The Halkin Plan

In this month's issue of Commentary, Hillel Halkin writes about "Israel After Disengagement"

He repeats a claim he made in the Jerusalem Post back in August, that the Anti-Disengagement Movement was in fact a success:

Contrary to the common perception, then, the settlers did not lose in Gaza. Rather, they won by demonstrating that a repeat performance is out of the question. This was indeed their leadership's central goal from the moment it realized that it lacked the votes in the Knesset to block disengagement's first stage. From then on, the real battle was over Judea and Samaria. [see post "Hillel Halkin Declares Victory"]

But while another unilateral withdrawl--this time from the West Bank--is not feasible according to Halkin, he thinks that such a withdrawl is necessary and in fact can be done. But this time the withdrawl would not be unilateral; Israelis would be willing to go through the same torment--and more--for a price:

What would they be paying for? For a presidential declaration from Washington that said something like this:

Although the government of the United States continues to believe that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would best be resolved through negotiations as called for in the Road Map, and has every hope that this will one day prove possible, there is no prospect of its happening at the present moment. In the meantime, since Israel is prepared to withdraw all of its settlers and armed forces from close to 90 percent of the West Bank to the security fence it has built, the United States will regard this withdrawal, once completed, as constituting full compliance with United Nations Security Council resolution 242, and will recognize the new line as Israel's border with the Palestinian Authority.

...Were the United States publicly behind such a move, Israelis, knowing that they would at last have a recognized eastern frontier along militarily tolerable, demographically viable, morally acceptable lines that are also relatively safe from terror would, I believe, vote decisively-although many with a heavy heart-for leaving the rest of Judea and Samaria.

In such a scenario, everyone is happy--or at least relieved:

And once Israel's evacuation of the West Bank actually took place, one can imagine that the real reaction-in Europe, in the Arab countries and elsewhere around the world, and among the Palestinians themselves-would be of relief. Finally, the Israeli occupation would be over.

Such a step, moreover, would be in true compliance with Security Council resolution 242, over whose exact wording the United States led so hard a fight at the time. ...At the end of the 1967 war, Israel held nearly 30,000 square miles of militarily occupied territory in the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and the Golan Heights. After pulling back to the West Bank security fence, it will have evacuated 97 percent of this area. How much closer to both the spirit and the letter of 242 can it get?

And as for the Palestinian Arabs? Halkin expects that one way or another, state or no state, they will end up joining with Jordan. Which leaves just one more issue:

As for Palestinian irredentism, it will continue to exist. Perhaps organizations like Hamas will occasionally lob rounds of rockets or mortar shells over the security fence, to which Israel will have to respond, just as it does to Hizballah attacks from Lebanon. Nor will an Israeli withdrawal to the fence put a total end to terrorism, either, although it should be able to contain it effectively. Much will depend on the degree of civil unity or strife within Palestinian society itself, and on how long this society takes to normalize and prosper economically. A long time will pass before a Palestinian or Palestinian-Jordanian government will recognize Israel's new frontier. All this, however, will be infinitely preferable to the present state of affairs-and to any of the other alternatives on offer.

But will the Arab world buy into the Halkin Plan? His solution is predicated on the idea, expressed above, that the reaction to the withdrawl "in Europe, in the Arab countries and elsewhere around the world, and among the Palestinians themselves-would be of relief. Finally, the Israeli occupation would be over." But is there any reason to think the issue is that simple, that decades of war and anguish is simply over "the Israeli occupation"? If the Arab world does not agree, or happens to define 'the Israeli occupation' a bit more broadly--and the necessary solution a bit more strongly, what good will Halkin's plan have accomplished? And what about the world-wide increase in Anti-Semitism? As Halkin himself brings up earlier:

In recent years, the propaganda push to depict Israel as an apartheid state in which ruling Jews victimize helpless Palestinians has been gaining frightening momentum. Apart from the United States, there is scarcely a Western country in which, despite years of Palestinian terror, anti-Israel sentiment in the media and intellectual life is not dominant and getting stronger.

This is especially the case in Europe, whose large and feared Muslim populations have also helped tip the balance of public opinion against the Jewish state. But even in America, Israel's image has steadily eroded, as evidenced by the recent disinvestment campaigns of large liberal church groups. Although fortunately there is still a long way to go, it is no longer unimaginable that Israel may one day come to be so widely regarded as a latter-day South Africa that public pressure will encourage Western governments, in any case anxious to cozy up to Arab and Muslim nations, to treat it as one.

Halkin points out that the US has urged Israel to make "bold and courageous decisions in order to help solve its conflict with the Palestinians". True enough, but that does not mean that Israel should have to come up with new and creative ways to back down and retreat.

See Biur Chametz's take on Halkin

See also
Hillel Halkin Declares Victory
Not So Fast, Mr. Halkin

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