Turning point in the Middle East

Brad Mayer bradley.mayer at ebay.sun.com
Wed Jul 11 18:49:20 PDT 2001


Yeah, yeah, I'm blowing my limit (along with my top), but I find this article (I believe from the Israeli press), interesting. As always, you have to read through my comments. This scenario (which may actually be in play now) requires war in the Middle East. This would coincide with Anglo-Americas' need to shore up the Iraqi sanctions regime. Hence, a strategic alignment along the Washington-London-Tel Aviv Axis. Hence this axis is the main threat to peace in the Middle East. This threat, I believe, is very real and present.

Onward, "Western Democracy", onward deeper into the bloody muck and mire!

"THE SECOND HALF OF 48"

THE SHARON-YA'ALON PLAN

By Tanya Reinhart

Official declarations and many reports in the Israeli

media indicate that the Israeli military and political

leadership are aiming, eventually, at a total

destruction of the Palestinian authority, and, with it,

the process of Oslo, which is now dominantly

considered by them a 'historical mistake'. What can

they be after? -Let us trace some of the background

for this development.

Ever since the 1967 occupation, the military and

political elites (which have been always closely

intertwined in Israel) deliberated over the question of

how to keep maximum land with minimum

Palestinian population. The leaders of the '1948

generation' - Alon, Sharon, Dayan, Rabin and Peres

- were raised on the myth of redemption of land. But

a simple solution of annexation of the occupied

territories would have turned the occupied

Palestinians into Israeli citizens, and this would have

caused what has been labeled the "demographic

problem" - the fear that the Jewish majority could not

be preserved. Therefore, two basic conceptions

were developed.

The Alon plan consisted of annexation of 35-40% of

the territories to Israel, and self-rule or partnership in

a confederation of the rest, the land on which the

Palestinians actually live. In the eyes of its

proponents, this plan represented a necessary

compromise, because they believed it is impossible

to repeat the 1948 'solution' of mass expulsion,

either for moral considerations, or because world

public opinion would not allow this to happen again.

The second conception, whose primary spokesman

was Sharon, assumed that it is possible to find more

acceptable and sophisticated ways to achieve a

1948 style 'solution' - it is only necessary to find

another state for the Palestinians. -"Jordan is

Palestine" - was the phrase that Sharon coined. So

future arrangements should guarantee that as many

as possible of the Palestinians in the occupied

territories will move there. For Sharon, this was part

of a more global world view, by which Israel can

establish "new orders" in the region - a view which

he experimented with in the Lebanon war of 1982.

In Oslo, the Alon plan route triumphed, where

gradually it became apparent that it is even possible

to extend the "Arab-free" areas. In practice, the

Palestinians have already been dispossessed of

half of their lands, which are now state lands,

security zones and "land reserves for the

settlements". However, it appeared that Israel will be

satisfied with that, and will allow the PA to run the

enclaves in which the Palestinians still reside, in

some form of self-rule which may even be called a

Palestinian 'state'. The security establishment

expressed full confidence in the ability of the

Palestinian security forces - which were created and

trained in cooperation with the Israeli ones - to

control the frustration of the Palestinians and protect

the security of the settlers and the Israeli home front.

But the victory of the Alon plan wasn't complete.

Even the little that the Palestinians did get, seemed

too much to some in the military circles, whose most

vocal spokesman in the early years of Oslo was then

chief of staff, Ehud Barak. Another consistent voice

which has emerged is that of Brigadier Moshe

(Bugi) Ya'alon, who is also known for his

connections with the settlers. As head of the military

intelligence -Ama"n- (1995-1998), Ya'alon

confronted the subsequent chief of staff, Amnon

Shahak, an Oslo supporter, and has consolidated

the anti-Oslo line which now dominates the military

intelligence view. Contradicting the position of the

security services' ('Shin Bet') and the many media

reports which praised the security cooperation

between Israel and the Palestinian authority, Ya'alon

claimed in a cabinet meeting in September 1997,

and later, that "Arafat is giving a green light to

terror".

The objection to the Oslo conception in the military

circles was based on the view that it will be

impossible to maintain such an arrangement in the

long term. If the Palestinians have a political

infrastructure and armed forces, they will eventually

try to rebel. Therefore, the only way is to overthrow

the Palestinian authority, and the whole Oslo

conception. The first step on this route is to convince

the public that Arafat is still a terrorist and is

personally responsible for the acts of all groups from

the Islamic Jihad to Hizbollah.

During Barak's days in office, Ya'alon became one

of his closets confidants in the restricted military

team which Barak has assembled to work with

(Amir Oren, Ha'aretz, Nov 17, 2000). The same

team was prepared already at the beginning of the

Intifada for a total attack on the Palestinian authority,

on both the military and the propaganda levels. On

the latter, this included the "White book" on the

crimes of Arafat and the PA. This is the same team

which is now briefing the political level, as well as

US representatives, and is responsible for the

dominance of the call for toppling the PA.

But what can they have in mind as a replacement of

the Oslo arrangements? One wave of rumors

(reported e.g.in March 9 in 'yediot') is that the IDF

plans to reinstall the Israeli military rule. But this

does not make any sense as a long term plan. The

Oslo agreements were conceived precisely

because that system could no longer work. The

burden of policing the territories was much too

heavy on the army, the reserves and the Israeli

society, and the IDF's success in preventing terror

was, in fact, much lower than that of the PA in later

years. After the Lebanon experience, and after the

seven years of Oslo, during which the Israeli society

got used to the idea that the occupation comes for

free, with the PA taking care of the settlers' security,

it is hard to imagine that anyone believes a pre-Oslo

arrangement can be reinstalled.

It is hard to avoid the conclusion that after 30 years

of occupation, the two options competing in the

Israeli power system are precisely the same as

those set by the generation of 1948: Apartheid (the

Alon- Oslo plan), or transfer - mass evacuation of the

Palestinian residents, as happened in 1948 (the

Sharon plan). Those pushing for the destruction of

the Oslo infra-structure may still believe that under

the appropriate conditions of regional escalation,

the transfer plan would become feasible.

In modern times, wars aren't openly started over

land and water. In order to attack, you first need to

prove that the enemy isn't willing to live in peace and

is threatening our mere existence. Barak managed

to do that. Now conditions are ripe for executing

Sharon's plan, or as Ya'alon put it in November

2000, for "the second half of 1948".

Before we reach that dark day, there is one option

which was never tried before: Get out of the

occupied territories immediately.



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