Israel won

(some thoughts from juan cole's guest blogger, Mark LeVine, Professor of Modern Middle Eastern History, University of California, Irvine...)

with the probability of sharon's death or at least his inability to continue in office high, the chances of something taking place that is meaningful, satisfying for both sides and lasting still seems distressingly remote...

[F]or all intents and purposes the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is over, and Israel has won, decisively. Indeed, since the beginning of the 1990s the whole point of the Oslo peace process, followed by the the low intensity war that began in September 2000, have been to convince and then compel Palestinians to accept that not even their most minimal demands will be met, whether through negotiations or violence. Regardless of who has been prime minister during this period--Rabin, Peres, Netanyahu, Barak or Sharon--Israel's negotiating strategy and final positions have changed little, which is why Palestinians soured on Oslo long before the al-Aqsa intifada erupted in 2000.

In this context, what the renewed violence that began five years ago signified was the growing disconnect between a Palestinian leadership whose very existence and freedom of movement has depended on Israe's good graces, which in turn depended on their gaining Palestinian acquiescence to a deal that few wanted, and a people that refuses to sign despite a decade of largely unkept promises and escalating violence. And no matter who wins either election, no Palestinian leadership will be able to convince their people to accept what Sharon or his successor are willing to offer: a weak and disconnected "state," bisected by settlements and Israeli-only roads, with its resources and economy remaining largely in Israel's hands, Jerusalem out of reach for most citizens, and refugees forced to return cantons that are effectively too small to sustain the existing population.

[...]

If a Palestinian leadership signs onto an agreement on Israel's terms, its rejection by a strong segment of Palestinian society will likely produce an Iraq-style dynamic, in which a government presides over a newly established state against which a large and popular insurgency will inflict significant violence while remaining incapable of seriously threatening the occupying power. Most Israelis, like most Americans, will remain outside the bubble of violence, and most Palestinians, like most Iraqis, will remain inside without the wherewithall either to resist or transcend their sorry situation.

Perhaps with the passing of Sharon, Arafat and the rest of the Israeli and Palestinian old guard, a new generation of leaders on both sides will emerge that has the courage and foresight to imagine a shared future for the two peoples that today remains unimaginable. The alternative is another generation lost to violence, a future neither Israelis nor Palestinians deserve.

perhaps...

Submit To Propeller
Tweet