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June 23, 2006
No peace, no leeway
Prominent MK says it's up to PA to negotiate.
KATHARINE HAMER EDITOR
If Meir Sheetrit has his way, Israel will not withdraw from the
West Bank unless an explicit peace agreement is in place.
"I'm not supporting unilateral withdrawal," Israel's minister
of housing declared, during an interview with the Independent
last week.
In Vancouver for a two-day United Nations Habitat conference on
global housing solutions, the MK made it clear that he would be
sticking to his guns, even though Knesset colleagues Prime Minister
Ehud Olmert and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni suggested earlier this
year that a redrawing of Israel's boundaries was likely to happen
with or without international support.
Sheetrit – like Olmert and Livni, a member of Kadima –
said his party's platform "contains nothing about unilateral
disengagement. [Party founder] Ariel Sharon did not support it.
It was brought out during the election. I'm against it. In the meantime,
there [are] no plans being discussed."
As recently as last month, Livni and Olmert were still preparing
for unilateral withdrawal in the event that there was no negotiation
partner within the Palestinian Authority.
At a conference in Jerusalem in early May, Olmert advisor Ra'anan
Gissin referred to the "tsunami waves" engulfing Israel,
in the form of Palestinian terror attacks and an antipathetic Iran.
"We've come to a crossroads in our future," said Gissin.
"We are committed to peace, but if that fails, this time we
are not going to wait. We need to take our fate into our own hands."
Gissin suggested the door would be open to the Palestinians for
a period of six months before Israel took steps towards a unilateral
withdrawal from the territories.
In recent weeks, however, Israel has acceded to pressure from the
international community and indicated its willingness to pursue
a bilateral plan, suggesting provisional borders for a Palestinian
state to PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.
"We are willing to give up more land, but it's not that easy,"
said Livni in Jerusalem last month. "It's not just about throwing
the key to the other side of the fence. Without a partner [on the
Palestinian side], Israel will have to come to the international
community saying, 'Yes, we are willing to take these steps, but
we need your support.'
"Removing the settlements from Gaza was a calculated risk.
We gave Palestinians, for the first time, responsibility for their
own people – and the message that we mean business."
"The first [withdrawal], with Gaza, was good," said Sheetrit.
"I supported it 100 per cent. I thought, when it came to Gaza,
we should get out of there, and we did. It's not the situation in
the West Bank. There, you have 60,000-80,000 people that are supposed
to be evacuated. I don't think it's possible to force 60,000-80,000
people to leave. It would take years for Israel [to do this]. It's
impossible, unless the situation is that we have peace. I'll call
for withdrawal from the West Bank, from parts of it, if we have
peace. In that case, it will be much easier for people to understand."
He said he failed to comprehend why the leadership of Hamas could
not see its way clear to negotiations with Israel.
"They cannot establish things and live side by side with Israel,"
he said. "I don't understand their point of view, how come
they're willing to go through that suffering. They just have to
make a decision. Israel [was] established in 1948 and the United
Nations resolution was to divide the Green Line in two, and they
accepted it. What happens with the Arab people, they start trying
to eliminate us with the war, which is why the Green Line has been
created. But if they had accepted [Israel] from the beginning, [there]
would be just half of the planned Green Line today."
Even in the event of a withdrawal from parts of the West Bank, said
Sheetrit, there should be more preparation. He pointed out that
when Israel withdrew from the Sinai, "The settlers, they don't
like to leave, but they understand; they have peace, that they have
to leave, and they leave quietly. In Gaza, the government uprooted
them without anything. I would like to be in a situation where we
have a few years before we evacuate. If we make a peace process
with the Palestinians, then we say, we evacuate all this territory,
in those five years, we have time to build new settlements inside
the Green Line. Then we can say, 'You leave the house, and come
to [a] new house.' When we destroyed Yamit, there was some kind
of plan. It's not the situation in Gaza, and not the situation in
the West Bank."
Sheetrit doesn't see the hurry in withdrawing from the territories.
According to newspaper polls, he said, most Israelis don't support
unilateral withdrawal.
"We should wait," he insisted. "In such a situation,
we should keep [to] oursel[ves] and wait. What are we rushing for?
We are waiting 3,500 years to establish the state of Israel. I don't
want to demolish it within a short time. I'm very well for giving
the large concessions for peace, but why give lands and create [a]
separate state which will terrorize against Israel? If I have peace,
I'm willing to give more. If we don't have peace, why should we
give an inch?"
Standing for Israel
Asked what he thought of the international boycotts of and divestments
from Israel – one by members of CUPE Ontario - Israeli Housing
Minister Meir Sheetrit shrugged and said, "What's new?"
"It's hypocrisy," Sheetrit told the Independent,
"the double standards of the world. I just sometimes feel sorry
for such a people and I'm sorry to say that some of them are Israelis.
I heard that in Canada, in Vancouver, there's going to be a peace
forum, so-called, a pish forum. The forum is anti-Israeli. They
believe that they can have peace by making themsel[ves] against
Israel. That will make peace? It's crazy to think that way!"
Israel, he said, "has nothing to apologize for. Our task is
to keep Israel surviving. We're not going to commit suicide. If
somebody is expecting it, forget it, it's never going to happen.
Israel established a state in which there is the possibility and
the right to protect yourself. It's crazy they try to blame us for
trying to protect our own interests. I'm sorry to say, but I don't
care what they say. Our task is to protect the state of Israel.
There is very little sympathy in Israel for such kind of people
[anti-Zionists]. We were blamed by all the world [for the fate of
the Palestinians], because Jews were protecting themselves, so,
excuse me, we don't care."
With a look of exasperation, he said, "I think if any other
country in the world will have been in an intifada, in which we
used to have over 21 terror acts per day, I would like to see what
every other country in the world would do, if a group of terrorists
will act in their own cities, the big cities; in their malls, restaurants,
buses, trains.... You have seen London, the one bomb in the train,
just for suspicion they killed [a man] right on the way, from short
range. Don't preach [to] us."
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