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David Horovitz: Making Withdrawal Even Tougher

Immediately after the cabinet approved his revised plan for disengagement from Gaza, Ariel Sharon addressed thousands of visitors to Israel at a gala Birthright event in Jerusalem. Israel had its problems, Sharon acknowledged. But they didn�t seem quite so troubling, he declared with an improvised bonhomie, when he was surrounded by so many enthusiastic Jewish young people. "Welcome home," the avuncular prime minister told them to ecstatic cheers.

It was hardly the hour to credibly extol Israel�s attractions to overseas guests and potential immigrants, certainly not in the sphere of domestic politics. Avoiding receipt of his letter of dismissal over the previous weekend, Tourism Minister Benny Elon had plumbed new depths of disrespect by remarking, when Sharon phoned to inform him he�d been fired, that he couldn�t be sure it was really the prime minister and that he feared he might be the victim of a practical joke by a Sharon impersonator. Sharon himself had plumbed new depths of cynicism by preemptively sacking Elon and his National Union cabinet colleague Avigdor Lieberman before they had even voted against his plan, thus creating an artificial majority in its favor.

Later in his Birthright address, Sharon asserted that the passage of the disengagement plan had "sent a clear message" to Israelis, Palestinians and the rest of the world that Israel was "taking its future into its own hands." But the message is anything but clear. The cabinet passed a self-contradictory plan that commits Israel to a Gaza without Jews by the end of 2005 while simultaneously stating that no decision has yet been made to evacuate any of the 21 settlements where those Jews live. Even disengagement�s leading proponents, like Shinui�s leader Yosef Lapid, were reduced to making dubious assertions such as "now we�ve broken the ice. It will be easier in nine months to vote on [dismantling] settlements." If a week is a long time in most countries� politics, nine months is close to infinity in the Israeli variety.

It was always going to be incredibly difficult to pull almost 8,000 Jews out of the Gaza Strip -- to abandon Greater Israel for the greater good of sovereign Israel. But Sharon�s abject mishandling of his radical new pullout policy has ensured it will be even more wrenching than necessary. He missed the chance a year ago to withdraw in partnership with then-Palestinian prime minister Mahmud Abbas; the demographic imperative to leave was as profound then, but the get-out-of-Gaza bug plainly hadn�t bitten him yet. After it did, he sought endorsement from Likud party members, his catastrophic misjudgment of sentiment in his own backyard confirming a sense of fading political acumen. And then, rather than reinforcing the opinion-poll evidence of overwhelming Israeli public support for a pullout by holding a nationwide referendum, he chose to try and bully his plan through a reluctant cabinet, ducked out of a direct confrontation with the man who would succeed him, Benjamin Netanyahu, and paid the price in having to accept a confused, slowed and watered-down disengagement recipe.

It is only appropriate, therefore, that his serial miscalculations will initially most politically discomfort Sharon himself. His coalition is anything but stable. He barely commands a majority in the Knesset. His party is hopelessly torn, with much of the parliamentary faction ready, come the circumstances, to dump him. Of wider, ominous significance, he has made it easy for extremist opponents to claim that his pursuit of disengagement lacks democratic legitimacy; already one far-right Knesset member has invoked the loaded term "betrayal" with regard to his behavior; already the National Religious Party leader Effie Eitam is asserting that "no sane Jew" could support his plan; already extra-parliamentary groups are preparing campaigns of civil disobedience. It is chilling to remember that barely a month after Yitzhak Rabin narrowly secured a Knesset majority with the help of widely denounced parliamentary defections for the Oslo B West Bank pullback, in late September 1995, Yigal Amir emerged from the shadows at the foot of a Tel Aviv staircase.

Unsurprisingly overlooked amid the political chaos of the past few days, nevertheless, is the fact that Sharon�s disengagement vision has changed fundamentally since he first unveiled it -- though not in the way his opponents on the right would have wished. It is no longer a blueprint for unilateralism at all. The fear that Hamas would fill the vacuum prompted a quiet prime ministerial rethink. Rather than simply attempting to pull out of Gaza and damn the consequences, Sharon is now coordinating with the Egyptians. Fearful of Islamic extremist influence spilling over and threatening their regime, they are professing a readiness to work more seriously to prevent arms smuggling into Gaza and, however improbably, to try and ensure a credible anti-terror effort by Palestinian security forces.

Sharon has indicated that he will seek the same kind of partnership with the Jordanians when, or if, he pulls out of parts of the West Bank. And this new emphasis on coordination goes some distance toward alleviating the fears of increased terrorism after a withdrawal.

But there�s simply no telling whether, nine months from now, Israel will indeed begin to depart from Gaza. There�s no guarantee that Sharon will still be prime minister then, no guarantee that the balance of cabinet power will favor disengagement, no guarantee that Israel will galvanize the political will to confront settlers and their supporters resisting evacuation.

A temporary influx of cheering young Diaspora Jews may do fleeting wonders for the national sense of well-being, and plainly boosts prime ministerial confidence. But Sharon owes them, us and himself more than good-humored rhetoric. In what will be bitter and divisive months ahead, he owes us more considered leadership than he has demonstrated of late. And his fellow political leaders owe us something that should be axiomatic but is actually far too much to expect: a concerted effort to act together in Israel�s best interests.