August
15, 2002, 9:00 a.m. Been
There, Done That
Dishing up a
little of the “same old” in the Mideast.
By Nissan Ratzlav-Katz
onservative
right-wingers can be so daft sometimes. Really.
After nearly two
years of ongoing terrorist violence against Israelis and IDF counteroffensives,
the Labor-party leader and Israeli defense minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer
has finally come up with a revolutionary plan, presented to the PLO leadership
last week, to end the bloodshed. His proposal is unofficially known as
"Gaza and Bethlehem First," as it calls for Israeli withdrawal
from Gaza and Bethlehem, with the PLO filling the security and administrative
vacuum left by the Israelis. After PLO leader Yasser Arafat has proven
his ability to control those areas, the withdrawals would continue until
the Arab population centers are all under the Palestinian Authority. Thus
far, the PLO leadership has accepted the idea, on principle, but is troubled
that the deal would not include Ramallah, home to Arafat's headquarters,
in its first stage.
While the new Israeli
proposal may seem to have an uncanny resemblance to the May 1994 "Agreement
on the Gaza Strip and the Jericho Area," unofficially known as "Gaza
and Jericho First," that is only when viewed through the eyes of
conservative right-wingers, unwilling to give peace a chance. The 1994
agreement called for Israeli implementation of "an accelerated and
scheduled withdrawal of Israeli military forces from the Gaza Strip and
from the Jericho Area… [and] shall transfer authority… to the
Palestinian Authority…" It should be clear that, while the original
1994 Oslo agreement referred to turning Gaza and Jericho over to
Arafat's PLO, the Ben-Eliezer proposal is completely and utterly different,
in that it calls for turning Gaza and Bethlehem over to Arafat's
PLO.
The new peace proposal
is so innovative that it led to talks among the various terrorist groups
operating in the Palestinian Authority, including the Hamas and Islamic
Jihad, regarding a suspension of suicide bombings against civilians inside
Israel's pre-1967 "Green Line." The Supreme Council of the National
and Islamic forces met over the past few days to review and discuss a
draft declaration, prepared by the Palestinian Authority and Yasser Arafat's
Fatah, that would limit "resistance operations" to Judea, Samaria
and Gaza only. It is true that the partial cease-fire would not have applied
to such attacks as the June 20, 2002, murder of Rachel Shabo, her five-year-old
son Avishai, her 13-year-old son Zvika and her 16-year-old son Neria in
their home in Itamar, nor would it have prevented the shooting death of
five-year-old Danielle Shefi and the injuring of her two younger brothers
as they played in their parents' bedroom in Adora, in late April, but
one cannot minimize the importance of such a declaration. If Hamas and
Islamic Jihad were to agree, even for a temporary period, to murder Jewish
children only in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza, then that could pave the way
to implementation of the Ben-Eliezer peace plan.
Yasser Arafat's Fatah,
represented by the Tanzim and Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, is already officially
against attacks inside "Green Line" Israel. In fact, erstwhile
Tanzim leader, and now Israeli prisoner, Marwan Barghouti, wrote an op-ed
piece in the Washington Post on January 16, 2002, wherein he renounced
terrorism and wrote that "I, and the Fatah movement to which I belong,
strongly oppose attacks and the targeting of civilians inside Israel,
our future neighbor…." It is true that one day after the Barghouti
piece was published, Tanzim gunmen attacked a bat-mitzvah party in Hadera,
killing six civilians and wounding over 30, but, in principle, the moderate
PLO leadership is opposed to such actions in pre-1967 Israel. That is,
with the exception of the Fatah's May 27, 2000, suicide bombing outside
a mall in Petah Tikva, the April 12, 2002, suicide bombing in Jerusalem's
outdoor market, the March 30, 2002, suicide bombing in a Tel-Aviv café,
the March 29, 2002, suicide bombing inside a supermarket in Jerusalem,
the March 21, 2002 suicide bombing in the middle of King George Street
in Jerusalem and the March 2, 2002, suicide bombing of a bar-mitzvah celebration
in the Beit Yisrael neighborhood in Jerusalem.
Other than the foregoing
exceptions, any left-wing leader truly interested in peace must believe
that the PLO will now religiously abide by commitments undertaken in the
framework of the innovative "Gaza and Bethlehem First" proposal.
Furthermore, while the 1994 "Gaza and Jericho" agreement led
to hundreds of Israeli deaths at the hands of PLO-backed terrorists —
more than during a similar period of time preceding the agreement —
the new and improved proposal, once implemented, will surely bring stability
and peace to the region.
Recently, the prime
minister threatened to call for new elections if the government budget
does not pass an upcoming Knesset vote. This could be a positive development,
as the Israeli electorate will be given the chance to vote for radically
new Labor party ideas in the pursuit of peace.
Rumor has it that
the proposed Likud campaign slogan will be "Been There, Done That."
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onservative
right-wingers can be so daft sometimes. Really.
