Sharon's Palestinian State

Azmi Bishara     Al-Hayat     2003/07/10

Ariel Sharon was appointed minister of agriculture in Menachem Begin's first government of 1977, after having failed to launch his own political career. Sharon thus had to use the ministry of agriculture to serve his political ends, just as he had used the army before. His aim was to be appointed chief of staff, and then to become defense minister. The army turned him into a national hero who dared criticize the political leadership and even rebel against it, accusing the politicians of being locked in their bureaucracy and of failing to understand the army, as well as of subordinating their decisions to the will of the U.S. Sharon offered himself as a man of leadership aware that the Arabs understand only the language of force.

At the minister of agriculture, the magic world for Sharon was "settlement." In September 1977, 40 days after being appointed the head of the national committee for settlement issues, Sharon announced a plan to establish a chain of settlements inside the West Bank that are parallel to the coastal Israeli cities. The plan involved building cities and villages on the fringes of Jerusalem. One may wonder how such program resembles the current settlement effort. Throughout his tenure as minister of agriculture, Sharon continued to consider that as his main mission in the government. He publicly accused ministers of neglecting settlements offering himself as the protector of Jewish settlements.

Sharon listened for the first time about the report of the meeting between Begin and President Anwar Sadat during a cabinet meeting on November 20, 1977. He never knew how Sadat's visit to Jerusalem had been arranged. At the end of that meeting, Sharon gave up his reservations on withdrawing from all of Sinai. He was also convinced by Begin's argument regarding the Palestinian autonomy and that such autonomy would not result in a Palestinian state.

On January 3^rd, Sharon convinced the government of supporting a settlement plan that included building three new settlements in the West Bank and reinforcing existing settlements in the north of Sinai. Sharon left the impression in the government that he wanted to test the reaction of Egypt at a time when the negotiations with it had reached an advanced stage. Begin was enthusiastic about the idea, but Sharon had in fact planned for the creation of 23 new settlements described as "outposts."

A political crisis resulted with Egypt, while the Israeli government denied such plans, offering Sharon yet another opportunity to accuse it of lacking a clear political vision and courage. Sharon continued to create one crisis after another over the settlements until the minister of security, who encouraged peace with Egypt, left the cabinet at the end of 1980, and he replaced him in his post after the elections of 1981.

Still, Sharon's active involvement in the peace negotiations with Egypt moderated his views. He agreed to convince begin to withdraw from the Yamit settlement in Sinai, which was the only remaining settlement for peace with Egypt. He did the same thing later in the Wye River negotiations when as foreign minister in the government of Benjamin Netanyahu, he appealed to the settlers to occupy the hills and build settlements outposts while Netanyahu was negotiating Yasser Arafat in October 1998. But when he was asked to attend the negotiations, he blessed the agreements, including the redeployment in Hebron.

Today, Sharon not only participates in the negotiations. He runs them. As such, he is expected to be more flexible. Yet we find that he declares that the episode of the Yamit settlement in Sinai should not be repeated. There seems to be limits to his flexibility. Yet Sharon insists that he has not changed his mind on the Palestinian issue, as he told Maariv on April 2001. He said that the only thing he changed was that there should be a Palestinian state in Jordan. "I never wanted there to be two Palestinian states." It is obvious that he prefers a "no-war" settlement to a peace agreement. Like Henry Kissinger, he believes that such an agreement is more realistic since it does not involve the dismantlement of settlements.

Sharon thus prefers a "no war" solution with the Palestinians, which involves a Palestinian state on 42 percent of the Palestinian territories. This state would be disarmed, with only a peace-keeping police force, and enters into no agreements with Israel's enemies.

Sharon had endorsed the idea of self rule as proposed by Begin and made it the core of his ideas, especially after the war in Lebanon in 1982, in which he failed to expel the Palestinians into Jordan. During that period, which witnessed the start of the first Palestinian Intifada, Sharon called for the use of force against it. Sharon also described the parameters of Israeli policy as should be explained to the Americans: Jerusalem to remain the eternal capital of Israel; the Jordan River constitutes the security, (not political), boundaries of Israel; Israel is responsible for all security within "Eretz Israel"; there will be no legitimacy in Judea and Samaria and Gaza; there will be no second Palestinian state west of the Jordan River; the question of the refugees should be solved by the Arabs and the Golan is part of Israel.

The change began with the first Intifada and Jordan's unilateral declaration of disengagement from the West Bank and Gaza. Sharon then proposed what combines the plans of Likud and Labor. He challenged Labor to respond to Jordan's declaration by annexing areas that are not subject to a settlement with Jordan. Sharon embraced the Aalon Plan proposing to annex the territories to Israel and to surrender to the Palestinians those that were going to be surrendered to Jordan. But King Hussein had removed the carpet from beneath the Jordanian option of the Labor Party, which called for handing over to Jordan the heavily populated areas.