A momentous moment
In all the clamor over the election, too little attention has been paid to the Israeli-Palestinian confrontation, the source of so much tumult and bloodshed in the Middle East. Nobody is spelling out what the Arab states--and the European Community--need to do following Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's unprecedented plan to withdraw from 21 settlements so as to create a completely separate Gaza Strip that could be run entirely by the Palestinians within a year, with the Israeli infrastructure intact. Sharon's plan, now approved by the parliament, also includes pulling out of a section of the northern West Bank and is the first step in a larger disengagement-and-withdrawal plan--a clear signal that Israel is serious about achieving a two-state solution.
Sharon, the patriarch of the settlements, has confounded his critics by proposing what no previous prime minister has ever done. But he is paying a price. His coalition is in tatters, his party divided, and he must now rely on a hate-addled Egypt to police the southern part of Gaza. Hamas and Palestinian radicals want to smuggle in longer-range Katyusha rockets to bomb towns deeper inside Israel or from deeper in Gaza, as well as antiaircraft and antitank weapons to limit Israel's capacity to respond to attackers--the only tactic that has proved even moderately successful.
Success--or failure. What is the matter with these terrorists? Every time an Israeli concession is made, they respond with more indiscriminate maiming and killing. Which, in turn, forces Israeli peaceniks to the right. Why is it that when an Israeli prime minister, at great political cost, decides to turn over control of Gaza, the Palestinians go on another rampage in the very areas destined for evacuation?
The reasons are simple: Yasser Arafat and Hamas. Arafat, because he never cooperates unless it is clear all decisions are his; Hamas, because, like other die-hard rejectionists, its members simply don't accept the existence of a Jewish state anywhere in the region.
Gaza is thus a critical challenge for the Palestinians. Can they break free from a corrupt, law-breaking regime and accomplish what has not been accomplished since the peace accords negotiated in Oslo a decade ago? Whether the Palestinians can meet the challenge will be determined by success or failure in six key areas:
1. Palestinian security forces must be placed under central control with an international monitoring presence to prevent their becoming a terrorist base.
2. The Arab countries, with Egypt in the lead, must persuade radical groups, especially Hamas, to abjure violence.
3. The European Union and the world--especially the Arab oil countries--must organize investment sufficient to sustain Gaza's economy--and supervise it so that money is not siphoned off by graft or to radical groups like Hamas.
4. Both the Arab and the European communities must emphasize that if Israel is not afforded an orderly withdrawal or a peaceful neighbor that doesn't resort to rocket or mortar launchings against Israeli towns--forcing an Israeli return to Gaza--all aid will be cut off.
5. They must support the moderates within the Gaza community, many of whom are willing to push back against Arafat's Palestinian Authority, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad.
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