By MARTIN SHERMAN
What has unfolded in Gaza should not really surprise anyone willing to face up to the inclement realities. After all, it was not only entirely foreseeable, but easily foreseen
The nightmare stories of the Likud are well known. After all, they promised Katyusha rockets from Gaza as well. For a year, Gaza has been largely under the rule of the Palestinian Authority. There has not been a single Katyusha rocket. Nor will there be any Katyushas. – Yitzhak Rabin, Radio Interview, July 24, 1995.
I am firmly convinced and truly believe that this disengagement… will be appreciated by those near and far, reduce animosity, break through boycotts and sieges and advance us along the path of peace with the Palestinians and our other neighbors. – Ariel Sharon, Knesset address, October 25, 2004.
These two excerpts—from addresses made almost a decade apart—indicate just how grievously the Israeli public has been led astray for years by its elected leaders.
Distressing record of misjudgment
Indeed, there is a distressing record of documented evidence, underscoring the gross misjudgment of the senior echelons of Israel’s leadership on the “Palestinian” issue, in general, and the Gaza one, in particular.
Sadly, time and again, we have elected leaders seemingly willing to jettison every shred of prudence and principle to preserve their positions of power and privilege, even if it meant defending the most absurd policies; even if the ruinous consequences of their actions were not only eminently foreseeable, but explicitly foreseen.
The introductory citations by two past prime ministers, both with rich military backgrounds, are startling in the magnitude of their mistaken assessments.
Indeed, Rabin’s disdainful dismissal of clear and present dangers, and Sharon’s massively misguided prognosis of the political benefits that would ensue from abandoning Gaza, can hardly instill confidence in Israelis as to the competence of their leaders.
No less troubling is the display of inane imbecility seen in the debate that followed Sharon’s previously cited Knesset address, in which the disengagement plan was approved.
Indeed, some of the more embarrassingly erroneous assessments were exposed in a Channel 2 review of the vote, four years later, during Operation Cast Lead. It recorded for posterity the “pearls of wisdom” of many of the nation’s then-senior politicians – who, all at some stage, have held ministerial positions in the Israeli government.
Embarrassingly erroneous
The English-language transcript – in order of appearance—reads as follows:
Meir Sheetrit (at the time Likud transportation minister), with a marked tone of disdain: “Some claim that there will be a danger, a danger in retreating [from Gaza], a danger to the Negev communities. I have never heard such a ridiculous claim.”
Ran Cohen (Meretz, previously served as minister of industry and trade), in a voice both pompous and patronizing: “The disengagement is good for security. Right-wing representatives warned about Kassam rockets flying from here and from there. I’m telling you, if you really care about both Sderot and Ashkelon – both of them…we have to understand that if we don’t pull out of the Gaza Strip, in two to three years or even a year, the range will reach Ashkelon.”
(To Cohen’s “credit”, as someone belonging to the Left, his position did not comprise betrayal of his political credo – something the Likud MKs could not claim. His words do, however, reveal much about the “sagacity” of the Israeli Left.)
Orit Noked (subsequently agriculture minister for Ehud Barak’s Independence Party): “I want to believe that as a result of the evacuation of Gaza, the moderate Palestinian factions will be strengthened. Terrorism will be reduced. [Yeah, Right—MS.]”
Shaul Mofaz (then Likud defense minister): “I am convinced the [disengagement] process is necessary and correct. It will provide more security for the citizens of Israel, and will reduce the burden on the security forces. It will extricate the situation from its [current] stagnation and will open the door to a different reality, which will allow talks towards achieving coexistence. [And we all know how splendidly that worked out to be—MS. ]”
Embarrassing (cont.)
Ophir Paz-Pines (served as interior minister for Labor): “Before I arrived at the Knesset, I took my son to Tel Hashomer [the IDF induction center]. He received his call-up papers. I wish to thank Ariel Sharon, because he has given me and my wife hope that my son, when recruited, will not have to serve the People of Israel in the Gaza Strip.”
(Ironically, at the time of the Channel 2 broadcast, Paz- Pines’s son was in fact in Gaza, taking part in Operation Cast Lead – despite his father’s heartfelt thanks to Sharon.)
