Gaza pullout — an eyewash?

AUGUST 22 was an important day in the history of Israeli-Palestinian relationship. After 38 years of brutal occupation, Israel completed its withdrawal from the Gaza strip, evacuated 8,000 Jewish settlers from their homes there. The event is being celebrated by the Palestinians as a victory of their resistance struggle, while Israel regards it as the first major step towards peace with Palestinians.

It must be recalled, however, that under the Oslo Accord signed between Arafat and Rabin, Israel was to vacate the West Bank and Gaza by April 13, 1999. The disengagement from Gaza has adroitly been exploited by Sharon as an evidence of Israel’s peaceful intent towards Palestinians.

For more than a week, TV screens showed live images of weeping women and screaming children resisting their evacuation from their homes. The manipulation of visual media concealed the fact that those evicted from their settlement were in illegal occupation, in violation of international law and moved away only to thirty kilometres from their Gaza homes, and have been paid an average $1.5 million per family as resettlement compensation. The melodramatic scenes also obscured the tragedy of 13,350 Palestinians who were made homeless by Israel’s policy of collective punishment by demolishing their houses for allegedly harbouring suspect terrorists there in the last 10 months of 2004 alone.

The trauma that Jewish settlers experienced was inevitable as the political and financial cost of the occupation of the Gaza strip had become unbearable. The presence of 8,000 Jews among 1.3 million Palestinians was a security nightmare for Israel, and with increasing violence and acts of terrorism could not be sustained for long. In this din of plaudits for this “courageous and painful step”, it is being forgotten that despite the pullout, Israel will maintain control of Gaza airspace, territorial waters and the crossing points. The movement of Palestinians and their contacts with the outside world will still be controlled by Israel, who will also maintain a force along the Egyptian and Gaza borders.

The disengagement has affected only four per cent of the 240,000 settlers and removed only four of 120 West Bank settlements. To compensate, Sharon had earlier announced the construction of 3,500 new homes in the West Bank where already 150,000 Israeli settlers have been living on expropriated Palestinian lands. Since the Oslo Accord, Israel has doubled the size of Jewish settlements. The TV spectacle of tears and trauma was meant to demonstrate that if a small settlement could pose such huge problems, how can one think of removing the settlements from the West Bank which accommodate about 400,000 Jewish settlers.

The claim that the withdrawal from Gaza is an auspicious beginning of a process that could lead to lasting peace between Israel and Palestine lacks realism. Perhaps the opposite is true. The withdrawal is a tradeoff to legitimize settlements in the West Bank and of the raising of barriers and walls. Hannan Ashrawi reflects the Palestinian view that the Gaza strip was “a demographic and security burden on Israel. By withdrawing from it, Sharon is turning it into a large prison and it imposes a long transition period.” Rami Khouri calls disengagement “an expedient, grudging, defensive and reluctant endeavour.”

The construction of eight meter high wall that runs through the entire West Bank has gobbled up prime Palestinian property. Israel’s strategy is separation of Palestinians rather than peace with them. The wall in the name of security overrides all other considerations in order to cut off Palestinian communities from each other. The protest by Arabs, the advice from Washington and decision of the International Court of Justice declaring the wall as illegal have all been ignored with contempt. Running over 600 kilometres, the wall cuts off Palestinian property and land into 16 isolated districts.

In addition, 500 military checkposts are scattered all over the occupied territories. The Palestinians rightly worry that the barrier and network of checkpoints will also mark the border of their future state, and render key areas, including East Jerusalem, inaccessible to them and eventually lost for good. Some 50,000 Palestinian residents of Jerusalem will be on the West Bank side of the barrier and nearly 200,000 on the Israeli side. They would need permits to go across the 38 terminal checkpoints being constructed, including simple crossing to passenger cargo terminals.

A recent World Bank report on the living conditions in Gaza paints a bleak picture of the Palestinian economy. It states that 47 per cent of the population now lives below the poverty line and a quarter of the workforce remains unemployed. More than 60,000 residents — 16 per cent of the population — cannot even afford the basic necessities for subsistence. The Israeli closures and checkpoints have resulted in massive reduction in the number of Palestinians working in Israel from 120,000 in September 2000 beginning of the intifada II to less than 1,000 now. Currently, the GDP is 23 per cent down on 1999 figures. The draconian restrictions on movements and closures have already led to a massive fall in the living standard in Gaza, where per capita income of a Palestinian averages $700 as against $16,000 of an Israeli citizen.

The unilateral withdrawal is in fact a subtle but sinister ploy to snuff out the emergence of a Palestinian state and block peace negotiations. While President Bush in still committed to the idea of a Palestinian state, and Sharon has apparently backed it, the hard truth is that the policy of disengagement from Gaza is to undermine the prospects of a Palestinian state.

Sharon’s chief adviser Weissglass, in a typical show of arrogance, has disclosed the real intentions, saying that “the significance of our disengagement plan is the freezing of the peace process. When you freeze the process, you prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state. Effectively, this whole package called a Palestinian state with all it entails has been removed indefinitely from our agenda.”

