Some thoughts on the Disengagement

Disengagement: I still think it was ultimately a good (or at least necessary) thing, if for no other reason than I think Israel will ultimately have to be more inside the Green Line than over it, and it's going to have to happen eventually. (This was, incidentally, the same rationale Sharon used in the working draft of the plan- "In any future final status arrangement ,there will be no Israeli settlement activity in the Gaza Strip. On the other hand, it is clear that there will be areas in Judea and Samaria that will be part of the State of Israel, and there will be civilian communities, security zones and other places in which Israel has further interest inside those areas.")

It also demonstrated that a sizeable portion of Israel is willing to suffer internal divisions and soul-searching relating to the Israeli-Arab conflict which is good for both themselves and other people (world opinion, Palestinians) to see and know. If nothing else, it got Israelis to pay attention to the existential issues of Israel again. Whether they liked it or not, people had to start thinking about what their values and beliefs actually were, and choose sides.

That said, I can think of at least several reasons why the Disengagement has not stopped all the crap coming out of Gaza, though. Most importantly, Israel didn't do it as part of an agreement, it just unilaterally decided to pull out and leave. All the discussion (such as it was) took place within Israel, not with the Palestinians. Yes, the argument can be made that there was no one to talk to (or, more accurately, no one that really mattered politcally), but I think that Israel's determination to create "more facts on the ground" by themselves, and expecting to be thanked and rewarded by a grateful Palestinian populace, was naive, if not outright delusional. I supported the Disengagement, but I didn't expect it to end the terrorism problem, and certainly not if done in the context of some sort of agreement. A lot of lefty-Laborites, Meretz and Yachad people were saying similar things- they supported Sharon in principle, not in the details. Not unlike the fence.

More to the point, though, not even Sharon expected leaving Gaza to solve the Palestinian problem. He deliberately avoided describing it in those terms. Israel got out of Gaza for it's own sake, so it wouldn't have to deal with occupying it anymore. Anything else (and there weren't a lot of expectations regarding this, at least not from the govt.) was gravy.

Now, the question can be asked, did the Disengagement work? Did it accomplish its goal? I think that has to depend on how one is defining the Disengagement's goals. Was its purpose to throw the Palestinians a bone? Was it to prove its willingness to give up territory to the West? Was it to help it consolidate security? Was it to be able to wash its hands of responsibility for the Gazans, while simultaneously ostracizing it militarily and strategically? (I.e., now that Gaza is "not really" under occupation, Israel can go after the Pal. govt. there as if it was a sovereign nation, in effect engaging in warfare with a mini-state, as opposed to the West Bank, which has no real sovereign borders and where all Israeli activity falls into the murky category of being a military/police action.)

The Disengagement, as it was presented and conceived, did not expect, or promise, the peace to end all peace. It was explicitly about maintaining the status quo and avoiding the Palestinian issues. It really isn't all that surprising that things are where they are. The Hamas victory in the polls shows the mentality of a plurality of Palestinians, and Sharon's Disengagement did nothing to challenge the perception of the pull-out as handing a victory to Hamas. The responsibility for that perception has to be split between the Israelis and the Palestinians. While there were a number of reasons for Israel to want to keep the Disengagement an internal matter- not the least the fact that public sentiment opposing it would have risen dramatically had there been active and visible cooperation between Israeli and Palestinian military in evacuating settlements- this also came with a price tag. Saying, "this changes nothing between us the Palestinians" and effectively ignoring them while quitting Gaza essentially gave the Palestinians carte blanche to take Sharon at his word- the Disengagement had nothing to do with Palestinian-Israeli cooperation, and little to do with Israeli interest in a final-status peace agreement, and everything to do with the Israeli govt. wanting to rid itself of what it saw as an extremely unpleasant liability. It's no surprise that Hamas is taking this and running with it. Sharon's own letters to Bush barely mention the Palestinians, half-heartedly adding that one of the Disengagement's goals is to "reduce friction". That's technically true, insofar as the Gazans would no longer have to deal with the settlers or army in their midst. However, aside from that, the Gazans weren't being offered much by the Israelis in terms of benefits. Note: I am not saying Israel SHOULD have offered them more, just saying that people shouldn't be surprised or indignant that the Palestinians didn't hug and kiss Sharon for leaving. The fact of the matter is, he wasn't doing them that big a favor, particularly from the maximalist, "the whole damn country is ours anyway" Hamas position.

So was the Disengagement a mistake? That depends. Was the goal to get out of Gaza for its own sake, or was it to try and start a process? I think in the long run Israel benefits from not being there (certainly not having civilians there), but I do think that anyone (myself included) who expected things to dramatically improve in the short term when neither side was talking to the other was being over-optimistic, to say the least. Both sides said nothing had changed. We should have believed them. In the best of situations (like no Hamas govt.), Gaza could have started a process- but the mutual decision to ignore each other basically eliminated this possibility (which was quite remote from the begining).

This doesn't necessarily mean that Israel shouldn't have gone through with the Disengagement, but it definitely explains why assumptions that it would lead to some dramatic breakthrough were misguided, at best. Israel didn't do this for peace with the Palestinians, it did it because it couldn't think of anything better to do in the situation. That might indicate some mistakes and failings of Sharon's government and ideology, but I think it's probably the most accurate explanation. Sharon knew things would get worse before they got better, and knowing that he still chose Disengagement. Either he was an overt advocate of national suicide, or he had done some cost-benefit analysis and decided that in the long run, even if it resulted in Israel looking weak among Hamas or led to increased antagonisms, that Israel had to start thinking about getting out of the territories. If nothing else, Sharon accomplished that goal (though it seems highly unlikely Olmert will actually accomplish the Convergence plan at this rate). Agree or disagree with Kadima's plan, at least Sharon got the country- and the world- talking about the important issues again.

Edit: JoeSettler makes a damning point relating to one of the things I said:

the Left are now trying to excuse themselves from any and all recriminations that they so whole-heartedly deserve.

Their new claim is that they all knew that war (or unquiet at least) would happen (sic), but you have to understand that continuously running away and hurting our own civilians and hiding behind an imaginary wall would place us in a better position to fight back.

(Well, if they believed it might bring war or “unquiet”, then why didn’t they prepare for it and why didn’t they react against it at any point before it became totally inexcusable?)

Sadly, I must agree. Anyone with their eyes open (and this doesn't necessarily include myself) had to have known Hamas was going to take this as an invitation, and the new govt. should have been preparing for this. In this regard, Kadima and its cabinet do bear a pretty large responsibility (Peretz in particular as Defense Minister).