An excellent article by a guest contributor at the Times Online: Why Sharon's critics are cluelessin Gaza.
Mr Sharon is typically characterised outside Israel as an obdurate warmonger. When he became Prime Minister in 2001 The Guardian headline ran “Israel gives up on peace with Sharon victory”. Sir Gerald Kaufman, the senior Labour MP, in 2002 condemned Mr Sharon as a “right-wing thug” whose policies were “not only unacceptable in humanitarian terms, but … also seriously unsuccessful in dealing with the terrorism”. Last year Tony Baldry, the Conservative chairman of the Commons Select Committee on International Development, declared: “The construction of a security barrier higher than the Berlin Wall may bring the mirage of immediate security to Israelis, but the level of despair felt by Palestinians at being denied an ordinary life can only increase the supply of suicide bombers.” Myths die hard. Increased security for Israeli civilians is not a mirage at all; Mr Sharon’s policies have been unambiguously successful in curbing terrorism. With the construction of a security barrier (not a “wall”, as anti-Israel campaigners habitually term it, but for most of its length a chain-linked wire fence that could be taken down within an afternoon) and the assassination of successive leaders of Hamas, the number of successful terrorist attacks within Israel fell by more than 75 per cent between 2002 and 2004. The breathing space that these policies have allowed Israelis has encouraged serious thinking about territorial compromise and the outlines of an eventual settlement with the Palestinians. The dispiriting fact is that no negotiated two-state agreement is likely in the near future. Western commentators who speak of a two-state “solution” adopt a misnomer. A two-state arrangement, with Israel withdrawing to boundaries approximating the pre-1967 armistice line, is not a solution to the conflict, but an outcome of the end of the conflict. The end of the conflict requires something more deep-rooted: a changed relationship and mutual trust between Israelis and Palestinians. As an Israeli analyst, Dan Schueftan, says: “At this stage, it is extremely difficult to imagine how any amount of European funding or sponsorship could produce a mega-gimmick convincing enough to persuade Jews, except in the hard-core Left, to consider a refurbished version of the Oslo act of faith after that failed so miserably.” |
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