http://emperors-clothes.com/israel/disengage.htm
Subscribe to our free newsletter at
http://emperor.vwh.net/MailList/index.php
Receive articles from Emperor’s Clothes Website
Emperor’s Clothes * www.tenc.net
================================================
The Present As History
The Great ‘Unilateral Disengagement’ Swindle and What it Tells about US-Israeli Relations
by Samantha Criscione
European Editor, Emperor’s Clothes
Edited by Jared Israel
[18 July 2006]
===============================================
At the end of August 2005, the Israeli government completed the expulsion of all Jewish civilians living in the Gaza strip and in Northern Samaria, part of the West Bank of the Jordan River.
In September it pulled out the military forces deployed in defense of those civilians and turned control of the Gaza-Sinai border over to the Palestinian Authority and the Egyptian military, in violation of the 1979 Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty, and arguably jeopardizing Israel’s existence. [1]
This operation, designated the “Disengagement Plan”, has been portrayed in Israel and around the world as a step toward peace, supposedly taken by Israel of its own initiative, without even consulting its ally, the US government. Indeed some have portrayed the “Disengagement Plan” as having been imposed upon the US government by a Machiavellian Ariel Sharon, who, we are told, blackmailed Washington into giving him “exactly want he wanted.” [2]
Even opponents of the “Disengagement Plan” have uncritically accepted this line, for example Yaakov Amidror:
“For the first time in the history of Zionism the Israeli government has shattered a taboo and is uprooting settlements without external pressure and without receiving anything in return”. [my emphasis -- SC] [3]
But is this picture accurate?
=======================================
Words Are Stones
=======================================
People customarily think of words as neutral instruments for
expressing ideas that might or might not become actions, which alone are
considered dangerous. The children’s rhyme says, “Sticks and stones may
break my bones, but words will never harm me!” But in fact, words can be
and are used as weapons, for example in political propaganda. In this
sense, words are stone
From the start, ‘unilateral’ was the key word in the presentation of
the “Disengagement Plan”.
‘Unilateral’ means “done or undertaken by one person or party.”
[4]
Thus a unilateral plan is, by definition, one-sided, i.e.,
undertaken without consultation of the other side. In hostile
negotiations, unilateral steps are justified if they advance your
interests and injure your opponent. So on December 18, 2003, when Ariel
Sharon announced a “Disengagement Plan,” even though for four months he
didn’t explain in detail what was involved in the Plan, by calling it
“unilateral” he was suggesting it would serve Israel’s interests while
harming the Arabs. He magnified that impression by posing the plan as a
threat, saying:
“…if in a few months the Palestinians still continue to disregard their part in implementing the Roadmap [i.e., President Bush's Middle East peace plan] then Israel will initiate the unilateral security step of disengagement from the Palestinians.”
and:
“Obviously, through the Disengagement Plan the Palestinians will receive much less than they would have received through direct negotiations as set out in the Roadmap.” [5]
The US government, Arab leaders and the world media also talked about disengagement as dangerously one-sided. For example, immediately after Sharon announced the plan, White House Spokesman Scott McClellan held a press briefing. Answering a question about Sharon’s speech, he claimed the US government knew nothing about what Sharon had in mind and warned:
“The United States believes that a settlement must be negotiated, and we would oppose any effort -- any Israeli effort to impose a settlement.”
-- Press Briefing by Scott McClellan, Dec. 18, 2003 [6]
For the next four month, the US and Israeli governments replayed this
script, time and again, with Israel repeatedly threatening “unilateral”
action and the US professing to be worried about what Israel might do,
until, finally, in April of 2004, President Bush professed to give in to
Israeli pressure and accept the plan.
A study of the record shows this was pure doubletalk.
First, the contents of Israel’s supposedly unilateral “Disengagement
Plan” have been implicit in US policy at least since the Mitchell
Report, which was commissioned by President Clinton in October 2000 and
released by George Bush in 2001, and which formed the basis of the US
government’s ‘Road Map for Peace’, launched in April 2003.
Second, the “Disengagement Plan” changed (indeed, reversed) the Israeli
government’s stance on vital questions:
a) From referring to the West Bank and Gaza strip as ‘disputed territories’, meaning Israel has arguable claims --
-- to referring to them as ‘occupied territories’, meaning any Israeli presence is illegitimate;
b) From defending the right of Jews to live anywhere they want --
-- to accepting the Arab demand that all Jews be evicted from “Palestinian” lands;
c) From demanding that the Arabs dismantle and destroy terrorist organizations, i.e., stop murdering Israeli citizens, before negotiations --
-- to accepting that Israel must dissolve some or even all settlements without the Arabs doing anything except taking over the functions Israel abandons.
