Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Will the Gaza War usher in a two-state solution?

Parting Shots
http://www.tnr.com/story_print.html?id=662b0902-b759-4726-b0c7-ac42179a5392
Will the Gaza War usher in a two-state solution?
Gadi Taub ,  The New Republic  Published: Wednesday, February 04, 2009
For many years, these were the terms in which the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict was widely understood: The Palestinians were struggling for
partition, while Israel was the reluctant party. On the surface,
Israel's invasion of Gaza might appear to confirm that dynamic. But,
in fact, the opposite is true: Israel's current war in Gaza could turn
out to be a necessary step toward imposing a two-state solution on a
Palestinian side that has long balked at partition.
We are back, it seems, at square one. In 1947, Zionists accepted the
United Nations's partition plan because it would secure an area with a
Jewish majority. Palestinians rejected it for much the same reason: If
the land were not divided, they would have a clear Arab majority in
all of it. While it is true that the idea of Greater Israel held
appeal for many Israelis in the decades following the Six Day War, a
solid majority in Israel turned toward partition in 1993 when it
committed to the Oslo framework. In return for peace, Israel was ready
to give up the vast majority of the West Bank and Gaza. Then came what
Israelis understood to be the moment of truth: Camp David in 2000.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered an almost full withdrawal
from the occupied territories, including a division of Jerusalem.
Yasir Arafat rejected the offer. There would be no deal, he insisted,
without the right of return. Israelis knew the code: The right of
return meant millions of Palestinians naturalized on the Israeli side
of the divide. It was a plain, ringing "no" to partition.
Gradually, Israelis, or a great many of them, began to realize that
history was repeating itself: As in 1947, the Palestinian leadership
seemed determined to hold out for a single state--nominally a
binational one--in which Jews would constitute a minority. Still, this
took a while to sink in. In 2003, Labor's Amram Mitzna ran on a
platform of unilateral withdrawal and was trounced by Likud's Ariel
Sharon. Yet, two years later, Sharon implemented the very policy he
had defeated in that election. The unilateral evacuation of Gaza was
considered a success--and the polls predicted a clear victory for
Sharon's new party, Kadima, which was poised to continue the same
policy in the West Bank. The party won the election, despite Sharon's
lapse into a coma. Ehud Olmert became prime minister. Olmert was
adamant about the need for unilateral withdrawal and made clear that
he would move the dividing line closer to the 1967 border than Sharon
would have. At this point, full partition seemed right around the
corner.
But Qassam rockets kept coming from Gaza, despite its liberation from
the Israeli occupation. The Lebanon War of 2006, when Israel was
unable to stop the barrage of Hezbollah shells in the north,
reinforced the danger such rockets posed. Suddenly, many former
supporters of the Gaza pullout were no longer sure about withdrawing
from the West Bank. Wouldn't such a pullout mean rockets fired on Tel
Aviv, Jerusalem, and Israel's international airport, they wondered?
The once-promising idea of unilateral withdrawal now seemed like an
untenable risk.
And that is where things stood on the eve of the Gaza operation: The
Palestinian Authority had managed to block partition by agreement,
while Hamas had managed to block partition by unilateral withdrawal.
The Israeli incursion into Gaza offers a way around this impasse. By
stopping the rockets once and for all, the war could represent a step
toward assuring Israelis that, following a West Bank pullout, the
whole country would not turn into one big Sderot. In other words, the
war may be an opportunity to create the circumstances needed for
further withdrawals and, ultimately, complete partition.
Of course, this is not what Israelis--and Israel's politicians--are
talking about at the moment. The question of the West Bank is on the
back burner now, and stopping the rockets from Gaza is, to be sure, an
end in itself. Moreover, while stopping the rockets is a necessary
condition for any future West Bank pullout, it is probably no longer a
sufficient one. The long spell of shelling in Sderot has rekindled the
sense of national claustrophobia that is always present beneath the
surface in this small state, surrounded as it is by a hostile region.
It will take a while for that claustrophobia--on which the hawkish
Likud may soon ride to power--to recede. Even when it does, Israel
will likely want some international guarantees against rockets in the
West Bank before it contemplates withdrawing to the 1967 borders.
Still, most Israelis know that a two-state solution is vital to their
country's survival in the long run. Meanwhile, the rockets have only
strengthened their suspicion that Palestinian leaders are bent on
thwarting partition. As a result, once the smoke clears, unilateral
withdrawal will again be the order of the day. And the war, if it
succeeds, will have removed a sizeable obstacle on the road to
partition. That could be its true significance.
---
"Vorrei smentire l'errata impressione che io abbia mai cessato di
usare il mio nome per intervenire sui newsgroup. E' capitato" (Luca
Logi / rodewalder / Golda Meir, gennaio 2009)
http://raionim.blogspot.com/2009/01/il-nome-e-il-come.html

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