Israel
Bush endorses Greater Israel
By Alphonse de Valk

Hardcopy Issue Date: June
Online Publication Date: Jun 1, 2004, 00:00

“I see no indication that Israel will ever surrender the West Bank. All talk of a Palestinian state is thereby made illusory.” Those were the closing lines of my brief survey “Israel’s policy of assassination” penned in the first week of April (C.I., May 2004, pp. 32 and 40). A mere two weeks later the illusion vanished forever. George W. Bush, standing side by side with Israel’s Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in the White House Rose Garden, declared:

“In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli population centres, it is unrealistic that the outcome of final-status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949.”

            The phrase “full and complete return” must count as the understatement of the year. Israel is to keep its settlements on the West Bank and the Golan Heights, ending any thought of a viable autonomous Palestinian state. There may be the equivalent of a few Native Canadian reserves for the Palestinians, surrounded by walls or barbed wire. But the bulk of the population will be forced out of the region eventually to go to Jordan, or Saudi Arabia, or North America, just as the Israelis have intended all along.

The roles of Israel and the United States in this sordid affair are typical of what is sometimes referred to by its German designation — “reŕlpolitik,” a ruthless and often brutal pragmatism without ethical considerations for the other man. The relevant phrase in the declaration is: “In light of new realities on the ground…”

The new realities, i.e., the ever-growing illegal Jewish settlements on the West Bank, now become part of Greater Israel, as in 1967 former Prime Minister Menachim Begin had intended they would. The American seal of approval confirms 40 years of diplomatic scheming on the part of Israel, aided by its influential Jewish lobby in the American Congress, and the general approval of American Evangelical Christians who believe that the Jews have a God-given right to Judea and Samaria, i.e., the West Bank.

The role of America as an “honest broker” has never been more than a pretension. America was never honest, and it had nothing to “broker.” The very idea that there was something to “negotiate” as if there were two equal partners, was fallacious. Israel, with American backing, held all the cards; the Palestinians had none. Suicide bombing became their act of despair against the Israeli-American tanks, helicopters and economic strangulation. This cost them the sympathy of Western public opinion, much to Israel’s advantage.

The timing of Ariel Sharon’s visit on April 14 was perfect. Bush was pre-occupied with the Iraqi war and the controversies over whether he could have done more to ward off the 9/11 attack on New York and Washington. On April 13 he had even felt it necessary to go on television and defend his conduct. He described the Iraqi war, once again, as simply part of the war against worldwide terrorism, exactly what Israel had been advocating. Sharon never speaks of Palestinians as other than “terrorists.” So the time to present a plan to “reduce” terrorism was now. Israeli settlers will leave the Gaza strip, he said, and hand the area over to the Palestinians. It could not be more simple. Yes, said President Bush. This is “a historic moment.” Let “realism” prevail.

Zigniew Brezinsky, President Carter’s former National Security advisor, pointed out on PBS TV the next day that the overemphasis on terror has begun to distort American foreign policy in a most serious way. Iraq, he noted, was not part of international terrorism. Unless Iraq is seen as an issue in its own right, requiring its own solutions, things will go very wrong. He pointed to the president’s acceptance of Sharon’s plan as a case in point.

Mr. Sharon was jubilant. Forty years of dissimulation and deception finally paid off: Greater Israel is here to stay. But as it is not built on justice, it will not know peace.