A Rude Awakening
nytimes.com
"Let's start with the Palestinians. Israel's prime minister, Ariel Sharon, dropped a bombshell this week when he said he was laying plans to withdraw most Israeli settlements in Gaza and to move others in the West Bank. It's not surprising that this potential breakthrough move came from Mr. Sharon, since he has the two other main players in the Arab-Israeli drama under house arrest.
That is, Mr. Sharon has the Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat under house arrest in his office in Ramallah, and he's had George Bush under house arrest in the Oval Office. Mr. Sharon has Mr. Arafat surrounded by tanks, and Mr. Bush surrounded by Jewish and Christian pro-Israel lobbyists, by a vice president, Dick Cheney, who's ready to do whatever Mr. Sharon dictates, and by political handlers telling the president not to put any pressure on Israel in an election year — all conspiring to make sure the president does nothing.
Since Mr. Sharon is the only moving object, and because he has suddenly found himself under pressure to move — both to change the subject from the corruption scandal closing in on him and his family and to satisfy an Israeli electorate fed up with the bloody status quo — we may have a unilateral Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. This is apparently part of a broader Sharon plan to unilaterally create an interim Palestinian state in about 50 percent of the West Bank and all of Gaza, and leave Israel with the rest." |