The program even caught Binyamin Netanyahu in a moment he would perhaps like to forget. For although Netanyahu is perceived as opposing the disengagement – and in fact often expressed his reservations—to his credit eventually resigning because of it – the Channel 2 camera tells a different story, or at least records a temporary lapse.
In an exchange from the Knesset floor, with the National Union’s MK Uri Ariel at the podium, Netanyahu, then finance minister, declared: “Let there be no mistake. In a referendum I will support the disengagement plan.”
The final speaker featured was Yuval Steinitz (Likud, then chairman of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, later Finance and Energy Minister). He stated: “I think this plan, given these restrictions, is appropriate. It’s not an easy plan, but it has a good chance of improving our geostrategic position.”
Then came the vote and the disengagement plan was approved by a substantial margin, 67-45. All the Likud ministers – including Netanyahu – supported it, despite being elected on a platform that urged voters to oppose an almost identical proposal, put forward by Labor chairman, Amram Mitzna, who was overwhelmingly defeated at the polls.
The myth of managing the conflict
It is with this dismal history in mind that the Israel public should evaluate the declarations and decisions of its government in the present and the future.
This is true with regard to what appears to be the underlying rationale of the current policy—or lack thereof—of “managing the conflict”.
While in some conflictual contexts, “conflict management” may have some merit, this is certainly not so in the case of the conflict with the Palestinian-Arabs in general, and in the case of Gaza in particular.
After all, the underlying rationale of conflict management is the belief that, at some unspecified time, the Palestinian-Arabs of Gaza will, for some unspecified reason, and by some unspecified process, morph into something they have not been for over 100 years—and show no signs of morphing into in the foreseeable future. (Indeed, it would be intriguing to discover just how “conflict management” enthusiasts envision dealing with Gaza in 20 years time—if no such miraculous metamorphosis occurs.)
With its threadbare intellectual underpinnings, it is little wonder that “conflict management”—aka “kicking the can down the road”—has been a monumental failure. In this regard see: “Mowing the lawn” won’t cut it and “Conflict management”: The collapse of a concept.
After all, while Israel has been “managing the conflict” with Hamas in Gaza (and even more so with Hezbollah in the North), we have seen what was essentially a terrorist nuisance evolve into a strategic threat of ominous proportions. Perversely, after every military clash with Israel, designed to debilitate their military capabilities, the terror organizations have eventually emerged with those capabilities greatly enhanced!
Indeed, if when Israel abandoned the Gaza Strip in 2005, anyone had warned that Hamas—and its more radical affiliates—would acquire the offensive arsenal they have in fact acquired, they would have doubtlessly been dismissed as unrealistic scaremongers.
Gaza: Disaster foretold
But of course, what has unfolded in Gaza should not really surprise anyone. Indeed, as mentioned previously, for anyone willing to face up to the inclement realities, it was not only entirely foreseeable, but easily foreseen.
Indeed, as I have pointed out before, as early as 1992—more than a quarter century ago and well over a decade before Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005—I published, in both English and Hebrew, a detailed prognosis, predicting precisely what the security, socio-economic and diplomatic ramifications of Israel abandoning Gaza would be. Sadly, my ominous forecast proved accurate in almost every detail!
But perhaps more significantly—and certainly more disturbingly—in the same year (1992), Arik Sharon himself, the driving force behind the 2005 Disengagement, wrote a very similar article himself in the Hebrew daily, Maariv, explicitly elaborating the perils of the very policy he later so resolutely endorsed—and enforced.
In the article, Sharon recounts how the proactive measures undertaken in Judea-Samaria in the 1970s quelled the terrorist violence there. He then goes on to write: “These experiences prove not only that terror can be eradicated, but also the principle by which this is to be accomplished. It is imperative not to flee from terrorism, and it will be smitten only if we control its bases and it engage its gangs on their own territory.”
Disaster foretold (cont.)
