Kim Bullimore, West Bank
At the height of the 18-day military offensive in Gaza, which has resulted in at least 136 Palestinians being killed, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's senior adviser, Dov Weisglass, revealed that Israel's much-touted Gaza "disengagement plan" was designed to "freeze the peace process","prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state" and "prevent a discussion about the refugees, the borders and Jerusalem".
In an interview with the October 8 weekend edition of the Israeli daily Haaretz, Weisglass, the architect of the plan hatched at the height of world criticism regarding Israel's construction of the Apartheid Wall, said the real purpose of Sharon's Gaza "disengagement plan" was to buy time, so as to relieve both domestic and international pressure on the Israeli government to accept a final settlement with the Palestinians.
According to Weisglass, in 2003 "we understood that everything is stuck. And even though according to the Americans' reading of the situation, the blame fell on the Palestinians and not on us, Arik [Ariel Sharon] grasped that this state of affairs would not last. That they wouldn't leave us alone, wouldn't get off our case. Time was not on our side. There was international erosion, internal erosion.
"Domestically, in the meantime, everything was collapsing. The economy was stagnant, and the Geneva Initiative garnered broad support. And then we were hit with letters of officers and letters of pilots and letters of commandos [refusing to serve in the Occupied Territories]. These were not weird kids with green ponytails and a ring in their nose who give off a strong odour of grass... Really our finest young people."
The "disengagement plan", which involves relocating, rather than dismantling, illegal Israeli colonies in the Gaza region was designed to garner US support for the recognition of illegal settlements in the West Bank and the construction of the illegal Apartheid Wall.
"Effectively, this whole package that is called the Palestinian state, with all that it entails, has been removed from our agenda indefinitely", said Weisglass. "All with a [US] presidential blessing and the ratification of both houses of Congress."
According to Weisglass, under the pretext of relocating 10,000 settlers, Israel would strengthen the hold of 200,000 settlers on Occupied Territory soil, allowing the Israeli state to annex more Palestinian territory, further expanding the borders of the Zionist state.
The Bush administration, claiming that it had been taken by surprise by Weisglass's comments, immediately asked Israel "to clarify" its disengagement plan. The day after the revelations however, the US State Department announced that it was "reassured" by the Israeli government that Sharon did indeed support a "two-state vision" and was committed to the "peace process".
[Kim Bullimore is a member of the Socialist Alliance. She is currently working in Palestine with the international human rights organisation, the International Women's Peace Service <http://www.womenspeacepalestine.org>.]
From Green Left Weekly, October 20, 2004.
Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.