GUSH SHALOM pob 3322, Tel-Aviv 61033 http://www.gush-shalom.org
International release
Tel-Aviv - July 2, 2003.
Will something come of it? Evaluation by Adam Keller
"Will it will work this time? Maybe, just maybe". You can hear it from Israelis and from Palestinians, from committed
peace activists to shop- keepers who had voted for Sharon: a mixture of hope and scepticism, still prevalent on the
third day of the fragile "hudna" - Arabic for "cease- fire ", a concept drawn from an ancient Islamic tradition which
has in the past year entered into day to day Hebrew.
Israelis and Palestinians, we have all seen it before - promising ceasefires broken into terrible scenes of bloodshed,
partial withdrawals which ended with the tanks coming back even more brutally, prisoners released and arrested again.
Can it possibly end differently, this time around?
The reasons for scepticism are many and obvious. The Israeli military commanders make no secret of not having wanted
this cease-fire - which is potentially more dangerous than the Palestinian rogue groups who so far defy the cease-fire.
(Ironically, they are not drawn from Islamic militants, but from outlying groups of the Fatah organization, the central
structure of which was all too successfully targeted by the IDF.)
There is a fundamental difference of opinion on what the whole thing is about. Sharon, his ministers and his generals
are stridently demanding the disarming and dismantling of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad. In this demand, which would
inevitably entail a full-scale Palestinian civil war, Sharon seems to be backed by the Bush Administration. For their
part, the Palestinians have undertaken to enforce the cease-fire and prevent attacks on Israelis, including attacks on
soldiers and settlers - which was among Palestinians a long-debated point. But they also made abundantly clear that they
have no intention whatsoever of presenting Sharon with the spectacle of bloody battles among Palestinians in the streets
of Gaza.
Assuming that this major hurdle will be somehow overcome, a far more fundamental discrepancy remains unresolved. When
Sharon speaks of "a Palestinian State", he means a truncated series of enclaves embracing no more than half of the the
West Bank, and surrounded on all sides by Israeli-held territory studded with military camps and settlements. Hardly a
"viable state" as envisaged in the famous Roadmap. In furtherance of that aim, Sharon is continuing full ahead with
settlement construction, fully authorized by the government and paid for from its budget - while the much-trumpeted
"dismantling of unauthorized settlement outposts" has dwindled into unconvincing farce. Moreover, Sharon is busily
marking out his version of the eventual border in the form of the so-called Separation Fence ("Apartheid Wall" as the
Israeli and Palestinian protesters call it). Day by day, as this monster advances across fields and olive orchards,
Palestinian villagers continue to lose their land and livelihood - notwithstanding the public expression of displeasure
by National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice.
Why still feel even a bit of hope? Not just because people are alive who might be dead otherwise, nor just because some
manifestations of the occupation such as roadblocks in the Gaza Strip have been moved away.
What is far more significant is the general feeling on both sides that the military option has been tried to the full
and beyond. No Israeli general could point to significant results to be expected from continuing to hold down the
Palestinian population. Nor can Palestinian militants credibly promise any good result of further suicide bombings. The
two societies are exhausted; the two economies ravaged. Palestinian poverty goes much deeper but also more and more
Israelis are unable to make ends meet.
As many commentators remark, the "War of a Thousand Days" is ending - if it is indeed ending - in a stalemate, with no
clear victor. Considering the enormous discrepancy in economic and military power such a result is an enormous tribute
to Palestinian endurance and steadfastness.
In a way, the very scepticism on both sides could turn out to be a blessing. One of the inbuilt failures of "Oslo" was
that a preliminary agreement which left the most important issues open, was ceremoniously presented as peace had already
been reached. Everything thereafter could hardly be anything but a let-down. This time, with expectations extremely low
among Israelis and Palestinians alike - any surprises would have to be for the good.
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