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Ehud Ya'ari: The Road to Katif

Without Arafat, nothing will move. And Arafat has no appetitefor agreements.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has thrown his card on the table; now it�s up to the other players. From the moment Sharon said he�d evacuate the Gush Katif settlements in Gaza "this year" -- and whispered that the same fate is in store for the Sa Nur-Homesh settlement bloc between Nablus and Jenin deep in the West Bank -- it�s a whole different card game: There is no longer any compelling reason for settlements to be evacuated only as part of Sharon�s unilateral "disengagement" initiative, and without any reciprocation.

Now that Sharon has shown his hole card, the question arises: Why do it for free? Why not use this new readiness for withdrawal as a lever to get an interim agreement -- one that would obligate the Palestinian Authority to pull itself out from under the rubble of anarchy and commit itself to a kind of super-hudna, an armistice anchored in a detailed arrangement with international backing.

Basically, Sharon is proposing conceding about a fifth of the territory of the Gaza Strip -- an essential space for the Palestinians, given the demographic explosion down there -- and unifying the two blocs of Palestinian villages between Jenin and Nablus which are currently divided by the Sa Nur-Homesh road and nearby army bases. What he will be doing in both places is creating Palestinian territorial contiguity.

Obviously, the Palestinians have a genuine interest in achieving this. Nevertheless, Yasser Arafat dictated that they should not welcome Sharon�s declarations, but rather say they fear a trap and are concerned that a fait accompli is in the making in the West Bank. Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei (Abu Ala) did reveal his enthusiasm with at least one remark that may or not have been a slip of the tongue. He knows that Israel�s withdrawal from established settlements can be claimed as an unconditional victory for the intifada, but he�s anxious that it could put paid to the chance of further negotiations over the West Bank in the immediate future.

The Palestinians� anxieties are shared by Egypt and Jordan, by Western Europe and by the Bush administration. After all, the unilateral action means the destruction of the diplomatic holy writ, the road map. For the bloody fighting to go on is one thing. Dictating a permanent route for the separation fence is entirely another. Hence, the absence of applause for Sharon. In Washington, London and Cairo, his announcement was greeted with a thunderous silence. And once the initial shock had passed, the parties busied themselves looking for a way to turn the change in Israel�s position into a dynamic for a new negotiating process.

Sharon has apparently created a chance to bridge Phase One of the road map -- wiping out terror -- and Phase Two, establishing a Palestinian state in "provisional borders." For if Israel is prepared to evacuate settlements already, before the Palestinians have fulfilled their Phase One obligations, then perhaps the two stages can be integrated: A Palestinian "security plan" for a cease-fire and a halt to terrorism combined with territorial changes, progress toward a "temporary Palestinian state" and possible international monitoring via the mechanism outlined in the road map.

Theoretically, then, instead of the unilateral context in which Sharon presented his intentions, why shouldn�t the same intentions be linked to the format of a new agreement?

Some claim that Sharon was aware of this option from the start. Associates of his even swear they have with their own ears heard him say he aims to corner the Palestinians into a renewed dialogue. But that�s doubtful. Sharon isn�t one of those politicians who pours his heart out to all kinds of aides. But it is also doubtful whether a man of Sharon�s stature could be so mistaken as to believe that his declarations would not set off a chain reaction such as this. At least he doesn�t seem surprised by what�s going on.

I have written on these pages more than once that an armistice agreement, like that of 1949, is the only way out of the Israeli-Palestinian maelstrom. That was then, and is still, the most practical option. Only any progress toward it is getting harder from day to day because of the chaos and disintegration on the Palestinian side. Without Arafat, nothing will move. And Arafat has no appetite for agreements. He would rather celebrate the evacuation of Gush Katif from a distance than put the terror genie back in the bottle. Hence, the main problem facing those seeking to steer Sharon away from unilateralism is how to force Arafat to bend.

So far, neither President Mubarak nor Tony Blair -- whose people are cooking up some new ideas for a cease-fire -- has a proven prescription for dealing with Arafat. He is insisting on being reinstated to his previous position as the recognized Palestinian negotiator as a precondition for any gesture. And that�s something that not only Sharon, but also Bush and many others cannot agree to.

It is just possible, therefore, that in a few months� time, the question that everyone runs away from will again be raised, in all its severity: Should the chance of an interim settlement and an end to the blood-spilling be sacrificed, solely in order to avoid laying a finger on the rais?