He then turned to Gaza: “And Gaza is the prime example. The populated sections of Gaza had become in 1970 an area controlled by the terrorist organizations because the Defense Minister [Yitzhak Rabin] decided to evacuate the towns, villages and refugee camps. Fortunately we returned to the correct policy before the Gaza Strip exploded like festering abscess, which could have poisoned the entire surroundings. But because of mistaken policy—of fleeing from the population centers and refraining from eliminating the danger in its early formative stages – we had to conduct a much more difficult and lengthy campaign.”
Sharon warned against repeating the same mistake: “If now we once more fall into the same mistake, the price will be much heavier than before—because now the terrorists and the means they have at their disposal are different and more dangerous than before.”
He accurately predicted: “If we abandon Gaza, it will be taken over by the terror organizations. Palestine Square [in Gaza] will become a launching site for rockets aimed at … Ashkelon.”
He then asked: “…what will the IDF do then? Will it once again recapture Gaza? Shell and bomb the towns and refugee camps in the Gaza Strip?”
Finally, noting that, “We all aspire to a political settlement…” he prescribed :“…but we not will reach it by way of surrender but only after crushing terrorism and we can only eliminate terrorism if we control its bases, and fight its gangs there and destroy them.”
Time for a paradigm shift: Evacuation-Compensation for Gazan Arabs
Albert Einstein was attributed as saying “We cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them.”
The problem of Gaza was—indisputably—created by the patently ill-advised attempt to foist self-governance on the Gaza Strip. Accordingly, it is not a problem that can be solved by persisting with the same level of thinking that created it—i.e. by persisting with the attempt to foist self-governance on the hapless enclave and its inhabitants.
Accordingly, then, that paradigm must jettisoned and replaced by another.
As recent history has demonstrated, Israel can only determine who rules Gaza if it rules it itself. For even if Hamas is toppled, there is no guarantee that its successor will be any less irksome. Moreover, if it is significantly weakened, there is no guarantee that it would be able to withstand challenges from more radical rivals—especially given the involvement of Iran in the region and the presence of Jihadi forces in adjacent Sinai.
However, the only way for Israel to rule Gaza without imposing that rule on “another people” (i.e. the Gazan-Arabs) is to remove that “other people” from Gaza. The only non-violent way to remove that “other people” is by installing a robust system of material incentives for leaving and disincentives for staying.
Accordingly, the current paradigm, envisioning a two-state/land-for-peace outcome, must be replaced by one entailing incentivized emigration for the Gazan population, which will allow the non-belligerent civilians to find a more prosperous and secure life in third party countries.
None of this is “rocket science” and one can only wonder why the Israeli leadership has not embraced it—instead of pursuing the two-state pipe-dream which they knew—or should have known—was predestined for disaster.
Epilogue
The fact that the incentivized immigration paradigm may be immensely difficult to implement does not make it any less imperative. Indeed, the alternative of not doing so is far worse.
It is, after all, the only level of thinking that can solve the problem, in which two-state/land-for-peace thinking has tragically embroiled both Jew and Arab—for over a quarter-century. The sooner Israeli policy-makers come to terms with this grim reality, the better.
Martin Sherman is the founder and executive director of the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies.
Change is possible in Israel.
Now 73% of Israel’s are against a two state solution
85% of Israel’s support sovereignty
Read the Strategic Outline for the Land of Israel by the Women in Green
Israel in 2048. Many good ideas
Read this here http://www.ribonut.co.il/images/%D7%90%D7%A0%D7%92%D7%9C%D7%99%D7%AA%20%D7%A7%D7%98%D7%9F.pdf
Ted, I would suggest you post this.
@ Adam Dalgliesh:
Israel is a country with people who have a lot of different views. Change when it comes evolves it does not come as you would like with a wholesale change of all the current power brokers at one time.
Change comes slowly in democracies and in imperfect democracies such as Israel. I understand this frustrates you but this is reality. You need to understand that changes such as Shaked has made are real and if she is able to continue in her role as Justice Minister in the Next Government Israel will be able to benefit by more positive evolutionary but not revolutionary change.
