Communist Party of Israel (CPI)

Why We Reject Sharon’s 'Disengagement Plan.' Giving simple and superficial answers to complex situations is potentially dangerous, especially at the time of a historic turning point. In complex conditions complex answers are called for, that examine what lies behind what is apparent to the eye, in order to evaluate the historical political and social events as they unravel. We must examine the dynamics of the political arena, and to take into account the international relations as well as the strategic interests of the Israeli rulers and the American government. These were our guidelines when we decided on our stand regarding Sharon’s plan, the so-called 'plan for disengagement from the Gaza strip', and how the MKs of Maki-Hadash should vote in the Knesset this week on Sharon’s plan.

From Camp David to Oslo

The Communist Party of Israel, which supported the Partition Plan in November 1947, has since then put forward a comprehensive solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The CPI however is not a passive bystander who waits until the complete and just solution is implemented, but supports all plans and steps that move forward, even partially, in the direction of such an overall and just solution.

The positions adopted by the CPI (Maki) in all the years of its activity have been sharp and clear. The CPI, together with its partners in Hadash, were able to distinguish between political processes which had the potential to bring closer a political solution and a just peace, and those which hindered and prevented such a solution.

Maki and Hadash have always categorically demanded that all the occupied territories Palestinian, Egyptian and Syrian be evacuated. When the Camp David agreements of 1979 were on the agenda, Maki and Hadash opposed them because they linked the withdrawal from the Sinai peninsula with the rejection of a just solution of the Palestinian problem. In the Camp David agreements with Egypt it was declared that the Palestinian people had no right to self-determination in its sovereign state, but only to autonomy under the protection of Israel and the surrounding states. The Camp David agreements, although they included the dismantling of settlements and the evacuation of settlers, became an obstacle to furthering the peace process and enabled the war against Lebanon to be launched in 1982, which Sharon saw as a vital stage in his plan to put an end to the Palestinian problem and to eliminate the national leadership of the Palestinian people.

The Oslo agreements, on the other hand, signed by the Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and the PLO Chairman Yasir Arafat, received our support even though they did not include all the basic demands of Maki and Hadash, because they furthered the goal of a just and endurable solution.

We criticized the plan for its 'solution in stages,' leaving the crucial issues till the final stage of the negotiations. But we supported the agreements and played a crucial role in their ratification, as part of the parliamentary block that backed Rabin. Public opinion polls in Israel have shown again and again that most of the Israeli public agrees to evacuation of settlements in the framework of a political settlement. But Sharon, who would like most of the settlements to remain permanently, has responded with his plan of disengagement from Gaza, which includes the evacuation of some settlements. In this way Sharon is trying to give the impression that he is drawing conclusions [from the failure of the military option] but in fact he is blocking the way towards renewal of political negotiations, evacuation of settlements and reaching a peace settlement.

In order to market his plan, Sharon is exploiting the political situation in Israel in which there is no sufficiently strong political force to offer a political alternative. The Labor Party, which is hardly felt, bows before Sharon and offers no political alternative. The most it can offer is to replace the extreme right-wing parties in Sharon’s government and to assist him to carry out the disengagement plan, which doesn’t include ending the occupation even in Gaza.

Sharon’s disengagement plan, if executed, will turn all of the Gaza Strip into one big prison camp, dominated on all sides, from the air, sea and land, by the Israeli army. The resolution submitted to the Knesset by Sharon’s government contains an explicit clause which states that even after the evacuation, Israel reserves the right of military intervention in Gaza whenever it considers necessary. Thus Sharon’s plan does not imply the end of Israeli occupation of the Gaza Strip, but an attempt by the Prime Minister to disclaim all responsibility as the occupying power for the daily conditions of life of the Palestinians in Gaza living under Israeli occupation.

It is important to emphasize that Sharon’s plan is not a part of a political process, but instead is an attempt to replace any political process, now or in the future. This plan is not a step towards ending the occupation in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, but is a framework for strengthening the settlements, deepening the oppression and implementing the plan of the 'bantustans.'

