Paved with Bad Intentions

Uri Avnery
26.3.05


Last week, the mainstream peace organizations held a
demonstration in support of Ariel Sharon’s
disengagement plan. I agonized for days about whether to
take part or not. The question continues to bother me, and
the discussions on this subject are still going on - with
crucial votes due in the Knesset this week.
Perhaps the best way to find an answer is to set out
the pros and cons.


Let’s start with the cons.
I don’t trust Sharon. David Ben-Gurion, who liked
him very much, considered him a compulsive liar. “If
Sharon would get rid of his faults, such as not telling the
truth... he would be an exemplary military leader,”
Ben-Gurion wrote in his diary on January 29, 1960.
For a year now he has been talking about the
disengagement, working for the disengagement, moving heaven
and earth for the disengagement. But up to this very moment,
apart from some administrative moves, he has not done
anything at all to implement the plan. On the contrary:
these days, millions are being invested in strengthening
the defense of houses in Gush Katif, the inhabitants of
which are supposed to be evacuated in a matter of weeks.
Why give him credit and lend him support now, before
implementation has even started?


Does this mean that he will not implement the plan?
I believe that he cannot retreat anymore. His huge ego
is now identified with this operation. He has already split
his party, become an enemy of the settlers and turned the
whole political system upside down. Retreating from the
plan now would shatter his self-esteem and public image.
Withdrawal from the withdrawal could arouse the anger
of President Bush. Sharon has only contempt for the Goyim
and thinks that cheating them is a national duty, but he
knows where Israel would be without the unlimited support
of the United States.
Only an earth-shattering event could allow him now to
get out of the mess, such as an American invasion of Syria
or Iran or the collapse of his government.


So, if it is probable that Sharon will implement the
disengagement, why not support him?
Because I think about the day after.
I have no illusions about Sharon’s intentions as
far as the West Bank is concerned. He plans to annex 58% of
it and leave the Palestinians in isolated enclaves, cut off
from each other by settlements and military installations.
At most, in order to satisfy Bush’s demand for
“contiguity”, the enclaves will be connected by
bridges and tunnels.
Apart from his son Omri, Advocate Dov Weissglas is the
person closest to him. When this man declared that after
the disengagement, Sharon would put the peace process
“in formaldehyde”, he was - exceptionally -
telling the truth.
Supporting Sharon at this time means supporting this
plan, too.


But that concerns the future. At present, what counts
is the disengagement operation. Why not support Sharon now,
and start the fight for the future the day after?
Because this is not at all a matter of the future!
While this is being written, Sharon continues building the
Separation Wall, which has annexed 7% of the West Bank so
far. He is filling the area between the Wall and the Green
Line with new settlements. Last week, it was announced that
he is going to build 3500 housing units in Ma’aleh
Adumim. This is the most dangerous settlement in the West
Bank, which it effectively cuts into two.
The enlargement of the settlements and the outposts is
racing ahead even now all over the West Bank.
Last week, advocate Talia Sasson published her report
about the methods used in setting up the West Bank
outposts. The task was given her by Sharon himself. It will
be remembered that Sharon promised Bush to remove all
settlements and outposts set up after he came to power in
2001.
Sasson’s report states that all these outposts
(as well as the earlier ones) were set up illegally, and
that all government ministries and Zionist Organization
departments cooperated, breaking the law with a wink. So
what happened? Nothing. Nobody was indicted, everything
goes on as before. The report was buried the day it was
born.


These are the reasons for not supporting Sharon.
Let’s move to the reasons for supporting him.
It has been said that the road to hell is paved with
good intentions. But the opposite is also true: the road to
heaven is paved with bad intentions.
It is possible that Sharon’s bad intentions will
produce positive results that he did not dream about when
he came up with his plan. It was conceived almost
incidentally, in order to solve some problems of the
moment, without thinking about the next steps.
Sharon could not have imagined that his plan would
lead him into a head-on confrontation with the settlers.
He is a general, and his logic is military. The
disengagement plan involves giving up a secondary effort in
order to reinforce the main effort. This means giving up
some small, unimportant settlements in a remote corner of
the country, in order to consolidate and strengthen the
important settlements in the West Bank. Giving up a piece
of the desert that constitutes 6% of the occupied
territories, and which is inhabited by one and a quarter
million Palestinians, in order to annex 58% of the West
Bank. In these areas, such as the Jordan valley and the
Judean desert, the Palestinian population is sparse.
He was amazed when the settlers did not understand this
logic. They have a different approach. They believe that the
dismantling of even one single settlement, small and remote
as it may be, will provide a dangerous precedent and start
a process that they would be unable to stop. They are
acutely aware of the fact that the great majority of the
Israeli public opposes them, and that many consider them a
pest.
The settlers are Sharon’s proteges. Not only did
he himself plan the settlements and play a central role in
establishing them, but their leaders are also his personal
friends and regular visitors to his home. That’s why
they consider him a traitor, while he feels betrayed by
them.
All this has an impact on my decision, because the
determined opposition of the settlers and their allies
gives the disengagement a meaning that it did not possess
to start with.
We are now at the beginning of a civil war. We cannot
know whether or not blood will be spilled. But even if
there are no killed and wounded, this war will determine
the future of Israel.
This will be a struggle between the majority, which is
mostly secular, mostly liberal and mostly democratic,
against a fanatical minority that is mostly very
nationalistic, driven by a messianic religiosity and,
basically, anti-democratic, paying more respect to the
decrees of their rabbis than to the laws of the Knesset.
The results will not only decide whether we shall move
towards peace with the Palestinians and the Arab world, but
also determine the future character of the State of Israel
itself.


Does Sharon want a secular, democratic state?
The idea is, of course, absurd. His basic outlook is
confused and blurred. He resembles many Israelis: quite
secular in their daily life but convinced that religion is
necessary. He certainly is no great democrat, but believes
that the state must be democratic. He is an extreme
nationalist who strives for a homogeneous Jewish state in
all of the country between the sea and the Jordan, but now
he is compelled by circumstances to act against his
beliefs. German philosophers call this the “cunning
of reason”.
The important question is not what Sharon wants and
believes in, but what will be the results of his actions.
As it looks now, it seems that against his will, and
without his intending to, he is leading towards a fateful
decision.
It is, of course, possible that all this will not
happen, that at the last moment, Sharon and the settlers
will find a compromise, as usual in politics. Nothing is
determined in advance. But one has to come to a decision on
the basis of what can reasonably be expected.
In the end I decided to join the demonstration. Not for
the sake of Sharon, but in support of the struggle against
the settlers.