Palestinians must stand firm in this, what may be Ariel Sharon's waning hour, writes Mustafa Barghouti* Perhaps one of the most crucial political aptitudes is the ability to differentiate between illusion and reality. Another is the ability to lure the opponent into a labyrinth of mirages, so it can no longer focus on what matters. The latter is exactly what Sharon is trying to do to the Palestinians and the world, through his scheme for a unilateral "withdrawal" from Gaza. Before we analyse the "phantom" Sharon is trying to project, let's first discuss the truth he is trying to conceal. Sharon is not changed or changing anything. He is the same fanatical Zionist racist who thinks that through the force of tanks and destruction he can impose an expansionist status quo. His aim is to complete the Judaisation of most of the West Bank, undermine the possibility of the creation of an independent Palestinian state, a state that is viable and sovereign. Sharon wants to resolve the demographic problem through confining the Palestinians to jails, to isolated pockets, to discontinued ghettos. He wants to implement an internal transfer, having failed to achieve an external transfer. He is hoping that the Palestinians may one day emigrate, having despaired of leading a decent life at home. In other words, Sharon is trying to perpetuate the occupation through an apartheid system, the worst such system in history. His vision of a unilateral pullout from Gaza aims to extract Israel from a deep crisis of policy; a crisis of economic, security, political and demographic dimensions, a crisis borne of the same occupation that he is trying to perpetuate. The main cause for Israel's crisis is not just the short-sightedness of its governments, but the renewed uprising and the continued resistance against the occupation. Israel realises that we are nearing the moment -- as happened in the first Intifada -- when the cost of occupation would surpass its gains. Such a moment is one that Israel cannot bear or tolerate, one that may result in a full and complete end of the occupation. In the first Intifada, the only thing that saved Israel from its crisis was Oslo's slippery paths; the labyrinthine pursuits during which partial, transitional and interim solutions supplanted the goals of Palestinian struggle and the crucial issues of the conflict. The pitiful maps of Oslo (areas A, B and C) diverted attention from the issues of refugees, Jerusalem, occupation, settlement and borders. Back then the threat involving the illusion of the existence of an alternative national domestic leadership was used as a successful intimidating mechanism to prompt the Palestinian side to run toward Oslo without a careful calculation of the grave consequences. Today, the threat of "Hamas seizing power in Gaza" is being used for similar purposes. There is no end to the faults one can find with Sharon, but it is hard to deny his knack for strategic thinking. It is not hard to see that Sharon's vision for Gaza aims to achieve five strategic objectives: Firstly, to divert attention from the settlements and the wall, gain time to continue the construction of the criminal barrier, annex and Judaise at least 58 per cent of West Bank land and turn the remaining areas into prisons, cantons and ghettos. This would undermine all hope for an independent and sovereign Palestinians state, for any true peace. Secondly, to push the Palestinians toward civil war in order to undermine both the Palestinian Authority and the national and Islamic movements, and to fragment the Palestinians and reduce their national leaders into "police commissioners", into retail security agents for the occupation. Thirdly, to supplant the roadmap, which Sharon still practically rejects, with a unilateral Israeli plan, so that everything that Sharon does not like about that map (the total freeze on settlements and the creation of the Palestinian state by 2005) is eliminated, and so that only Palestinian security commitments remain. This would turn the Palestinian people into the first nation ever under occupation that is required to provide security for its occupiers. Fourthly, to break through from Israel's escalating international isolation and alleviate the problems facing Israel's occupation policies on account of the apartheid wall. Fifthly, to retain the strategic initiative and force Palestinian, Arab and even international parties to play according to the Israeli rules of the game, to dance to Israel's tune. Meanwhile, a brutal strangulation is underway of the Palestinian national economy. A campaign -- tragically successful in some capitals -- is underway to cut off humanitarian assistance to the Palestinians in the areas of health, education, social affairs and the plight of refugees. All the remaining assistance would then be diverted to building more security agencies, as if the entire life -- the social, economic and