It must be remembered that Sharon has opposed all peace initiatives, including Oslo and Bush’s road map. His only concern is to seek more security for Israel and is keen to impose his own version of peace, holding the Palestinian Authority squarely responsible for any violation or delay. Notwithstanding the withdrawal from Gaza, the Israeli occupation and expansionist policy have made the prospects of an independent Palestinian state recede further into the background.

Palestinian slogan “Gaza today — tomorrow Jerusalem and the West Bank” vividly portrays the crisis of credibility that would engulf both protagonists soon. Flushed with excitement on Gaza withdrawal, Palestinians will demand the release of Palestinian prisoners, about 8,000 in Israeli jails in tandem with resumption of final status talks. Sharon will not respond meaningfully to either. So there are conflict and confrontation looming large on the Middle East horizon.

The only silver lining is Bush’s roadmap and the US determination to implement it along with the assurances that President Bush held out at his meeting with Mahmoud Abbas last April: “Israel should not undertake any activity that contravenes the roadmap obligations or prejudices final negotiations with regard to Gaza, West Bank and Jerusalem. A viable two-state solution must ensure contiguity of the West Bank. A state with scattered territories would not work. There must also be meaningful linkages between the West Bank and Gaza. This is the position of the United States today; it will be the position of the United States at the time of final status negotiations”.

Given the past history of peace negotiations, Israel’s track record and US capitulation to Israeli position, it is difficult to nourish any optimism on the success of the US initiative. The long night of agony and misery for Palestinians has no shows no signs of coming to an end.

The writer is a former ambassador.

Natwar Singh’s obsession

AN obsession, magnificent or otherwise, is an obsession. It is an impulse that a person cannot escape. Foreign Minister Natwar Singh is overpowered by the idea that India must be on the UN Security Council. To him the membership represents the country’s foreign policy.

First, he sent at government expense his retired colleagues to different countries to woo support. Then he approached practically every nation in Africa to line them up behind a formula through which he thought he would see India on the Security Council. Now there is hardly any statement he makes without talking about the membership. Naturally, the policy is big power-centric at the expense of neighbouring countries.

This may well explain why Natwar Singh had very little to say on some 370-bomb blasts in Bangladesh or the foreign minister’s murder in Colombo. Even otherwise, he has a simplistic view of the world and does not want to face the sea change it has undergone since the end of the Cold War when he was a career diplomat. He has his mind set on the Nehruvian non-alignment, not realizing that India’s own credentials have come to be challenged after its defence “agreement” with the US.

The habit of living in the past has dulled Natwar Singh’s reaction to the present. Otherwise, it is difficult to understand why he could not read the Bangladesh situation when he was in Dhaka a few days before the bomb blasts. If he wanted to befriend the ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), he should have moved earlier, not when the country’s general election is due next year and when the BNP is keen to spread the impression of having good relations with India to win liberal voters.

What happened to Bangladesh was the writing on the wall. The rise of fundamentalism was inevitable when the Jamaat-i-Islami got credibility — and opportunity — after its two members were appointed ministers. The alliance between the two parties is so firm that religion and politics are the two sides of the same coin. The state has got lost in the thickets of extremism and terrorism.

Natwar Singh has suddenly woken up to the dangers in Bangladesh where practically every outfit against India is operating under foreign intelligence agencies, particularly the obsequious ISI. There is also the phenomenon of Bangla Bhai, the Al Qaeda type, indulging in looting of minorities on a large scale and threatening secular elements in Bangladesh.

The way to retrieve it is through economics. This has been always so. Wooden bureaucrats in India have seldom appreciated this point. The proposed visit of Industry Minister Kamal Nath is a step in the right direction. Why has India wasted so many years? And what is the guarantee that it has got it right this time?

Probably, India’s make-up is such that it does not react to a situation until it explodes on its face. Sri Lanka has been wanting a complete economic integration with India for a long time. It is one country which does not see an Indian ugly. But New Delhi is still drawing up a list of commodities which it cannot allow without duty and excise and which it can. It is a strange response to a country which is demanding complete economic integration.

Had the process of integration begun, it would have spilled over to the political field by this time. Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar might have escaped murder. The LTTE might have changed its tactics of defiance and killing if New Delhi had been seen moving towards integration. Whenever I met Kadirgamar in Delhi or Colombo, he would talk about his dream of seeing the India-Sri Lanka economic union coming true.

Even now New Delhi has not learnt any lesson from his murder, more so from the civil war between the Sinhalese majority and a separatist Tamil majority. Since 1983, more than 65,000 people have died. True, New Delhi burnt its fingers when it sent a peace-keeping force to Sri Lanka in 1988. But conditions have changed since. The LTTE wants to have a settlement with Colombo. Both sides trust India. It must step in now to span the distance between the LTTE and President Chandirika Kumaratunga to consolidate Sri Lanka’s unity.

