Last update - 00:00 22/06/2007
Focus on the West Bank
By Yoel Marcus
Remember Steven Spielberg's moving film "Saving Private Ryan"? You could say that Ehud Olmert has returned from Washington with the mission of "Saving Chairman Abu Mazen."
In retrospect, it is clear that both Ariel Sharon and President George Bush were wrong. Sharon's mistake was unilateral disengagement from Gaza. He believed, as many of us did, that the Palestinians would rehabilitate Gaza. He thought they would build apartment buildings for the refugees, and establish tourist attractions along the coast, as the Egyptians did in Sinai. Sharon never imagined that the territory we evacuated would become a launching pad for attacks on Israel.
If he were conscious now, maybe he would say: "So Arabs are killing Arabs. What does that have to do with us?" It would never have occurred to him that one of the most vicious civil wars ever seen in these parts would erupt there. And yet Israel cannot be neutral when Arabs are killing Arabs. We cannot dismiss it as "their business and none of ours." In the eyes of the world, everything that happens in the territories is our responsibility.
Bush's mistake was insisting on importing democracy to the Middle East, Gaza included, before there were signs of stability. We did not cause what is happening in Gaza, and we could not have stopped the lunacy there. It is part of a process that is raging now all over the Islamic world. Wherever you find pockets of Islamic fundamentalism, the Koran as the code of law and qadis ruling the roost, bringing in democratic procedures is "from the devil," as the Arabs like to say. This is what the Gulf states, which have secular regimes, are afraid of. Their motto is: "Be a good Muslim at home, but not in the government."
Israel, and especially Bush, sped up democracy in the territories, never imagining that Hamas would win the elections. That is how Israel woke up one morning and found itself not with a partner for an agreement, but face to face with a fanatic enemy. Professor Bernard Lewis said that in parts of the world where Islamic fundamentalism reigns, there is no place for democracy.
My late colleague, Ze'ev Schiff, with whom I shared a room at Haaretz and whom I loved like a brother, could not understand how powerful, self-confident Israel could be beaten day after day by Qassam rockets fired at Sderot. "The enemy that defeated Sderot is a terror organization that is militarily weak," he wrote in his last article, "yet in spite of its weakness, it has managed to achieve a state of mutual deterrence vis-a-vis Israel similar to that achieved by Hezbollah." Moreover, David Ben-Gurion's strategic principle of quickly moving combat into enemy territory has been struck from the books. "Now it is the enemy who is shifting combat into Israeli territory," Schiff wrote.
Hamas-controlled Gaza is in a serious state of crisis. Olmert announced in Washington that we have no intention at the moment of launching a wide-scale ground operation. At the same time, we cannot allow political progress to screech to a halt because of Hamas, as that would only encourage it to slip into the West Bank and use it as a base for suicide bombings in the heart of the country.
We did not cause the showdown in Gaza and could not prevent it. But in the wake of the horrifying killings in Gaza and the humiliating blow suffered by Fatah, Israel must ensure that what is happening in Gaza does not spread to the West Bank. That is what Bush was referring to when he said that moderate elements in the West Bank need strengthening.
Israeli cabinet ministers are wrong to keep saying that we have no partner for an agreement. They are foolish to keep repeating the mantra that PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas is weak. The government must choose two routes right now: generosity and dialogue. Israel should invite the Palestinian Authority to sit down and talk about a permanent-status agreement with international backing, and at the same time, take steps to strengthen Abu Mazen - with money, with arms, with political and military support. Israel should help turn the West Bank into a living, flourishing model of administrative order and community life, and show the inhabitants of Gaza that there is another way.
One of the most effective measures we can employ today is being generous in releasing prisoners. Minister Gideon Ezra, who has proposed freeing Marwan Barghouti, described him to me as a charismatic man who, from his jail cell, played a pivotal role in the appointment of Salam Fayyad as prime minister. This is an important posting, considering that Fatah lost the election mainly due to corruption. There is no question that letting Barghouti go, along with a few hundred other prisoners, would give Fatah and the moderates in the West Bank a much-needed boost.
Olmert once said that a prime minister does not need an agenda. Well, here is one staring him in the face: Focus on the West Bank.