Soccer Dad

What's changed

Barry Rubin in a perceptive column "The Debate that won't Happen" this week wrote:

Therefore, there will be no big response in the region and the withdrawal will have little effect on Arab states' policies. The exception to a limited extent is Egypt which will now have to manage its border with the Gaza Strip, either getting tough or being permissive toward arms' smuggling. For the moment, though, that country is preoccupied by other things, notably the start of its presidential election campaign.

Arab regimes are not going to play up the withdrawal because that will make Israel look good. As if Israel actually wants peace. They also won't play up the angle that Hamas forces Israel out because that would bring up the question why, if Hamas, is willing to fight Israel (successfully) are they not willing to fight the big bad Zionist bully that they justify all their defense spending and dictatorial authority with.
In a nutshell then, Dr. Rubin then doesn't think that anything will change after Israel withdraws from Gaza. And of course that would be consistent with the peace process since 1993. It doesn't matter what Israel has done or offered it's never been enough and the world mutters sadly that Israel hasn't done enough or not quickly enough.
Right now editorialists shed tears for the lack of mobility afforded the Palestinians because of Israeli closures. And back in 1998 they bemoaned the lack of political progress made while Binyamin Netanyahu was prime minister. But guess what (and I've noted this before) in November 1998 the Netanyahu government reported:

The number of Palestinians working in Israel is steadily growing. Lawfully employed Palestinians in Israel today number about 60,000, of whom some 13,000 work in industrial zones and in the settlements. All told, more than 100,000 Palestinians are estimated to be employed in Israel approaching the record number employed in 1992.

So when things were going well economically the Palestinians and their supporters complained about the political process. And when disengagement is in the air - the greatest boost to the political process in a long time - the Palestinians and their supporters are complaining about the economics. Israel cannot win at this game. Lucy pulls the football away again and again and the world cheers her on.
Rubin seems to support disengagement because he apparently feels that this is the only way to break out of this vicious cycle.
Contrast Rubin to Jackson Diehl's "A Golden Opportunity Squandered":

Yasser Arafat's death last November created, it was commonly said, a golden opportunity for Palestinians to arrest their society's downward spiral into squalor and suicide bombing. It also set up a test for all those who believed that Arafat himself was the principal Palestinian problem.

Diehl then goes on to enumerate the ways that the Middle East has not taken advantage of Arafat's death. Throughout the article you get the impression that Diehl never heard the term "necessary but insufficient."
Well yes there never was going to be peace as long as Arafat lived. But the main change had to come from the Palesitnians. They had to appreciate the degree of Israel's sacrifices and, sometimes, forebearance. But egged on by the likes of Diehl, they consistenly blamed their failures on Israel. Consider:

Part of the problem, in fact, is that the Palestinians don't get to work at their own pace. Undoing the Arafat regime, building a new one, and finding a way to integrate or at least disarm radical forces can't easily be done in six months. But that timetable has been imposed by Israel's prime minister, Sharon, who has proceeded with his plan for the Gaza withdrawal without regard for Palestinian circumstances. Sharon clearly doesn't expect Abbas to succeed, and he has tailored his actions accordingly: Concessions to the new Palestinian regime have been held to the bare minimum required to satisfy pressure from Washington. The Israeli leader meanwhile proceeds with the unilateral solution he designed before Arafat's death. Following withdrawal from Gaza, Israel will retreat behind the border-like system of fences and walls it is constructing through the West Bank and around Jerusalem, and prepare to live with that status quo indefinitely.

It's out of Palestinian hands. Sharon's only doing the minimum.
Well no, it's not out of Palestinian hands. The incitement against Israel and glorification of terror continue. If there was a will, if statehood was important enough it would be done. But the Palestinians don't much want statehood if the price is normalization with but not demonization of Israel. And there is no shortage of those like Diehl who are willing to overlook that. And excuse that.
Crossposted on Israpundit and Soccer Dad.

Posted by SoccerDad at August 5, 2005 6:08 AM | TrackBack