Confidence-building measures between India and Pakistan also need consolidation. Natwar Singh has been rightly ticked off. He has not been doing anything except crossing the t’s and dotting the i’s. The seasoned S. Lamba’s appointment in the prime minister’s office indicates that Manmohan Singh will himself supervise the peace process. It may be because of Natwar Singh’s mindset or because Manmohan Singh and President General Pervez Musharraf have hit it off well.

In fact, Siachin, Baglihar, Kishen Ganga and Sir Creek can be sorted out at one go. There has to be give-and-take by both sides. Pakistan should accept the Line of Control’s extension through Siachin, a straight line that would have been drawn in 1972 between the commanders of the two countries. On the other hand, India should demolish at Baglihar, the structure which can be used to impound water.

The Indus Water Treaty allows the use of run-of-water to produce power. But New Delhi cannot impound the river water allotted to Pakistan. In the same spirit the Kishen Ganga and Sir Creek can be solved. Natwar Singh should have done that. The prime minister may do it now because he is reportedly of the view that the entire Indus basin should be developed jointly, not on the basis of three rivers with one country and the other three with another.

I do not know how India is going to sort out the mess in Nepal. Here Natwar Singh had the correct instincts. He wanted the democratic forces, political parties, to be strengthened against the dictatorial king. But some retired army officers in Delhi seem to have influenced the government on the basis of their connections with the Gorkha soldiers. America’s pressure to be on the side of the king may have been another compulsion with New Delhi.

It is obvious that both China and Pakistan are taking advantage of the situation. Their systems of governance are such that the democratic leeway does not fit in. India has to help Nepal’s political parties which, however limited in vision, represent the voice of people. Natwar Singh should continue to support the democratic structure which will prevail in the long run.

My purpose of drawing attention to Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Pakistan is to make the foreign minister realize that membership of the Security Council is important but more important is the normalization of relations with the countries around us. He cannot pursue his obsession at the expense of our neighbours.

The writer is a leading columnist based in New Delhi.

Beacon of hope fades

WHEN the US and Britain begin to pull out troops from Iraq next year, as they hope, George Bush will do everything he can to ensure his three-year Iraq adventure is not portrayed as a total failure. That is why events in Baghdad this week, with Iraqi politicians negotiating a draft constitution, are so important to him.

The bare minimum he will want to be able to claim next year is that he has set Iraq on the road to democracy. The US-imposed schedule is supposed to be that Iraqi politicians agree among themselves a new constitution.

The deadline was last week, extended to Monday and then tomorrow. The constitution is supposed to be put to a referendum on October 15 and a fresh batch of elections held in December. Job done and troop withdrawals can begin.

The Iraqi politicians who produced a draft constitution in Baghdad this week are threatening to disrupt Washington’s plans.

The negotiations, meant to find compromises that will unite the country, have instead highlighted the potential in Iraq for civil war and break-up.

There is logic in the federal structure proposed in the draft constitution but the Sunnis, dominant under Saddam Hussein and now marginalised, fear that the Shias and Kurds are being given too much autonomy and this could lead to break-up.

The Shias and the Kurds needed to be magnanimous towards the Sunnis this week, to find space for them in the political process. This they failed to do and that is ominous for the future.

The Iraqi politicians claim the US is pushing them to make decisions too quickly and that the constitution is being drawn up to a US rather than an Iraqi timetable. They are right, but there is no guarantee that the Iraqi politicians would prove to be any less fractious if given more weeks or months.

There was a mistaken assumption in Washington before the war that Saddam was so unpopular that the Iraqi population would embrace western-style democracy and values as a counterpoint to tyranny.

Bush was warned that democracy in Iraq was more likely to produce an Islamist state than the secular one that he envisaged and the draft constitution bears this out. The draft version embraces Islam as the religion of the state and “a fundamental source for legislation”.

The Islamization of Iraq could prove awkward for the US as it prepares to leave because neither the basic rights of women or human rights in general are clearly protected. The constitution has fudged whether Islamic law — sharia — or human rights takes precedence. US and British diplomats argue, unsatisfactorily, that if you give people democracy, you have to live with the consequences.

Bush will be hard-pushed to persuade anyone in Washington that Iran has not been a major beneficiary of the invasion. The Islamization of Iraq, through the proposed enshrining of a role for clerics in the courts and law-making, takes the Shia-controlled south closer to the theocratic Iranian model.

If all goes well and there is a compromise and the Sunnis do not come out to vote against the constitution in large numbers in October, wrecking it, Bush can at least claim a success of sorts. He has started the democratic process in Iraq and that is to be welcomed. But he would be leaving behind a democracy that is extremely vulnerable.

A month before the invasion of March 2003, Bush said a free Iraq could become “a beacon of democracy across the Middle East”. It is highly unlikely that Bush or anyone else in Washington, not even in the rightwing thinktanks, will be claiming Iraq as a “beacon of democracy”.

They will not be making the boast at all if, as is likely, the US pulls out against a backdrop of insurgency, lawlessness, power cuts, erratic oil production, water shortages, the threat of break-up and the increased influence of Iran.

—The Guardian, London