Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's announcement that he plans to dismantle Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip, as well as some settlements in the West Bank, has shocked and caught people off guard both in Israel and around the world. Many denounced Sharon's plan as a trick.
Despite the way it often looks to outsiders, debates in Israel about the future of the occupied territories have never been confined to hawks and doves. Like everything in Israel, the process is more complicated, especially where the hawks are concerned.
Basically, there are two species of Israeli hawks: call one kind ideological and the other strategic.
Ideological hawks view the occupied territories as an integral part of the historical Land of Israel, the homeland of the Jewish people. For them, the territories are part of the Jewish patrimony, which is why they insist on referring to the West Bank by its Hebrew historical appellation -- Judea and Samaria.
Not all ideological hawks are religious, although those who are base their claim on divine promises and prophecies. But many ideological hawks are secular nationalists, and their jargon is similar to that of typical Central and Eastern European nationalists. Former prime minister Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir belonged to that category.
Ideological hawks usually come from the National-Religious Party and from members of the Likud. They are inspired by the nationalist ideology connected with Vladimir Jabotinsky, who founded "Revisionist" Zionism as a challenge to the more moderate version espoused by Israel's founding fathers, like Chaim Weizmann and David Ben-Gurion.
Then there are the strategic hawks. For them, given Israel's narrow and vulnerable geographic shape and continuing Arab enmity, controlling the West Bank and Gaza is not an ideological imperative, but is driven by security considerations. For them, Jewish settlements in the territories are not a return to historical lands, but security outposts, aimed at preventing -- or repelling from a better strategic position -- an attack on the Israeli heartland.
They may be right or wrong in this assessment, but it is not an ideological one. Sharon, who comes from a military background -- he grew up in a social milieu much nearer to Labor than to Jabotinsky's ideas -- is a strategic hawk.
For ideological hawks, compromises are treason: how can you jeopardize the historical patrimony of the Jewish people, let alone God's promise to Abraham?
Strategic hawks, however, are open to practical bargains and compromises -- if the circumstances are right and if the security considerations justify it in their eyes.
It is in this context that Sharon's moves should be seen. He was elected on the promise that he would bring peace and security. He has brought neither. With the defeat and demise of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, the danger of an "Eastern front" against Israel has diminished. Absent a Palestinian partner, and given continuing Palestinian terrorism -- which Israel's harsh responses fail to quell -- what Sharon appears to be doing now follows from his strategy-oriented thinking: set up an effective barrier, move some of the isolated and strategically untenable settlements and wait for another day.
If one follows Sharon's statements in the last year, a clear pattern emerges. First, he admitted that "eventually" a Palestinian state would emerge -- something unthinkable for dyed-in-the-wool ideological hawks. A few months later, he scandalized his own Likud party conference by stating that occupation is wrong and untenable -- another shock for those who always speak of "liberated" rather than "occupied" territories. Last December, he explicitly stated that Israel is headed towards unilateral disengagement, and that this would entail the "relocation" of some settlements.
Although this was still merely verbiage, it was novel language for a Likud prime minister. Sharon's latest statements, though, explicitly specified the settlements to be evacuated; the director of the National Security Council, General Giora Eiland, was appointed to chair an inter-ministerial Relocation Committee and work out plans for conducting the evacuations, including compensation for relocated settlers.
All of this has radically altered Israel's domestic political map. Some ideological hawks in Sharon's government threatened to resign; Shimon Peres announced that Labor will offer Sharon a parliamentary safety net; there is even talk about Labor joining a national unity government.
The test, of course, is not in the planning, but in the implementation of withdrawal, and the road is long and bumpy. Sharon's timing may have been determined by his problems with police investigations into alleged corruption. Yet anyone who would like to predict Sharon's future behavior should remember that unlike Begin and Shamir, Sharon comes from the military, and for him security -- not ideology -- is supreme. So his apparent pragmatism should come as no surprise.
Shlomo Avineri, professor of political science at the Hebrew University, was director-general of Israel's Foreign Ministry in the Labor-led government of Yitzhak Rabin.
Copyright: Project Syndicate
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