December 2, 2005
Progress in The Mideast
By Charles
Krauthammer
WASHINGTON -- Because we Americans tend to gauge Middle East success
by White House signing ceremonies complete with dignitaries, three-way
handshakes and pages of treaty provisions, no one seems to have
noticed how, in the absence of any of that, there has been amazing
recent progress in defusing the Arab-Israeli dispute.
First, the more than
four-year-long intifada, which left more than 1,000 Israelis and
3,000 Palestinians dead, is over. And better than that, defeated.
There's no great Palestinian constituency for starting another
one. In Israel, tourism is back, the economy has recovered to
pre-intifada levels and the coffee shops and malls are full once
again.
Second, the Gaza
withdrawal was a success. On the Israeli side, it was accomplished
with remarkable speed and without any of the great social upheaval
and civil strife that had been predicted. As for the Palestinians,
without any fanfare whatsoever, their first-ever state has just
been born. They have political independence for 1.3 million of
their people, sovereignty over all of Gaza and, for the first
time, a border to the outside world (the Rafah crossing to Egypt)
that they control.
Third, on both sides
of the Israeli-Palestinian line, vigorous electoral campaigns
are under way. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has abandoned Likud,
established a new centrist party that leads all the others in
the polls, effectively marginalized those remaining Israelis who
want to hold on forever to all the territories, and set Israel
on a path to a modest and attainable territorial solution to the
century-old conflict.
As a result, Israel's
regional isolation is easing, as Islamic countries from Pakistan
to Qatar to Morocco openly extend or intensify relations, while
anti-Israel rejectionists such as Syria and Hezbollah are isolated
and even condemned by name in the U.N. Security Council.
How did this come
about? Israel unilateralism and Palestinian maturation.
After a year and
a half of unparalleled terror, culminating with the Passover massacre
of 2002, the Israelis finally decided that they had to give up
the illusion of a Palestinian peace partner and take things into
their own hands. They did. Israel reoccupied the West Bank cities
it had ceded to Yasser Arafat, who had used them as havens of
terror; began an extremely effective campaign of targeted assassinations
of terrorist leaders that ultimately induced their successors
to declare a truce with Israel; and, most important, decided to
unilaterally draw the border between Israel and Palestine.
Gaza is
now 100 percent Palestinian. The security fence Israel is building
in the West Bank will, in effect, create a second Palestinian
sovereignty on 92 percent of that territory. Everyone knows what
that fence means. Israelis on the Palestinian side of the fence
will ultimately leave one way or the other. And, in a final settlement
-- if and when the Palestinians ever decide to make their peace
with a Jewish state -- that remaining 8 percent could be exchanged
for pieces of Israel transferred to Palestine. (The New Republic
of Nov. 28 has a must-read article on the land swaps that could
once and for all end the Arab-Israeli dispute.)
The other great watershed
has been the maturation of the Palestinian national movement.
Arafat was a revolutionary who disdained nation-building. Revolutionaries
destroy the old order. His mission was to destroy Israel. Which
is why, to the consternation of his Western admirers, in 10 years
he built not a single schoolhouse, hospital or road in the territory
he controlled. Instead, he built a dozen private militias and
a state propaganda machine designed to poison the new generation
against Israel. Now that he is gone, the Palestinian cause can
begin the demystification from revolution to nation-building.
The other demystification
was Gaza. The Gaza Palestinians have just received exactly what
they wished for: self-government, borders, openings to the outside
world and a complete absence of any Jews. As a result, however,
they are now faced with the distinctly unromantic task of creating
their new state. It's not that many Gazans would not like to continue
the romance of revolutionary terror and jihad. But they no longer
have the means. The separation fence makes it almost impossible
to launch attacks into Israel. And rockets launched into Israeli
towns are met by retaliatory Israeli artillery barrages that make
the rocketeers rather unpopular at home. A similar equilibrium
will be achieved on the West Bank when the fence is completed
next year.
Sharon represents
the majority of Israelis bent on achieving that equilibrium. It
will not only bring stability and relative peace, but also offers
the contours of an ultimate settlement. That's why even old regional
antagonists see the promise of this moment -- all achieved, mind
you, without a single Rose Garden ceremony.
©
2005, Washington Post Writers Group