Third: the contents of the “Disengagement Plan” benefited
Israel’s historic enemies (the Arab League and Egypt first of all),
rendering Israel militarily less defensible.
[7]
All these dramatic reversals, involved in the “Disengagement Plan”, were
already being pushed by US officials starting April 30, 2003, when the
Road Map was officially issued; indeed before that time. For example,
the Mitchell Report of April 30, 2001 spoke of:
“the humiliation and frustration that Palestinians must endure every day as a result of living with the continuing effects of occupation, sustained by the presence of Israeli military forces and settlements in their midst”
and ‘suggested’ that:
“The GOI [Government of Israel] may wish to make it clear to the PA [Palestinian Authority] that a future peace would pose no threat to the territorial contiguity of a Palestinian State to be established in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip”. [9]
As I will prove, the specific elements of the “Disengagement Plan” were
explicitly demanded of Israel in visits and statements by US officials
in May of 2003. Ariel Sharon publicly accepted most of these US demands
by late May. Thus seven months later, when Sharon made his speech
announcing Israel's “unilateral” “Disengagement Plan” on 18th December
2003, he was merely confirming Israel's capitulation to clearly stated
-- and indeed publicly, repeatedly stated -- US demands.
The performance by US, Israeli and Arab officials, aimed at portraying
disengagement as “unilateral” and possibly threatening to the Arab
leadership, has been a contrived farce.
The US insistence on the condemnation of Israel’s “unilateral” action,
the perpetual repetition in the media - from November-December 2003 to
April 2004 - of the word “unilateral” in connection with Israel’s plan,
these were crucial in order to establish as an indisputable fact that
the “Disengagement Plan” was solely Israel’s initiative, imposed by
Israel on a ‘helpless’ US government.
The insistence that the plan was Sharon’s unilateral and indeed personal
creation had two very important effects :
1) The neutralization of possible opposition to the utterly self-destructive – from Israel’s point of view – “Disengagement Plan”. If Sharon, ‘the settlers’ hero’, was forcing disengagement on unwilling partners, then it must be good for Israel.
2) The reinforcement of the old antisemitic slander (and widespread public misperception) that ‘the Jews’ control world policy – i.e., Israel is the puppeteer, the mighty US only the puppet.
For Israel this capitulation to US demands was anything but
a farce: it was a tragedy. Tragedy for the entire country, since
Israel’s resistance prior to capitulation had cost many Israeli lives.
And personal tragedy for Ariel Sharon, the war hero, the man of
independent action, degraded, perhaps through blackmail, or perhaps
through other means, to the imposed role of fall guy, who said, as he
actually did say the day Israeli troops started to evict Jews from Gaza,
'Blame me!'
“The prime minister repeatedly called on the settlers to spare the soldiers and police from harm, insults, and blame. ‘Blame me,’ he said raising his voice, ‘this was my decision.’ ” [10]
-- Website of Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs
“Blame me” -- when in fact he had been reduced to a proxy for the Bush
administration.
The Bush administration was forcing Israel to adopt a plan that was
a) noxious to its own interests and b) contrary to Israel’s
long-established policy.
This plan involved a disorderly retreat from territories that
were perceived -- and in fact were -- vital for Israel's security.
It involved dragging thousands of people from homes and work places that
they had built literally under the gun, at the risk of their lives, for
which Israel had in the past presented them as heroes, with their
eviction and the subsequent destruction of their communities led by the
man who had said Israel would always stand with them. This was so
internally destabilizing that in order to push it through, the Israeli
government and media launched a campaign of vilification against those
opposing “Disengagement”. The climax of that campaign was the lynching
and subsequent vilification of Eden Natan-Zada, the AWOL Israeli
serviceman accused of murdering four Arabs on a bus in the town of
Shfaram on August 4, 2005, and whom the media, the Israeli government
and the US State Department claimed was a member of a group of
anti-disengagement terrorists.
[11]
That the Bush administration managed to force Israel to do all this
while at the same time selling it as Israel’s own
initiative, forced on an unwilling US government, thus perpetuating the
antisemitic slander of the Jewish puppeteer acting behind the scenes, is
a masterpiece of propaganda -- horribly brilliant, tragic in its
consequences -- and therefore deserving our utmost attention.
To understand how this campaign of coercion and propaganda worked, let
us look at the chronological record.
-- continued in Part 2 --
Samantha Criscione
European Editor, Emperor’s Clothes
[Footnotes follow the fundraising appeal]
=======================================
Donate to Emperor’s Clothes
=======================================
At Emperor’s Clothes we get all our funding from our readers.
