As Sharon's Assumed US Support Disappears, Sharon's 24 Hour Planning Horizon Drives Future Plans

2005-08-14

[IMRA: "Thanks to the peace treaty with Jordan and the eradication of the Iraqi threat, the Jordan Rift Valley is no longer essential and can be ceded."

Yes. The current regime in Jordan is honoring most element of the treaty, and while Iraq has already entered into a defense pact with Iran they have been "eradicated" as a threat for at least a few years,

But if Israel cedes the Jordan Rift Valley it won't be for a year - not even a decade.

And there is no one who knows who or what will be east of Israel then.]

A battle on two fronts

Amir Oren

Haaretz

www.haaretz.com/hasen/ pages/ShArtVty.jhtml? sw=oren&itemNo=612113

Sharon is facing two difficult fights - internally, in the form of Netanyahu and the disengagement opponents, and externally, in the form of an American-Palestinian alliance.

A senior officer who is on daily contact with the settlers said midweek, even before Benjamin Netanyahu soared in the polls, that "Netanyahu's resignation has given the [disengagement] opponents a tailwind." No one knows how the operation to evacuate the settlements of the Gaza Strip and northern Samaria will proceed, develop and conclude, the officer said, and above all there is no expert who will dare to guess how the zealots will behave and what sort of chain of provocation and reaction they will generate. The IDF and the police have kept secret even from the evacuation forces the preparations to overcome extremists who endanger the lives of Israelis and Palestinians. Hovering in the background is the failure to prevent the murders at Shfaram by the armed deserter Eden Natan Zada.

On the eve of Netanyahu's resignation as finance minister, Sharon met with an old acquaintance and shared his thoughts with him. In the government, the prime minister said, he cannot rely on the seriousness of more than two or three ministers. And they are not necessarily his supporters - Tzipi Livni, Tzachi Hanegbi and maybe also Yisrael Katz. (He did not mention the two who are considered his loyalists: Ehud Olmert and Shaul Mofaz.) As for Netanyahu, he "despises" him.

Sharon has declared that he will run again in the next elections, whether on behalf of the Likud, as he prefers, or outside it. After the elections he will insist that the Palestinian fulfill their part in the road map and prove, at least in one or two of the cities that have been transferred to them, that they are fighting terrorism fiercely. If they do, he will strive for a permanent agreement in the framework of which the Palestinian state will get the entire West Bank apart from the settlement blocs.

Thanks to the peace treaty with Jordan and the eradication of the Iraqi threat, the Jordan Rift Valley is no longer essential and can be ceded.

In place of continuous construction of Ma'aleh Adumim, which will force the Palestinians to find tortuous routes around it between the north and south of the West Bank, Sharon will consider a tunnel road, such as the one between Jerusalem and the Gush Etzion settlement bloc. Concessions can also be expected in the eastern sections of Jerusalem - an allusion to a plan devised by Israel's National Security Council to part with Kafr Aqeb and Shuafat. At the moment there seems little likelihood that this Sharon blueprint will be realized. His calculations have hit a snag and he is facing two difficult fronts - internal, in the form of Netanyahu and the disengagement opponents, and external, in the form of an American-Palestinian alliance. If he manages to extricate himself from the first, he will have a hard time coping with the second.

Beneath the polite smiles, Israel's political-diplomatic and security relations with Washington are at their lowest level in years. Sharon's unilateral withdrawal from Gaza is becoming a bilateral fling between Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) and Condoleezza Rice. In return for the Palestinians' courteous willingness to accept the Gaza Strip, the Americans will heap on them abundant political and economic support. Sharon wants the road map as a substitute for the Oslo process. Abbas wants to go back to Oslo. The Bush administration is leaning toward Abbas - Oslo again, albeit by the back door. Without specific goals for the coming Israeli withdrawals, without a binding timetable and without international guarantees, Abbas will refuse to do battle against terrorism. Bush and Rice will repulse Sharon's efforts to explain that even if the end of the process is pretty well agreed on, it has to be reached along a lengthy road. This, at any rate, will be the picture if there is quiet in Gaza for a time after the evacuation.

...

Source: IMRA – Independent Media Review and Analysis

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2010-09-23

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