West Bank pullout may be next casualty By Julian Borger in Jerusalem
Guardian Wednesday 16 August, 2006
One of the many casualties of the war in Lebanon will almost certainly be the Israeli government’s plans to withdraw unilaterally from the West Bank.
Ehud Olmert’s government has been weakened by intense criticism of its handling of the war and is in no position to force through its controversial “realignment policy” of unilateral withdrawal from Palestinian territory.
Hizbullah’s unleashing of thousands of rockets from a border strip in Lebanon vacated six years ago by Israeli forces, coming soon after Hamas’s use of rockets from the Gaza Stip, has created a political backlash against withdrawal.
Mr Olmert’s hopes of pursuing his realignment policy appeared to have been delivered a fatal blow yesterday, with the leak of a government-appointed panel’s report on its consequences. According to Ha’aretz newspaper, the committee found that a withdrawal would leave cities such as Tel Aviv vulnerable to rocket attacks from the West Bank.
“It is well known that as far as public opinion is concerned, unilateral steps are over already,” said Avshalom Vilan, a Knesset member from the leftwing Meretz party. “They will not work. There is no majority for them in the Knesset at the moment or in the future.”
He added that Palestinian militants might draw inspiration from Hizbullah and rely more heavily on rocket attacks against Israel.
Ghassan Khatib, the labour minister in the Palestinian Authority, confirmed that Hizbullah’s perceived ability to survive an Israeli offensive for more than a month had strengthened Palestinian militancy.
“In public opinion, there is an increase in support for military solutions and resistance as a strategy rather than negotiations,” Mr Khatib said.
Former prime minister Ariel Sharon founded the Kadima party specifically to carry out unilateral withdrawals from occupied territories and he led the pull-out from Gaza almost exactly a year ago. When Mr Sharon had a stroke in January and the Kadima leadership passed to Mr Olmert, he won an election on the pledge to do the same on the West Bank – a far more difficult task because of the much higher number of Jewish settlers and Israeli ambitions to hold on to a significant amount of the territory.
Yossi Alpher, an adviser to former prime minister Ehud Barak at the 2000 Camp David peace talks, said: “We have already been attacked across two internationally recognised borders, across which we withdrew unilaterally, and the West Bank won’t even be an internationally negotiated border.”
If the realignment policy has reached a dead end, it represents a serious threat to Kadima, which has largely been a single-issue party, and its coalition. If rightwing Kadima members start to defect to Likud, the government could fall apart.
While there is widespread agreement that realignment has hit a brick wall, it is far from clear what the government will do next. Mr Vilan said he hoped the impasse would lead to a resumption of dialogue with the Palestinian Authority over a negotiated withdrawal.
“Maybe it will accelerate negotiation between Israel and the Palestinians on the understanding that without it there can be no solution in Gaza or the West Bank,” he said. “And also, because without doing so they will come to a dead end on their main policy, and I don’t see how Kadima will survive without that political momentum.”
Mr Khatib said there were growing fears among Palestinians that Mr Olmert and the Israeli army might try to rescue their reputations with a broad offensive against Hamas in Gaza. “People are worried because Israel might try to create victories on the Palestinian front after its difficulties on the Lebanese front,” he said.
Recent Comments