter isn't about the Palestinians giving up their main "bargaining
chip," as Newsweek described it, but is an absolute imperative
about which there cannot be any "bargaining" if the Palestinians want
to achieve statehood. The president's statement with regard to the refugee
issue is highly important, and it is for the Arab world, which has perpetuated
this human tragedy for cynical political and economic reasons for 56 years, to
draw conclusions from it.
It should also be obvious that settling these
third generation "refugees" in the proposed Palestinian mini-state
cannot be the full answer to the problem, and that integration in the countries
in which they live, often under inhuman conditions, must be a major part of the
solution. Without that, there will never be genuine peace and stability in the
region.
Referring to America's initiative to reform and
democratize the Arab world, the Arab world today is a region in which
international terrorism is promoted or at least tolerated; a no-growth area in
economic terms; a region which because of its internal corruption and
inadequacies could explode any day; and a region seriously affecting the demography
of Europe.
The Arab Human Development Report,
prepared by Arab scholars under the auspices of the UN, clearly and
courageously blamed the Arab condition on - the Arabs. After 9/11, this
condition has become, especially for America, a national security imperative
and an element in the war on terrorism, judging that political dysfunction and
failing, corrupt autocracies were the main reason for breeding
fundamentalist-inspired terrorism in the Arab and Moslem worlds.
Unfortunately, those who oppose the
democratization concept, and not least those autocratic leaders in the Arab and
Moslem worlds who understand that it is they who would pay the price for their
countries' becoming more democratic and less corrupt, have found a convenient subterfuge
for evading the issue: "Yes, but first there must be Middle East
peace." They ignore the fact that most of the armed conflicts in the
Middle East since World War II had nothing to do with Israel, and that none of
the real social, political, and economic problems in the greater Middle East
have got anything to do with the Palestinian problem.
Mohammed Fadlallah, the spiritual leader of
Hizballah, put this better than anyone when he said: "The failed Arab
regimes survive thanks partly to the excuse of the Arab-Israeli
conflict." It is much easier to blame U.S. "imperialism" or
Israel's "occupation" for all the Arabs' ills - conveniently
forgetting that there was a time when there was no "occupation" -
rather than acknowledging the real reasons, such as economic and political
stagnation, technological backwardness, and a culture of violence engendered by
a totalitarian interpretation of Islam in some parts of the Arab and Moslem
worlds.
Nor is this devoid, at least in some circles,
of an element of anti-Semitism. What is now fashionably called anti-Zionism or
anti-Israelism more often than not is the same old anti-Semitism in disguise.
The real problem, as Professor Bernard Lewis
has pointed out, is that in the Arab and in large parts of the Islamic worlds,
the fault for any disaster or failure is always that of someone else - the
West, the U.S., Israel, or a supposed Judeo-Christian conspiracy. They always
think of themselves as "victims." The fact that they have been left
behind by most of the rest of the world, much of it less well-endowed, in
matters economic, scientific, technological, or educational, is always someone
else's fault.
Unfortunately, viewed realistically, the
situation in the Middle East, including the basic equations with regard to the
Palestinian-Israel conflict, are not going to change quickly or significantly,
even with a "unilateral disengagement" or even if Israel were to
dismantle all the settlements and relinquish all the
"territories" to a future Palestinian state. All this would not
automatically put an end to the problems in the Middle East or to the threat of
global terrorism.
As long as sizeable parts of the Arab and
Moslem worlds do not accept the legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish state and do
not really distinguish, except for reasons of diplomatic or public relations
expediency, between the pre- and post-1967 situation, the danger of another
attempt to destroy Israel remains. In other words, no agreement about borders
can be regarded as permanent as long as the Arab world as a whole has not
reconciled itself to Israel's existence.
This does not mean that there shouldn't be a
determined effort, like the present one, to reach less than perfect solutions,
or that one couldn't find pragmatic formulae for coexistence. But it does mean
that some of the basic precepts driving Israel's policies since its inception
with regard to security - and also with regard to assuring its educational,
scientific and technological excellence, and maintaining close links with the
Jewish world and with the United States - must continue to guide Israel for
many years to come.