[Futurework] Between a rock and a hard place

[Karen Watters Cole]

Dated for Saturday, posted 121203 online at 8:37 pm ET @ http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/13/international/middleeast/13MIDE.html?hp Likud Debate: A Palestinian State to Save Israel By JAMES BENNET, NYT, December 13, 2003   JERUSALEM, Dec. 12 — In this place that often seems burdened by the past, it is the future that is suddenly bearing down.  Within the Likud, the dominant right-wing party, leaders who once advocated holding every inch of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and who for three years argued that Israel could make no concessions because it lacked a Palestinian peace partner, are now debating how quickly to concede how much of that territory.   The Likud is publicly grappling with a prospect long raised by Israel's left: that within a few years Arabs are likely be the majority in Israel and its occupied territories, and that they may switch from demanding their own state to demanding the right to vote in Israel, threatening its Jewish identity.  The result is a breathtaking inversion: Though the Likud's platform opposes a Palestinian state west of the Jordan River as a threat to Israel, some members of the party say they have concluded that only the creation of such a state can save Israel as a Jewish democracy.   The debate within Likud is the most surprising development in a fall that has brought a two-month lull in the violence here and, with it, a series of official and unofficial initiatives for peace.   Terje Roed-Larsen, the United Nations special envoy here, told the Security Council on Friday that peacemakers had a "narrow window of opportunity," though he called the situation "very fragile."   In Washington on Friday, the Israeli foreign minister, Silvan Shalom, sat down with Secretary of State Colin L. Powell. Mr. Shalom told reporters he hoped for a meeting "in the near future" between the Israeli and Palestinian prime ministers. Mr. Powell met Thursday with Sari Nusseibeh, a Palestinian who worked on an unofficial peace initiative.   As the Palestinian prime minister, Ahmed Qurei, struggles to cement a cease-fire among Palestinian factions, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel is acting like a man in a hurry. The days when Mr. Sharon stressed reasons not to act — like his demand for seven days of absolute quiet — are past.  Now he is eager to meet with his Palestinian counterpart. He is sitting privately with members of the opposition Labor Party he had all but ignored. He is even talking about unilaterally removing some of the settlers he worked so hard, for so many years, to place in the West Bank and Gaza.   Mr. Sharon has said he will clarify his intentions soon, perhaps in a speech planned for the middle of next week.   On the right and left, many politicians believe that Mr. Sharon's hints may be political and diplomatic posturing, to satisfy the Bush administration, to restore his sagging popularity, or perhaps to distract attention from a widening corruption investigation.   Shimon Peres, the Labor Party leader, who met with Mr. Sharon this week, said he was skeptical. "You know, hints are not a policy," Mr. Peres said in a telephone interview on Friday. "It's like all the time in Israel they say we have hints of oil. The difference between hints of oil, and oil, is quite a major one."   Mr. Peres said that there had been a change within the Likud, an acceptance of the need for a Palestinian state, but that it had yet to formulate a policy to express that. "The Likud doesn't anymore have an ideology," he said, "but it doesn't have an alternative."   Mr. Sharon's advisers say he is committed to the road map, the peace initiative promoted by the Bush administration. They say he is formulating possible unilateral steps to take if, in six months or so, that initiative fails. At the same time, a senior Israeli official said, Mr. Sharon is seeking to adjust the Likud to a political realignment in Israel. "One of the things Sharon is doing is to inculcate a new approach," he said. "The dream of Greater Israel is no longer there. We have to adjust our sights."   Palestinians argue that any unilateral withdrawal would be a cynical attempt to unload as many Palestinians as possible into as little territory as possible.  "All they're arguing is, how big a reservation do they want to give to the Palestinians," said Michael Tarazi, a lawyer for the Palestine Liberation Organization.   Mr. Qurei has criticized any possible unilateral Israeli action, while also saying he welcomes that "Israelis are beginning to think of a solution."   Mr. Qurei says he believes that he can reach a deal with Mr. Sharon. More than two years ago, he and Mr. Peres worked out an informal understanding that would include an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and part of the West Bank to create an interim Palestinian state. Mr. Sharon, who has known Mr. Qurei for years, has said privately that he backed the idea.   But while Mr. Peres and Mr. Qurei envisioned rapid progress toward a final settlement, Mr. Sharon envisioned freezing the handoff of territory at that interim point for as many as 12 years. Some diplomats here say they believe that his talk of unilateral action is his means of pressing Mr. Qurei to accept his terms.   The Bush administration also opposes unilateral action, and it is pressing Israel and the Palestinians to fulfill their commitments to the plan Mr. Bush advocates.   Israel was supposed to freeze growth of settlements and remove the dozens of clusters of trailers that settlers have erected on West Bank hills since 2001. But though Mr. Sharon speaks now of possibly evacuating some settlements, those outposts are continuing to multiply and settlements continue to grow.  Both sides say a new outbreak of violence could upend any talks. In the West Bank city of Nablus on Friday, Palestinian gunmen shot and wounded seven Jews who evaded Israeli restrictions to visit a site they revere as the tomb of the Biblical Joseph.   Fanned by Mr. Sharon, the debate over a unilateral withdrawal broke into the open a week ago with a newspaper interview by his deputy prime minister, Ehud Olmert.   Mr. Olmert, one of the so-called Likud princes bred to the dream of a Greater Israel, suggested that Israel might have to part with even some neighborhoods of Jerusalem.  Mr. Olmert has been attacked by Likud absolutists. But he has a reputation as a canny pragmatist, and many Israeli politicians interpreted his move as recognition of where the debate is headed.   At the beginning of the year, Amram Mitzna, Labor's candidate for prime minister, was derided on the right for proposing a complete, immediate withdrawal from Gaza.  Yet in a telephone interview on Friday, Yuval Steinitz, a rising Likud leader who is chairman of Parliament's foreign affairs and defense committee, said he would be willing to consider a complete unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, if that is what Mr. Sharon proposes.   "From a strategic perspective, we are between a rock and a hard place," Mr. Steinitz said. He said the demographic argument demanded an Israeli withdrawal, while Israel's security needs demanded it retain at least some of the West Bank. "Our aim should be to find the golden path, to pull out from the most populated areas, under minimal conditions that will enable us to defend ourselves," he said.   Unlike some members of Likud, Mr. Steinitz never argued for keeping the West Bank and Gaza out of a conviction that God had deeded them to the Jews. Mr. Sharon has also advanced reasons of security, rather than belief, for holding on to the territories.   The Iraq war has not changed their views. Mr. Sharon's advisers say it is far too soon to conclude that Iraq will not eventually menace Israel again.  What is prompting the change appears to be concern about demographics and politics, including Likud's own growth from opposition to governing party.   "When reality and vision meet, inevitably there is a mellowing down of the vision," said Dan Meridor, another of the Likud princes, who before the last elections served as an adviser to Mr. Sharon on the peace effort. "It is always less than the dream."  Mr. Meridor had been a lonely voice in the Likud warning of the demographic shift.   The figures are striking. About 5.2 million Jews and 1.3 million Arabs are Israeli citizens, while roughly 3.5 million more Arabs live in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The Arab birth rate exceeds the Jewish rate.   "If we don't have a border within a short period of time, one day we will get up and hear Arafat or his successor say, `I don't want a Palestinian state. I want just one thing: Annex me,' " Mr. Meridor said.  Put another way, he said: "The problem now is not that we lose. The problem is that we might win."