I have always believed that the Sherman plan would face formidable opposition from foreign governments if the Israeli government ever tried to put it into effect. But I have also always believed that the hostility of Israel’s ruling elites to any such plan, because of their deep sympathy for the Arab cause and their ambivalence at best about Zionist objectives, was a afar more formidable obstacle to the plan’s adoption by Israel. That is why I believe that the Israeli national camp should concentrate its efforts, for the forseeable future, on replacing the present power structure, now dominated by the courts and government lawyers, rather than in proposing “solutions” to Israel’s security and demographic problems that cannot be implemented at the present time. National camp thinkers have wasted a lot of precious time and effort arguing with each other about what would be the best “solution” to Israel’s long-term security and demographic challenges, rather than working on putting into place a reformed government that might be willing and able to seriously address these problems. Unfortunately, the present Israeli power structure is unwilling to do this.
@ Adam Dalgliesh:
Simplify it even in experiments. Israel recaptures Gaza.
Have Cruise Ships stationed off of Gaza. Tell people if they wish to leave they can get on board. Tell them they will get ______x amount of dollars when they leave the ship at a foreign port and agree sign that they are voluntarily leaving Gaza permanently.
This can be sponsored by NGOs, Christian Groups, or anyone wanting to help Gazans leave voluntarily and also help Israel.
@ Denis V.: Denis, this is a remarkably creative and useful proposal. You have even worked it out in some detail. It is very much along the general lines of my own thinking, although I have never formulated such a detailed proposal as this. In order to make this plan work, it would be important to make it clear that this was not an Israeli government operation, but a private nonprofit initiative, and humanitarian-charitable rather than political in motivation. It would be best if most of the money were raised from Christians–perhaps evangelicals with pro-Israel sympathies. It is also possible to keep the identities of the donors private under American law, and this might be desireable both to protect the donors and to avoid giving the impression that this is a Jewish-Zionist operation.
I think it would be necessary to make the financial grants more generous. This could be done by making payments gradually, say every month.A private organization could not prevent donation recipients from returning to Gaza or the “West Bank.” But it could make clear to the recipients that they would receive no money to return home with, and that they would not be eligible to receive any further payments if they were to make a second attempt to emigrate.
I am equally impressed by Adam’s demonstration of the sheer impossibility of securing Martin Sherman’s plan as I am by that plan. If I may cut to the chase, the essence of the plan is:-
‘As recent history has demonstrated, Israel can only determine who rules Gaza if it rules it itself. For even if Hamas is toppled, there is no guarantee that its successor will be any less irksome. Moreover, if it is significantly weakened, there is no guarantee that it would be able to withstand challenges from more radical rivals—especially given the involvement of Iran in the region and the presence of Jihadi forces in adjacent Sinai.’
‘However, the only way for Israel to rule Gaza without imposing that rule on “another people” (i.e. the Gazan Arabs), is to remove that “other people” from Gaza. The only non-violent way to remove that “other people” is by installing a robust system of material incentives for leaving and disincentives for staying.’
But the two can surely be reconciled. The objection to Martin Sherman’s plan is that it assumes incentivised emigration will be financed by the Israeli government, very likely part-funded by the US government.
But it ain’t necessarily so.
I see no reason why wealthy believers in Israel, willing to put their money where their mouth is, should not set up a special charitable fund – not based in Israel, and not financed by either the Israeli nor US government, to assist would-be emigrants.
Let’s call it THE HELP FOR GAZAN FAMILIES FUND, HGF for short..
I suggest it might offer a useful but not extravagant sum – say $5,000 – to every head of a Gazan family finding a country willing to receive him. (There might be a discretionary sweetener for impoverished regimes). Only sufficient cash for his immediate needs would be available until he or she reached their destination and opened a $ bank account.
There would be an additional $1,500 for each of his many dependants, including babies, again payable when they reached their promised land. The fund should not insist on DNA tests. It would be made clear to each recipient that the move was irreversible, and that no recipient would be allowed to return to Israel or any disputed territory- ever.
I will leave it to others to consider how this might be enforced; and the personal tax advantages, if any, for the donors.
It would be especially fortunate if at least one Christian charity or wealthy family made a donation.
