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TITLE: Playing the Superpower Game |
AUTHOR: Zvi Bar'el |
PUB: Ha'aretz |
DATE: February 16, 2001 |
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The United States has been waiting ten years for its sanctions to succeed in bringing down Saddam Hussein. This has yet to happen. Even the sanctions on Iran that were meant to prompt that country into changing its ways have not shifted the ayatollahs much. Sudan, on which the Americans imposed partial sanctions, continues to be an extremist regime, suspected of aiding terrorists; and the same is true of Syria, which receives no American aid. Libya has some good customers in Europe and Qaddafi also waited ten years before agreeing - thanks to the influence of his friend, Nelson Mandela - to extradite the suspects in the Pan Am jet bombing. Israel wants to take part in the superpower game and test its strength by imposing sanctions on the Palestinians. It imposed a "breathing closure" and in exchange got roadside bombs and shooting attacks; it then tried an "encirclement" of the territories and faced attacks prompted by the mood it created. This policy has many names, but there is nothing new here. The difference between the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Iraq or Iran or Libya, is that those countries have either enough independent resources on which to survive, or enough vital resources to offer those who would violate the sanctions. The PA does not have such resources and, at most, it can rely only on donations that, currently, are not coming in. Consequently, salaries are not paid, medical services are collapsing and none of the Palestinian civilian institutions are functioning. Yet it is Israeli flags that are being burned and not pictures of Yasser Arafat. If Israel is hoping that Palestinian public pressure will be directed at the offices of the PA's leadership, it may have to wait a long time; and Israel can certainly expect the pressure that Arab countries are exerting on the U.S. and Europe to come back at it with full force - just as Yasser Arafat is hoping and just as Saddam Hussein managed to do in the case of Iraq. The Arab countries needed a few years before starting to exert heavy international pressure to help the dying people of Iraq, and it took them a few more years to begin blatantly violating the sanctions regime. Enlisting them in the Palestinian cause will take a lot less time, however, because the threat of the crisis in the Palestinian areas seeping again into their streets is an almost immediate one. It is not superfluous to ask what the Israeli government will do when the country's Arabs also start demonstrating on behalf of the Palestinians. What will it do when convoys of food trucks from Umm al Fahm try to break through the Erez checkpoint in order to bring food to those under siege? What will it do when the terrorist attacks, roadside bombs and the number of Jewish dead become marginal issues in world public opinion compared to the human plight of hunger and distress that will afflict the territories? Sanctions, the Americans have learned from experience, must be accompanied by specific goals in order for them to have some measure of success. Sanctions alone cannot be a means to change a regime and certainly cannot be used to prevent a war of liberation. The same experience shows that it is actually during difficult periods that a ruler's power against an enemy is reinforced and that "unity" in the face of an enemy was not an Israeli invention. The Palestinian population can and should be allowed to earn a living and the economic sanctions can and should be ended. Instead of cooping up one million people in the Gaza Strip because they are shooting at two or three settlements, the settlements should be removed. The soldiers who have to guard these settlements and the access roads to them, along with the sharpshooter posts and bullet-proof buses can all be transferred to other crossing points, and a few new ones should be opened so that it will be possible to quickly and efficiently check those entering Israel. This is not a solution that guarantees that the Palestinians will not seek independence or will cease fighting for the Temple Mount and their right to return. But what is appropriate for the Gaza Strip, which is sealed off in every direction, may not necessarily be appropriate for the West Bank or the eastern part of Jerusalem, which is honeycombed with loopholes for anyone wanting to plant an explosive device somewhere. But following the principle of "Gaza first" is worth considering. Or it is possible to adopt the recommendations of the two gunslingers, Meir Dagan and Ehud Yatom, who propose entering Gaza or Beit Jala for 24 hours, instilling some degree of order there, and leaving. Then Ariel Sharon would be able to phone Vladimir Putin and ask him in his fluent Russian: "What's happening in Grosny?. © copyright 2000 Ha'aretz. All Rights Reserved END |