educational activities -- of the Palestinians should stop, leaving them with only one purpose, that of acting as a security agent for the occupation forces and the settlers. With these strategic objectives understood, the "illusion" Sharon is creating regarding the "withdrawal from Gaza" can be taken as little more than a gimmick wrapped in intentional ambiguity. Sharon's scheme is not one designed to effect a withdrawal, but to reorganise Israel's control of the West Bank, to make such control less costly and dangerous. Those who subscribe to the claim that a genuine withdrawal is impending should first explain how this scheme of withdrawal reconciles with the following: First, the continued demolition of hundreds of homes all along the Egyptian borders in Rafah, at the rate of five houses per day. A real process of ethnic cleansing is underway in an area where the number of children killed by the Israeli army has reached 82 so far. Second, the orders to confiscate new land and expand the area of settlements in Dayr Al-Balah, Kfar Darum and Natzarim. Third, Sharon's exception of four of the main settlements in Gaza from the so-called withdrawal. Sharon is also avoiding reference to withdrawal from the corridor surrounding Gaza on all sides, a corridor that is carved off the land of the Gaza Strip. Monday's assassination of the spiritual leader Shiekh Ahmed Yassin makes clear that Sharon contrives to incite an unprecedented cycle of violence giving him time to implement his plan. Sharon's plan is not about a pullout from Gaza, but about turning the Gaza Strip into a veritable prison surrounded by Israeli presence from all sides: into a ghetto in which 1.3 million Palestinians are repressed, into a potential exile for Palestinian national leaders (the Strip has already been used as an exile for a number of Palestinian resistance activists). It is true that no one is about to oppose the withdrawal of the Israeli army from any Palestinian piece of land. It is also true that Sharon was forced to engage in such strategic manoeuvres because he is under pressure, because he is facing a political, security, demographic and political crisis, and because he has failed to liquidate the Intifada in 100 days, as he had promised. He has been in government for more than 1,100 days. Yet, it would be a mistake to interpret Sharon's "Gaza first" plan as an admission of defeat. This plan is an attempt to avoid defeat, to trap the Palestinians in a labyrinth that is much worse than Oslo's. This is an attempt by Sharon to lure the Arabs into a trap (the Egyptians have wisely refused to fall in that trap), to gain time to complete the Judaisation of the West Bank, to ruin the Palestinian people's future, and to destroy all hope for a genuine and just peace. The answer to Sharon's gimmick is not in cooperating with Sharon and allowing him to escape from inevitable defeat. The answer is not in engaging in futile rivalry over who is to assume authority if the withdrawal were to take place. The answer is not in meeting with Sharon and discussing his unilateral plans, for that would impart legitimacy on these plans. The answer, and this is sincere advice to political leaders in particular, is in following in the footsteps of the inhabitants of Naalin and Badras, Qibya and Bayt Daqu, Rafah and Qalqilia, Badw and Dayr Qadis, Bayet Liqya, and all other struggling Palestinian villages and towns. The answer is in confronting the apartheid wall and the designs of occupation, in keeping the spotlights turned on the real challenge, in bringing down the wall and ending the occupation in all the occupied areas, without exception. The answer is in continuing to besiege Israel's policy. The answer is in confronting the policy of occupation and apartheid until such time that Israel is willing to recognise the right of the Palestinian people for freedom, independence and dignity. The answer to Sharon is in forming a united national command, in consolidating national unity, in adopting democratic means to resolve all differences. The answer is in strengthening the sovereignty of the law, boosting the judiciary, carrying democratic elections, improving domestic political administration and providing security, stability and justice for all citizens. All must unite behind a common national project to end occupation and settlement, preserve the rights of refugees and attain full independence. The answer to Sharon is in bolstering the home front, which has suffered from lack of discipline and from chaos, from factional and personal rivalries at the expense of the public interest. Sharon is left with this lone, faulty arrow in his quiver. Let's break it. The ancients used to say "victory is one patient hour away." Let me add the Prophet Muhammad's saying, "A believer cannot be bitten from the same (snake) pit twice." * The author The writer is secretary-general of the Palestinian National Initiative.
