Free Crawling from the Wreckage by Gwynne Dyer

from the Palestinians who surround them.
    The Gaza settlements make no economic or military sense, and while many of the Jewish settlers there are driven by a religious vision, the secular Israeli governments that authorized the enclaves probably always saw them as bargaining chips in some potential future deal with the Palestinians. Sharon is certainly using them as bargaining chips, though he has no intention of making a deal with the Palestinians.
    Sharon’s strategy aims to separate Israelis from Palestinians as much as possible, while still retaining almost all the Jewish settlements in the West Bank and carving the Palestinian areas up into enclaves separated by Israeli-patrolled roads and military checkpoints. The Gaza pullout will save Israel money and troops while also letting Sharon throw the world a bone: look, Israel is withdrawing voluntarily from some settlements. But about 96 percent of the Jewish settler population, up in the West Bank, will remain where it is.
    Asked last week about what would happen after the Gaza withdrawal, Sharon replied: “Israel will continue its war on terrorism, and will stay in the territories that will remain.” Still, the furious arguments in Israel over the Gaza withdrawal serve to divert foreign attention from all that, and make Sharon appear to be a beleaguered moderate assailed by wild-eyed fanatics. If Yaël Dayan hadn’t volunteered to put a death curse on him, Sharon would gladly have paid him to do it.
    It is vintage Sharon: brilliant tactics, but not even a hint of strategic vision. Sharon was the main political patron of the settlers from the start, and though he does not share their religious fanaticism he retains a deep emotional attachment to the territories they have settled. Now he has turned the more extremist settlers against him, but he still wants to keep almost all of the land. The problem is that this means no deal with the Palestinians, and a future of endless war.
    The late Yitzhak Rabin was at least as tough a general and as dedicated to Israel as Ariel Sharon, but he was a great deal wiser. He thoughtlong-term, and understood that the day must eventually come when Israel no longer enjoys all its current strategic advantages. It was therefore necessary for Israel’s survival to reach a lasting settlement with the Palestinians before it lost the upper hand.
    Sharon and his allies deny that a deal is possible because “there is nobody to negotiate with,” and by now they have managed to discredit or kill most of their potential Palestinian negotiating partners. The truth is they don’t really want a deal anyway. They are unwilling to contemplate the sacrifices that it would require, and have no coherent vision beyond endless military occupation of the territories and an endless war on the consequent terrorism.
    Journalists did not get to “know” Ariel Sharon, but I had dealings with him. He was a bully and a blowhard, qualities that served him well
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    I did get to know Yitzhak Rabin a bit, and I found him serious, wise and altogether admirable. Israel lost its best chance to make a lasting peace when he was murdered
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    As for Yasser Arafat, he ended up as self-caricature, and intellectually he was just not up to the task he had set himself. Nevertheless, he did leave two major accomplishments behind
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October 29, 2004

ARAFAT’S LEGACY
    Yasser Arafat isn’t dead yet. The “blood disorder” that forced him to desert his besieged headquarters in Ramallah and fly to Paris for medical treatment may not kill him, but he is probably never going home again, and his long reign as the undisputed leader of the Palestinian people is certainly over. So it is time to write his political obituary, if not his personal one.
    Frantic speculation has already begun about who will succeed him, but it’s unlikely that any single successor will command the support and respect that Arafat enjoyed in the deeply divided Palestinian community at home and in exile. The