And behold, destructive as it is, Sharon has managed to make use of his plan in order to win international support for his policy and has even gained the support of parts of the Israeli peace camp for the legitimacy of perpetuating blocks of settlements in the West Bank.

Sharon’s plan is not a step towards establishing an independent Palestinian state, but rather an attempt to bury the very idea, to bury the historic solution we have advocated all these years. In the plan there is no step towards returning to negotiations, but rather an attempt to extract support for the claim that there is no Palestinian partner, at any rate not in this generation, and of course one cannot reach a solution without such a partner.

Israel’s Role In The American Strategy

Sharon’s advisors and various commentators have noted that the disengagement plan was conceived as a consequence of the Geneva Initiative, with the purpose of undermining the basic component of the initiative. As opposed to the attempt of the couple Barak-Sharon to prove that there is no partner for a peace settlement, the Geneva Initiative on the contrary has promoted a dialogue at the heart of which there is the assertion that both peoples constitute partners for peace, and that there is a basis and a political platform for an agreed political solution.

The disengagement plan is an additional attempt to stamp out the idea that there is a Palestinian partner. It is an attempt to prevent the spreading of public awareness that there is a basis for a political solution that accords with the interests of both peoples. Here is the real dividing line between the support of Maki-Hadash for the Geneva Initiative with all its limitations, and its opposition to Sharon’s plan, with all its talk about dismantling settlements and withdrawal from Gaza.

What Sharon is seeking is not to end the occupation. Don’t dare to mention such a thing. What he wants is to preserve the occupation and to create more convenient conditions to continue to oppress the Palestinian people and to expand the settlements. Sharon is striving to remove from the agenda a Palestinian state and the national rights of the Palestinian people.

Even now Sharon is planning to put the blame for all future disasters on the Palestinian people, by preparing in advance the alibi that 'Israel did everything that she could.' Thus, just as the Camp David agreements were a prelude to the Lebanon war, under the deceitful slogan of 'Peace for the Galilee war', so too will the disengagement plan turn out to be a prelude to extending the occupation and to unleash new wars in the region, as part of Israel’s role in the American global strategy.

It is not by chance that one of the clauses in the proposed resolution tabled by Sharon in the Knesset contains Bush’s declaration recognizing the settlement blocks, his stand at the side of Israel 'in her war against terror,' and his assertion that the right of return would apply only to the Palestinian state. One of the most dangerous aspects of Sharon’s plan is that it is a link in the plan of the American government for global hegemony. The American administration does not consider a true solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to be in her interest. The opposite is true. The administration builds on the services of Israel to place the region at the mouth of a volcano, while creating the impression that the USA is applying pressure to reach a settlement. Hence the support of the American administration for the unilateral plans of Sharon’s government.

Prof. Bradley Thayer of the University of Minnesota has published a research work entitled: 'American peace and the Middle East the greater American strategic interests after September 11' (published by the Begin-Saadat Institute, University of Bar-Ilan). In his work Prof. Thayer notes: 'The USA should appear as if she is doing very much to calm down the conflict without in fact taking any step that could compromise the security considerations of Israel. Like the Red Queen in the pack of cards in ‘Alice in Wonderland’, who finds herself running faster but always remaining in the same place, so too is the USA obliged to defend Israel’s security, while giving the impression of applying pressure to both sides to accept the ‘road-map’.

The absence of a Palestinian partner in the disengagement plan; the absence of pressure from the bulk of the Israeli peace camp, which is busy bestowing compliments on Sharon; the absence of an American policy interested in achieving a peaceful solution in the foreseeable future; together with what appears to Sharon as a historic opportunity to put an end to a political solution, to block the establishment of a Palestinian state and to preserve the occupation all these oblige us to foresee the coming war, which is discernible in the features of the of the disengagement plan. It is our duty warn in advance, so that we will all know who is responsible for its outbreak.



--Issam Makhoul is the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Israel and Member of Knesset.



» Find more of the online edition.