The Jerusalem Post has a long, must-read on shifting trans-Atlantic political alliances as Sharon pushes the disengagement plan:
In Bush, both Israeli and American conservatives believed the US had found a president who not only recognized this threat, but who was willing to put his money where his mouth was… he unapologetically surrounded himself with what his attackers called the “neoconservative cabal”… and simultaneously befriended Sharon… [he] deepened the natural three-way alliance between Washington, Jerusalem and the conservatives, who finally felt their ideas were being adopted by the leaders of both countries…
It might have been expected, then, that American conservative intellectuals would oppose Sharon’s plan, just as they had opposed Oslo. And in fact, some, like Frank Gaffney… and… Daniel Pipes, have argued strongly against it. But most others, including Podhoretz, his wife, Midge Decter… Charles Krauthammer… [and] William Kristol, are behind Sharon. As a result, Commentary and the Weekly Standard, which published numerous pieces against the Oslo Accords, have been relatively quiet over the disengagement plan.
At the risk of sounding too much like a stereotypical, resentful, self-important Israeli Leftist (because that “Leftist” thing is totally untrue), I think that this time it is the case that there can be a geniune peace process between Israel and the Palestinians – and that some American conservative opponents are letting ideological purity get in the way of Israeli prosperity. The difference between disengagement and Oslo is that, throughout Oslo, opponents were screaming at the top of their lungs that Arafat was still engaging in incitement and preparing for war. Now Pipes’s main point is that although Abbas is clamping down on incitement and violence (not just violence), he’s doing it for the wrong reasons. But it’s not enough to say that Abbas is doing the right things for the wrong reasons – opponents of cooperation have to be able to explain why bad motives matter. I don’t care particularly if Abbas is closing down TV stations and rounding up Hamas because he likes Israel or rather because he thinks that violence is tactically unproductive – as long as he’s doing it and is going to keep doing it.
Now of course, the crucial question is whether or not he is indeed going to continue cooperating with Israel. Or is he going to be like Arafat, where a temporary drop in violence was merely used to regroup? That’s an open question, and it’s a question that should be debated.
On one hand, you have the Pipes argument that Abbas is not genuine – so there’s always the risk that, if the balance of power tips his way, he’ll launch a terrorist war. What Pipes leaves out is the idea that Arafat was only able to do that beacause he had spent the last half a decade inciting the Palestinian population against Israel – the Palestinian street was ready to explode, and he lit the match. But if Abbas shuts down incitement and the Palestinian territories prosper, then even if he wants to launch another terrorist war, he won’t have the available terrorists.
This entire theory, of course, relies on the idea that Abbas genuinely goes after terrorists and shuts down incitement – that he gives Palestinians a chance to prosper. Those of us that do support disengagement (and I tentatively do as the only alternative to an untenable demographic situation) owe it to those of us on the other side to stay honest and admit when it seems like Abbas isn’t a real peace partner.
