PFP letter published in the New York Times
19 January 2005
PFP letter published in the New York Times
To the Editor:
You write that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, in cutting off all contact with the Palestinian Authority, has become an “unwitting ally” of the “Gaza militants behind Thursday’s attack.”
Yet Mr. Sharon’s move to cut ties was not the action of the unwitting. Rather, it is the purposeful action of a man who fears peace because it means giving up the settlers’ dream of a greater Israel that controls the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Will Mr. Sharon always find another hoop for the Palestinians to jump through and a higher bar for them to clamber over? It is a cruel and demeaning game that the Palestinian people should no longer have to endure.
Michael F. Brown
Exec. Dir., Partners for Peace
Washington, Jan. 18, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/19/opinion/l19mideast.html
The New York Times’ editorial of January 15, 2005 follows below. Limited in the letter by space constraints, Partners for Peace does want to stress that it agrees with The New York Times’ concern that Sharon moved so hastily to cut off all ties with the Palestinian Authority.
While we support nonviolent approaches to the conflict and strongly oppose
Palestinian or Israeli attacks on civilians, we do not think it is a good-faith position for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to cut off Mahmoud Abbas before he was even sworn in or to expect him to wage a civil war inside the Palestinian territories while the Palestinian people are still being oppressed under the Israeli occupation. Such actions and demands serve merely to undercut Abbas. The new Palestinian president will have a better chance to rein in those Palestinians attacking Israeli civilians if he is not viewed by Palestinians as being little more than a sub-contracted security stooge of the Israeli military. And, of course, any Palestinian cease-fire would have to be reciprocated on the Israeli side if it is to have any meaning and hope of success.
The rug, quite clearly, is being swept out from underneath Abbas. This mimics Israeli and American non-support for him in 2003 when he was prime minister. If there are not concrete gains he can quickly point to then it will not be long before he is reviled and perhaps thrown out by the Palestinian people. Sharon’s actions appear to make this result more rather than less likely.
Further requirements should not be made of the Palestinians so quickly after electing Abbas. The Israeli and American governments wanted Abbas to win and so for Israel to now make talks with him conditional on further Palestinian actions is bound to make Palestinians question Sharon’s intentions. Awful as attacks on innocent Israeli civilians are, the best way to stop such attacks is to engage in serious negotiations to end the occupation and bring real freedom to the Palestinians. Much as we all want to see the violence between Palestinians and Israelis end, this seems most unlikely when Sharon refuses to meet with Abbas and while the Bush administration speaks more about Palestinian health care than the harsh reality of the Israeli occupation.
It is remarkable and distressing how quickly Sharon moved from congratulating Abbas on his victory to asserting he would soon invade Gaza without restrictions. Such an invasion would imperil the lives of many Palestinian civilians in the densely populated Gaza Strip and once again set back prospects for peace that with Sharon at the helm were never great.
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January 15, 2005
EDITORIAL
A Double Blow to Mideast Peace
The honeymoon didn’t last very long. Less than a week after Palestinians elected Mahmoud Abbas as Yasir Arafat’s successor and the relatively dovish Labor Party joined Israel’s cabinet, hopes for an early return to diplomatic dialogue have been abruptly crushed by the familiar one-two combination of a deadly Palestinian terrorist attack and a precipitous Israeli overreaction.
Nobody expected Israel to simply ignore Thursday’s attack by armed militants in Gaza, who used explosives, grenades and automatic weapons to kill six Israelis and wound five others. Nor can it be expected to negotiate with Palestinian leaders who equivocate in word or deed about terrorism. But that is not the situation Israel faces, as someone as canny and experienced in these matters as Israel’s prime minister, Ariel Sharon, must surely recognize. Yet yesterday Mr. Sharon ordered all Israeli officials to cut off contacts with the Palestinian Authority until it acts to curb such terrorist violence.
In sharp contrast with Mr. Arafat, Mr. Abbas has been clear and unwavering in his view that anti-Israeli violence has been and continues to be extremely harmful to the Palestinian cause. For that reason, the Gaza militants behind Thursday’s attack struck not only at their Israeli victims, but also at Mr. Abbas’s new and not yet fully consolidated political leadership. In choosing to respond by cutting off all Israeli contacts with the Palestinian Authority, Mr. Sharon has become their unwitting ally.
Getting a grip on Palestinian terrorism requires action in at least two areas. One of these, rebuilding the shattered Palestinian police forces, has barely begun. The other, demonstrating to skeptical Palestinians that nothing can be gained through terrorism but a great deal through peaceful negotiations, will now have to wait until diplomatic contacts are resumed. We hope that at least some of the good will that was in the air earlier this week can survive that wait.