If you find our work useful, and you can afford to make a donation,
please do. Our ability to pay for research tools and other expenses
depends on you. Every donation helps, whether it is $5, $50 or $500.
Thank you!
Our best is yet to come.
Here’s how to make a donation:
* Using
PayPal
(Accepts Visa, MasterCard, Amex, Discover)
https://www.paypal.com/xclick/business=emperors1000@aol.com&no_shipping=1
* By credit card at
our
secure server
(Accepts Visa, MasterCard, Discover)
https://emperor.securesites.com/transactions/index.php
* Mail a check to:
Emperor’s Clothes,
P.O. Box 610-321
Newton, MA 02461-0321 (USA)
* By credit card over the phone: 1 (617) 502-2067
Thank You!
==============================================
Footnotes
==============================================
[1] See “Egypt: Elephant in the Living Room of Gaza
‘Disengagement’”, by Jared Israel, at
http://emperors-clothes.com/analysis/eleph1.htm
[2]
The Observer; April 18, 2004; [Sunday],
Section: Observer News Pages, Pg. 19; Length: 1766 words; Headline: “
‘Good job, Prime Minister’ -- and Bush campaign is back on track:
Downing Street is pleased with the Rose Garden double act but only Ariel
Sharon left the White House with a broad smile”. Byline: Paul Harris and
Kamal Ahmed.
[3] Yaakov Amidror, “The Unilateral Withdrawal: A
Security Error of Historical magnitude”, in Strategic Assessment,
Vol. 7, No. 3, December 2004.
[4] See for example the definition of the
Merriam-Webster
dictionary. “Unilateral” derives from the Latin nouns unus,
‘one’, and latus, ‘side’.
[5]
Address by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon at the Fourth Herzliya
Conference, December 18, 2003. Posted on the website of Israel’s
Ministry of Foreign Affairs at
http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Government/Speeches+by+Israeli+lea...
or http://tinyurl.com/ps682
[6] The White House, Office of the Press Secretary,
December 18, 2003, Press Briefing by Scott McClellan, The James
S. Brady Briefing Room. Originally posted on the website of the White
house at http://whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/12/20031218-2.html#3
Now at
http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/...
[7] Putting Gaza in the hands of the Palestinian
Arab leadership, with Israel turning over control of the Sinai-Egypt
border to Egypt, negates the limited protections included in the
Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty of 1979, as discussed in Jared Israel’s
“Egypt: Elephant in the Living Room of Gaza ‘Disengagement’”, at
http://emperors-clothes.com/analysis/eleph1.htm
The
need for Israel to control Gaza for basic defense purposes is discussed
in a memorandum describing Israel’s minimal border requirements for
national defense, prepared by the Joint Chiefs of Staff for Secretary of
Defense McNamara in 1967, following the Six Days War. The relevant
excerpt is quoted below. The full text can be read at
http://emperor.vwh.net/israel/pentagon.pdf
[8] Sharm El-Sheikh Fact-Finding Committee Report
[Mitchell Report], April 30, 2001. Originally posted on the website of
the US State Department at http://www.state.gov/p/nea/rls/rpt/3060.htm
Now at
http://2001-2009.state.gov/p/nea/rls/rpt/3060.htm
[9] Sharm El-Sheikh Fact-Finding Committee Report
[Mitchell Report], April 30, 2001. Originally posted on the website of
the US State Department at http://www.state.gov/p/nea/rls/rpt/3060.htm
Now at
http://2001-2009.state.gov/p/nea/rls/rpt/3060.htm
[10] “Sharon to settlers: Blame me”, Israel Line,
17 August 2005, posted on the website of Israel's Ministry of Foreign
Affairs at
http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Archive/Israel+Line/2005/Israel+Line...
or http://tinyurl.com/okkqb
According to other news reports, Ariel Sharon’s words were “Hurt me”.
See Xinhua News Agency quoting Haaretz: “Sharon urges
settlers to avoid clash over pullout”, Xinhua News Agency,
2005-08-17, 21:01:00. Posted at
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-08/17/content_3370074.htm
[11]
Regarding the Israeli, indeed worldwide, media campaign of vilification
following the lynching of Eden Natan-Zada, see Jared Israel's Arutz
Sheva articles, “Trial by
Lynching in Israel”, at
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/article.php3?id=5430
and “Are the Natan-Zada Lynching Arrests a Cover-Up?” at
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/article.php3?id=6348
* * *
Please forward this text or send the link to a friend.
http://emperors-clothes.com/israel/disengage.htm
Subscribe to our free newsletter at
http://emperor.vwh.net/MailList/index.php
Receive articles from Emperor’s Clothes Website
Emperor’s Clothes * www.tenc.net