Gaza withdrawal plan merits scrutiny

When President Bush stood alongside Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon at his Crawford, Texas, ranch on Monday, he spoke with the fervor of a man on a mission.

The president proclaimed he was “strongly committed to a vision of two democratic states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security.” This is clearly a theme dear to his heart.

Bush invited Sharon to the ranch to bolster the Israeli leader’s plan to unilaterally withdraw from the occupied Gaza Strip this summer – a move the president believes can be the first step toward Palestinian statehood.

But unless the Bush administration takes a more active approach to the Gaza withdrawal, the pullout will make the conflict worse.

To understand why, you need some history about the Gaza withdrawal. Sharon proposed the idea last year when Yasser Arafat was still alive; the Palestinian leader’s obstructionism had frozen peace negotiations. But the international community still sought to rejuvenate the peace process known as the “road map,” endorsed by Israel, the Palestinians, the United States and others in 2002.

According to Sharon’s key adviser, Dov Weisglass, the Gaza withdrawal was to be a tool by which Israel would freeze that process indefinitely. In a frank interview in Ha’aretz in October 2004, Weisglass also said evacuating Gaza was meant to strengthen Israel’s hold on the West Bank. By pulling 10,000 settlers out of Gaza, he said, Sharon “is strengthening the other 200,000 (on the West Bank), strengthening their hold on the soil.”

Then Arafat died. In January Palestinians elected as president Mahmoud Abbas, who Bush and Sharon believe is committed to the pursuit of peace by nonviolent means. Abbas has gotten militant groups such as Hamas to agree to a shaky cease-fire with Israel, but he must do much more to dismantle their infrastructure.

But the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza may undercut Abbas more than it helps.

For the Palestinian leader to undertake a real crackdown on violence, he needs the support of the Palestinian people. They must be convinced a crackdown will lead to the renewal of peace talks.

But most Palestinians fear the Gaza withdrawal is meant, as Weisglass put it, to strengthen Israel’s hold on the West Bank. They are cynical about the benefits of the pullback, which will leave Israel in full control of Gaza’s borders, airspace and sea space. The meeting between Bush and Sharon at the Crawford ranch did little to allay such fears.

The Israeli leader arrived just after his government approved plans to build 3,500 housing units on the West Bank to connect the settlement of Ma’aleh Adumim with Jerusalem. This would cut the West Bank in half and isolate it from Arab areas of East Jerusalem.

Such building would contravene the “road map,” which calls for a parallel halt to Palestinian violence and freezing of all Israeli settlement-building. Bush confronted Sharon on the issue at the ranch, urging him not to undertake settlement activity that undercut the “road map” – or prejudiced negotiations over the future of the West Bank.

But Sharon held firm. He won’t act on freezing West Bank settlements until after Palestinians crush the terrorists. Unfortunately, the two are inextricably linked.

President Bush appears to understand the connection – the need to build confidence on both sides. But he expressed hope Gaza could become a democratic model, post-withdrawal, a model that could win Israeli trust.

This is a pipe dream. This impoverished dot of land with 1.3 million people can’t morph into a semblance of democracy while cut off from the West Bank. Nor can a freeze on Israeli settlement wait upon such a mirage.

If Palestinians perceive Gaza first as Gaza last, violence will erupt again – consigning Abbas, and Bush’s dream, to certain failure.

To advance his vision – and Israel’s security – Bush must go beyond words and involve his administration directly in making it happen. Words won’t do the job.