And what if NO country would accept Gazans? The HGF trustees could then turn to the home countries of their donors, (Israelis excepted, of course), and encourage them to shame wealthy countries refusing to accept well-motivated Gazan refugees not without some modest funds of their own.
On disincentives, the position seems clear. There should be no artificial penalties imposed on the remainers, but neither would they be feather-bedded. They would continue being watered and powered by Israel, but on a strict cash-only basis. Each month’s utility and other bills would be met out of tax received by Israel.
I do not expect an early mass evacuation of the Strip, but a diminishing population of farmers, (after the withdrawal of UNWRA for lack of funds) who would welcome the opportunity of working alongside Israelis who had bought those abandoned properties and were paying Gaza taxes.
@ Adam Dalgliesh:
Denis V.
Martin Sherman is on the right track of what must be done. Their are those who are yelling into the wind that Trump recognized the fact that the Golan is sovereign Israel. They are not changing one iota of the reality.
Yes if Israel destroys Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza their will be many who will yell and shout about it. However, if Israel has the leadership that wills it, it will be done.
Israel should allow more Gazans to leave. There are hordes that are want to do so. Those who have a chance are leaving now. In particular the educated such as doctors. Many are going to Turkey with and without visas. If Israel put some money in their pockets plus helped with the logistics of their emigration many many more would flee the hell of life in Gaza.
Helping peaceful Gazans leave may cause someone to say that something negative about Israel but so what! If Israel listened to the Adams of the world it would not exist. The problem for Israel is allowing the violence from Gaza to continue and waiting to squash the terrorists until they have even more powerful weapons will make the inevitable war more costly.
Doomsday is not some EU antiSemite saying something negative about Israel but an anti tank missile hitting a school bus of Israeli children in Sderot. Listening to the Adam’s of the world makes Jews getting killed by not vigorously protecting its own more likely!
Concerning France’s incentivising immigrants to go back to their native countries with money payments, I would be grateful if you you would supply us with the documentary links for this.
Plainly, France has not done this with large numbers of immigrants, because something like 10 per cent of it population is now Muslim, not even taking into account the large number of people of recent foreign birth or ancestry who are non-Muslims (such as ethnic Vietnamese, Middle East Christians, etc.).
In any case, many immigrants to France are dual nationals of other countries, such as Algeria and Morocco, who are unlikely to refuse to take them back if they choose to return to these countries. By way of contrast, very few Palestinians living under Israeli rule are citizens of foreign countries. The majority were born within “Palestine” according to its 1948 frontiers, and even those who were born elsewhere, like most of the PLO leadership, are not citizens of those countries, because they never allowed Palestinians to become citizens, not even those who were born in them. And absolutely no country wants them back or is likely to accept them back–and for thoroughly understandable reasons! Everyone knows they are incorrigible troublemakers . That is one reason why nearly all countries want Israel to cope with them so that they (the other countries) won’t have to.
“…..to his credit eventually resigning because of it…..”
Oh please. Really Martin? Bibi could have resigned when it might have meant something, but instead being the weasel he is he made a big show of resigning when it was meaningless and completely ineffectual.
“To his credit” my ass.
Ted, I don’t have the link right now, but will make a diligent seach for it after Shabbes. It is not easy to locate UN documents from their web site. My immediate sources were the web site of the UN Commission on “genocide” (which defines “ethnic cleansing,” even if nonviolent, as a variety of “genocide”, and two articles by American lawyers in law journals that profess to summarize ICC rulings. I will provide these references in a follow-up letter as soon as I have time to search my computer files and the relevant internet sites.
I did not intend to talk down to Dr. Sherman, whom I respect and admire. I have been frustrated and irritated by his failure over the past several years to address what I think are realistic practical obstacles to the adoption and implementation of his plan (I do NOT think that the plan is morally wrong–only that it would be perceived that way by brainwashed, or self-brainwashed, foreign governments and foreign publics, as well as powerful elites within Israel). I have been communicating my concerns about the Sherman plan for several years now, but his replies to my communications, both private and public, have been brief and I think inadequate. I am still hoping for a detailed response from him. Perhaps you could facilitate this.
