By Gong Shaopeng
Using a tunnel, armed elements from radical Palestinian factions
attacked an Israeli post in the Gaza Strip on June 25. They killed
two Israeli soldiers, abducted another and demanded the release of
more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's government responded
strongly to the attack, sending troops to the southern Gaza Strip
on June 28 in an attempt to free the hostage by force.
More than half a month has passed, and the situation remains
grave. There is still no sign of Gilad Shalit, the kidnapped
Israeli soldier. Israeli troops have detained a number of
high-ranking officials of the Hamas cabinet, while others went into
hiding. Furthermore, Israeli troops entered the northern Gaza Strip
after the coastal city of Ashkelon came under rocket attack on July
5.
The escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is by no
means accidental. Instead, it is the outcome of changes taking
place within Israeli and Palestinian political structures over the
past 10 months.
Israel, under former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, completed its
pullout from the Gaza Strip in August 2005. The pullout brought new
hope, slim as it was, to the stalled Israel-Palestine peace
process. But the withdrawal was a unilateral act, not entirely in
line with the Quartet Roadmap worked out by the United States,
European Union, Russia and the United Nations. Moreover, Israel, in
the course of withdrawing, met the needs of the Palestine
Liberation Organization (PLO) headed by President Mahmoud Abbas.
People had reason to believe that more extensive co-operation would
take place between the two sides.
Credit for the successful unilateral pullout largely went to
Sharon. The former premier enjoyed great prestige among Israelis
for his outstanding military role demonstrated in the five Middle
East wars, though he was portrayed as a cold-blooded butcher by
some international media. Moreover, Sharon had insight into
security matters. His words counted as to where Israel should yield
and where it should not. Sharon's unique experience as a soldier
and his political astuteness largely drove Israel's unilateral
withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.
Sharon decided to withdraw from Gaza because he was deeply
convicted that peace could be guaranteed only after the Israelis
and Palestinians ceased all hostilities. After the completion of
the Gaza withdrawal, he also entertained the idea of disengagement
from the West Bank.
Sharon naturally encountered opposition from hardliners within
the Likud Party, led by former Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu.
So Sharon broke from the party and founded Kadima, which rallied
many Israeli political heavyweights such as former Deputy Prime
Minister Ehud Olmert, incumbent Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and
elder statesman Shimon Peres.
The founding of the Kadima Party disrupted the old framework in
which the Labour and Likud parties ruled the country alternately. A
new tri-polar structure was thus ushered in.
Had it not been for the stroke that incapacitated Sharon on
January 6, Kadima would have won more seats at the Knesset
elections slated for March 28.
Therefore, Olmert took over both as the head of Kadima and as
Israeli prime minister. He sticks to the disengagement policy but
lacks Sharon's experience as a military strongman and, in turn, his
prestige. The stance of many Israelis, who backed Sharon's
unilateral plans, started to waver.
Caught in this stark reality, Olmert had to appear more hawkish
than Sharon where Israel's Palestine policy was concerned. So
whenever new Israel-Palestine conflicts broke out, Israel hit back
with an "iron fist." Otherwise, Likud, headed by Netanyahu, would
have driven Olmert from office, citing the latter's impotence in
guaranteeing Israel's security. Viewed in this general political
landscape, the current military operations of the Jewish state in
the Gaza Strip come as no surprise.
Important changes also occurred in the Palestinian political
apparatus. The radical Hamas faction defeated the ruling Fatah in
Legislative Council elections on January 28, leading to the
formation of a new cabinet with Ismail Haniyeh as prime
minister.
Hamas refuses to recognize the legitimacy of Israel's existence
and the peace accords previously reached between Israel and the
Palestinians. It also refuses to abandon the armed struggle against
the Jewish state. As a result, the European Union, the United
States and others, which were Palestine's financial backers,
suspended their aid to the Palestinian Government.
The Haniyeh government was, therefore, caught in financial dire
straits, with Palestinian civil servants going unpaid several
months in a row. Meanwhile, the rift widened between Hamas and
Fatah.
As a matter of fact, Hamas is not a monolithic entity. Some
pragmatic Hamas politicians, for instance, believe that the
ceasefire between Palestine and Israel should be maintained and
that negotiations are necessary to address Israel's withdrawal from
the West Bank and other issues. Other Hamas politicians, those
currently living in Syria and Lebanon in particular, adopt radical
political stances, refusing to yield an inch from the hard line
policy towards Israel. In between are relatively moderate
politicians, who make up the majority of the Haniyeh cabinet.
Taking into account the current impasse, some pragmatic Hamas
politicians and their Fatah peers, who are in Israeli jails,
jointly worked out an 18-point accord, calling for Hamas-Fatah
unity and suggesting that President Mahmoud Abbas preside over
peace talks with Israel.
Based on this agreement, Fatah held a few rounds of negotiations
with Hamas. The Haniyeh cabinet was on the verge of accepting this
accord when radical Palestinian faction elements attacked the
Israeli post in Gaza Strip and took Gilad Shalit hostage. Israel's
military operations in the region followed as a result.
The unilateral withdrawal and disengagement policy was designed
to bring about peaceful co-existence between the Israelis and
Palestinians.
This approach is hard to implement in reality. But it has been
the only feasible way in which to end hostilities since the
Israel-Palestine peace process grounded to a halt in September
2000. In the view of this author, the unilateral disengagement
should not go unheeded. The way out, it seems, lies in linking
unilateral disengagement and the Quartet Roadmap with the founding
of a Palestinian state and the realization of peaceful
co-existence.
To everyone's regret, however, the hostage crisis and Israel's
current military operations in the Gaza Strip threaten to bury the
unilateral disengagement plan once and for all. If this happens,
the Israel-Palestine peace process would backtrack dramatically and
people on the two sides would be plunged into a new round of hatred
and bloodshed.
To avoid this scenario, Israel should immediately stop its
military operations in the Gaza Strip and the radical Palestinian
factions should cease their assaults against the targets within
Israel. Relevant parties that have leverage should step up
intermediary efforts to see that the Israeli hostage is released
unconditionally as soon as possible.
The author is an international relations professor with the
China Foreign Affairs University.
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(China Daily July 10, 2006)
