Sharon's Plan Decoded

by Uri Avnery

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's speech on Dec. 19, 2003 called for the unilateral disengagement of Israel from Palestine. The speech caused much confusion in the U.S. as to its meaning. A few days later, Uri Avnery, a former member of the Israeli parliament and a co-founder of the Israeli peace bloc, wrote a clarifying interpretation of Sharon's speech.

An excerpt from Avnery's interpretation is offered below. The full article is at www.gush-shalom.org/archives/article282.html.

Palestinians in Qalqilya flee from the draconian "security wall" Israel is building to enclose all of the West Bank after Israel soldiers threw a tear gas grenade on Dec. 27, 2003.

SHARON'S PLAN

The name of the game is Hitnatkut ("cutting ourselves off"). Meaning: most of the West Bank area will become de facto a part of Israel, and the rest we shall leave to the Palestinians, who will be enclosed in isolated enclaves. From these enclaves, the settlements will be removed.

Stage One: The army will have to occupy and fortify new lines, while "relocating" dozens of isolated settlements. We shall finish the "separation fence," and it will play a major part in the new deployment. We shall develop the "settlement blocs," to which we shall transfer the settlers who will be relocated.

While we quietly prepare the big operation, we shall continue to flatter President Bush and praise his idiotic Road Map. At the same time we shall pretend to seek negotiations with the Palestinians. When we are ready to go, we shall terminate the contacts, declare the Road Map dead and state sorrowfully that all our efforts to start peace negotiations have failed because of Arafat.

Stage Two: By then, the "separation wall" will be ready. The Palestinians will be surrounded on all sides. In practice there will be about a dozen isolated pockets. The army will withdraw gradually to the separation barrier and redeploy in the territories that will be annexed to Israel. Altogether, more than half the West Bank. In line with the American proposal, we shall call the Palestinian enclaves "a Palestinian State with Temporary Borders." But, of course, the "separation wall" will be the final border.

AVNERY'S COMMENTARY

Beneath the road to the implementation of the Sharon Plan there lie two big landmines: the settlers and the Palestinians.

The inhabitants of the settlements that are supposed to be "relocated" include some of the most extreme elements of the settlement movement. They will have to be removed by force.

The Palestinians will see the execution of a plan that they believe, quite rightly, to be a device for the destruction of the national aims of the Palestinian people. Clearly there will be no place in the Palestinian enclaves for returning refugees (not to mention any return of refugees to Israel itself). To call this structure a "Palestinian State" is a joke in bad taste.

Therefore, the Palestinians will fight against this plan, and their struggle will intensify the more it progresses. Probably, the violent fight will spill over into many other countries around the world, both on the ground and in the air. There will be no peace, no security.

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