The pullout as a `default option' By Akiva Eldar As these lines are being
written, on Sunday morning, it can be said that only a natural disaster
could stop the government's decision to approve the disengagement plan and,
at the same opportunity, the route of the separation fence. None of the
government ministers, among them a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize,
questions the basic assumption on which the decisions are based to abandon
the track of talks with our neighbor in favor of unilateral moves. A
Palestinian leader dies and a Palestinian leader is born, an Israeli
government comes and an Israeli government goes, and the basic assumption
remains: There is no Palestinian partner for a move toward peace. Even Yahad
is supporting the Sharon government's unilateral move and turning its back
on the Beilin-Abu Mazen accord, the Taba understandings and the Geneva
document. Thousands of Palestinians were made homeless and vengeful until a
group of experts revealed to the chief of staff that the method of
demolishing houses is more damaging than helpful. The report of a think-tank
forum that operated with the blessing of Chief of Staff Moshe Ya'alon and
was closely accompanied by Colonel Amos Lehman, his adviser for strategic
thinking, questions the perception that a strong arm and collective
punishment suffice to deter a people that is fighting occupation. The team
determined that "Israel has not succeeded in `etching into the mind' of the
Palestinians the notion that violence does not serve their aims and even
greatly harms their advancement." Moreover, the document, first published
here, states that during the years of the intifada the feeling prevailed
among the Palestinians that they had nothing to lose, and along with this
their motivation to become part of the cycle of violence increased. The
committee, which met regularly since November 2003 at the Jerusalem
Institute for Israel Studies was comprised of retired senior intelligence
people: Ephraim Halevy, Reuven Merhav and Yossi Ben-Ari of the Mossad;
Efraim Lavie of Military Intelligence; Kobi Michael of the Liaison and
Coordination Unit; and academics such as Yaakov Bar-Siman-Tov (who headed
the team), Daniel Bar-Tal, Ruth Lapidoth, Dan Zakai, Ezra Sadan, Tamar
Herman, Yifrah Zilberman and Yitzhak Reiter. They interviewed intelligence
experts and Middle East specialists, among them Mati Steinberg, former
senior adviser on Palestinian affairs to the head of the Shin Bet security
service. Their report charges that the Israel Defense Forces - under the
leadership of current Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, when he was chief of
staff, and afterward, under Moshe Ya'alon - fanned the violent conflict that
broke out in September 2000: "The levers of pressure that were applied to
the Palestinian population and to the security apparatus, most of whose
members did not take part at the beginning of the conflict, gave rise to
negative results. A sense of anger and vengeance led to the tightening of
the cooperation among the terror groups and between them and elements of the
Palestinian security services that joined the conflict as a result of the
IDF's damages to them. As a result of this the phenomenon of suicide attacks
swelled to unprecedented dimensions, spilling over into the nonreligious
organizations." The report shoots down the conception that had taken hold in
the public concerning the reasons for the failure of the peace process and
the outbreak of the intifada, the escalation and the continuation of the
hostilities. This is the same conception that greases the wheels of
unilateral initiatives. The experts warn that conducting a conflict without
a diplomatic end in sight is "a negative recipe that plays into the hands of
extremist elements on both sides and is liable to lead to the escalation of
the conflict .... Even today the basic Palestinian support for the idea of
two states is becoming shaky, and there exists a danger that the Palestinian
public will lose interest in such an agreement and a public mood will
develop that will lead to its prevention." The think-tank team sees the
disengagement plan as a new conflict-management concept that derives from
the recognition that the military way of managing the conflict has reached
the end of its road. It notes that "a unilateral strategy of
conflict-management constitutes a default option and it is not desirable,
unless it can encourage the other side to return to a joint format of
managing the conflict." In a hopeful (despairing?) tone the experts assess
that in that case - even though the new strategy is based on the perception
that there is no Palestinian partner for a diplomatic move - the
disengagement might turn out to be far-reaching, not only with respect to
the management of the conflict, but also to the possibility of its
resolution.

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