A Message to Prime Minister Sharon at the Ranch
Crawford is more than a place, it is an opportunity.
For better or worse, the Oslo process was destroyed by the principle of dealing with relatively smaller issues first in hopes of building momentum toward presumed agreement on the impossible “Final Status” issues – Jerusalem and the so-called “right of return.” There was no momentum, no moment of flight. The process that should have sunk at the beginning from impossible Palestinian demands instead sunk at the end – after dashing so many raised hopes. Don’t do it again, please.
Crawford is more than a place, it is an opportunity.
For better or worse, the Oslo process was destroyed by the principle of dealing with relatively smaller issues first in hopes of building momentum toward presumed agreement on the impossible “Final Status” issues – Jerusalem and the so-called “right of return.” There was no momentum, no moment of flight. The process that should have sunk at the beginning from impossible Palestinian demands instead sunk at the end – after dashing so many raised hopes. Don’t do it again, please.
Abu Mazen may well believe that the violence of the intifada was a mistake for the Palestinians – but only because it didn’t work. His goals are the same goals Arafat had: to achieve an independent state without legitimizing Israel on any part of “Palestine,” Jerusalem as the capital and the “right of return.” After the wrenching Gaza disengagement; after the return of security control to the PA in large swaths of Judea and Samaria; after promises of a fruitful and peaceful future, what will you do with the “right of return”?
You will choke on it. You might as well choke on it now.
The issue of stateless Palestinians inside the PA areas and out cannot be resolved and cannot be ignored. There are more than four million poor, miserable, radical people imprisoned by their brothers, fed and watered by UNRWA and nurtured on the promise that they will “go home” to a place most of them didn’t come from by those not entitled to make the promise. Abu Mazen can’t tell them he will recognize Israeli sovereignty over land claimed by Hamas and Islamic Jihad. President Bush won’t tell Lebanon or any other Arab country to settle Palestinians whether they want to or not, and whether the refugees want to or not. No one will tell UNRWA that its unique mandate to serve as parent and jailer to generations of Palestinians will end. And no one – least of all the Arab states – will tell the Palestinians, “We made a mistake 57 years ago. Too bad.”
In the face of the humanitarian tragedy that the Arabs and the UN have engendered over the years, and that theU.S.and the Europeans have paid for, it won’t be enough for Israel to say, “no” to a mythical “right” claimed by a miserable people. Israel, the prosperous and civilized state, will be told to “help the poor Palestinians.” Before that happens, Mr. Sharon, you must come to some understanding with President Bush about telling the truth: the creation of Israel was not a mistake; not a temporary aberration in the Middle East. Israel is real and it is permanent. Palestinians cannot go there in large numbers, and their continued belief that they can is going to wreck whatever accord Israelis and Palestinians try to make.
The United States and Israel have to have a united front on this one, and the Palestinians will have to hear what they don’t want to hear – BEFORE the rest of the deal is called done. And if it sinks Road Map now so be it.