It is a widespread myth that Ariel Sharon, architect supremo of the settlement project over decades, has had an about-face, a melting heart in his old age. Giving back Gaza unilaterally? Here’s the deal, as stated clearly to the Israeli people by Sharon and various aides. The pull back from Gaza will not give any control of borders or airspace. Nor will it give entry or exit of goods or people either across to the West Bank or into Egypt. So, there is no possibility of an independent economy or radical changes for the impoverished Gazans. And who needs a tiny strip of desert land next to Egypt seething with terrorists anyway? We can use Egypt to our dirty work in policing, and settlers will be recompensated handsomely and used to help secure Israeli domination in the West Bank, or to confiscate more land from Palestinian citizens of Israel. Sharon has made explicit his plans to use Gazan settlers to shore up Jewish domination of Palestinian-populated areas inside the 1948 borders, in the Galilee and the Negev. Gazan settlers currently forced to leave the Palestinian land they had occupied will be rewarded around $300,000. Anyone notice the “slight” discrepancy between this and the zero compensation that most Rafah residents receive when their homes are destroyed (sometimes for the second or third time)?

But the great thing for Israel is that the international community will see it as a great step forward and a massive compromise by peace-loving Israel. Then (1) Israel will be given the moral high ground, (2) Sharon and successors will refuse to even talk about negotiating anything but a few Palestinian reserves in the resource-rich West Bank, and (3) every incidence of Palestinian or Israeli human suffering will be blamed on Abu Mazen and his failure to “control the militants.”

Everything is going just great for Sharon’s long-term plan. He has already got green lights, back slaps, and red carpets in Washington. There may have been an American election last year, but when it comes to wholehearted support of Israel, John Kerry’s policy statements assured Israel and American Zionists there wouldn’t have been any change there. In his April 14, 2004 meeting with US President George W. Bush, Sharon did even better than the Israeli public had hoped for, achieving a historic open commitment that five key West Bank settlement blocs will be recognized as Israeli by the US (in other words, not up for negotiation). In reality, a full return to 1967 borders has not been on the agenda for many years, but this public affirmation was a supreme achievement for the Zionist lobby.

International media claims that Sharon’s unilateral Gaza disengagement plan is an about-face for the lifelong pioneer of the settlement project constitute exactly the propaganda that the prime minister needs as he carries on securing facts on the ground in the resource-rich West Bank. The latest settlement update from Peace Now (December 30, 2004) testifies to the continuing building of hundreds of settlements across the West Bank.

Abu Mazen has no role or authority to interfere in this process. Only the Israelis can end their own occupation and continuous expansion. While the Israeli papers continue to discuss Abu Mazen’s changes in personnel from the Arafat days and ask whether he will “stop the violence” or be “less corrupt,” they ignore the key issue to bring an end to violence, and to genuinely help democracy and a free Palestinian society: An end to occupation. For Israeli and international media to discuss anything else is to avoid the issues, to patronize a people under occupation, and to ignore the fact that it is Zionism, not Palestinian corruption, that has prevented the flourishing of Palestinian democracy for over half a century.