Adam Dalgliesh Said:
First of all, I find it irritating that you talk down to Dr Sherman.
Secondly, I think that you are entirely wrong to say what I quoted. As an example, in recent years France has offered cash payments to anyone who would go back. There was no outcry. Since in Sherman’s plan, the emigrant benefits and goes willingly, I see no basis to to call this ethnic cleansing. Please give a link to what the ICC has allegedly held.
We must try something that has not yet been tried. We must utterly defeat the Arabs and kill as many terrorists as possible, destroy as many tunnels as possible, collect as many of their arms as possible and support the part of the population that does not support Hamas.
Then, start the education process using the schools, camps, mass media, clubs and all other venues that attract people. We can provide an incentive to go to Jewish school, such as food, medicine, care, activities. Eventually that educational process, if done correctly will result in people willing to live and work peascefully with Jews, or become Jews themselves.
Dr. Sherman, as I’ve explained over and over again, the “international community,” including the EU states, Britain, Russia, and probably the United Stes, would not tolerate your “incentivized emigration” scheme, and Israel would face severe economic sanctions and an arms embargo if it attempted to implement it. This because a) the Security Council, and the International Criminal Court which it has created, has defined any attempt by a government to change the ethnic composition of a country, even by peaceful means, as “ethnic cleansing,” a war crime and a crime against humanity. The Western press, led by the New York Times, has popularized this idea, especially among Western elites.b) any such policy would play into the long-established and widely accepted Arab “narrative” that Israel and the Zionist movement have been engaged in a conspiracy to drive the Palestinians out of their homeland and seize the land for Jews, going all the way back to 1897 if not earlier. This “narrative” claims that Israel partially accomplished this policy in 1948 (the so-called “nakba,”). While the narrative is false, because of persistant Arab propaganda and the almost total lack of Israeli counter-propaganda, it is almost universally believed. If Israel were to adoptt your proposed policy, the entire “international community” would conclude that Israel was now completing this supposedly long-standing expulsion-and-confiscation process, and would respond with harsh sanctions. c) as evidenced by the endless condemnations of Israel in nearly unanimous votes of the General Assembly of the UN and the EU organs, there is enormous international prejudice against Israel. Israel’s actions are judged by a harsher standard than those of any other state. As a result, while the “international community” has often looked the other way at “ethnic cleansing” by other states, it would not look the way at any Israeli policy that could be characterized (however unfairly) by this expression.
Although I have repeatedly raised these points with you, you have yet to attempt a serious reply to them.
I have also suggested that there are ways that Israel could severely punish , even overthrow, the Palestinian terrorist regimes, and even indirectly promote a trend toward Arab emigration, without openly encouraging or pressuring Arabs to emigrate. A mix of what you call “kinetic” and “non-kinetic” measures that could easily be justified as nothing more than a campaign to end terror attacks on Israelis could at least in the long run accomplish all of your objectives, without incurring nearly as severe or long-lasting sanctions–at least, if Israel were to institute an even minimally competent diplomatic and counter-propaganda campaign to justify them to the Western, and even to part of the non-Western, public.
Please reply to my comments in your next column, or one in the near future.
A most timely reminder of the real situation. The continuing problem with Dr. Sherman is that he “talks down” to his readers as if they were children or young students… meticulously laying out the situation(s) and then proceeding to further explain them …as if we, the intelligent readers did not already understand, and in many instances already be ahead of him.
But he brings out a most formidable picture of the puerilities of TWO famous and massively experienced IDF former Chiefs-of-Staff, whose forays into the political world ended in unmitigated disasters. The only fortunate thing about them was that they were at separate times -about 10 years apart.
Today..we have the very same prospect in a new party running for election (and G-D forbid if they win) For…not only are there TWO former Ch…iefs-of Staff…. but THREE…and all at the very same time, in the same party. For them to succeed….going by the above factual article and also well publicly thrashed out precedents… this would destroy Israel altogether.
Voters take note…PLEASE.
An excellent article even if it reminds me of the “Three Stooges” famous ..
“Niagara Falls” skit, in it’s drawn-out presentation.