As sure as such things can be in an uncertain political
environment, the Gaza disengagement is going ahead - perhaps even
sooner than later. The recent election of the new Palestinian
leadership seems to have paved the way for the implementation of a
partial political solution. With Yasser Arafat's passing the "no
partner" excuse has been put to rest, while Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon's recent meeting with Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) at Sharm
el-Sheikh has raised the possibility of increased bilateralism in
the run up to the Gaza withdrawal itself. Sharon has a clear
interest in moving ahead with the speedy implementation of the
plan, both in terms of his domestic constituency and the recently
established Likud-Labor coalition government, and the expectations
of the Bush administration following the Palestinian
elections.
There have been blips along the way. The No vote in the Likud
Party's central committee was spearheaded not so much by the
traditional Likud Party faithful as by the settler movement and its
supporters. Spurred on by what they considered a threat against
their homes and families, it was the settlers, and their immediate
supporters and allies within the Likud Party, who undertook the
No-vote campaign in the days leading up to the party referendum.
Their grassroots activism among party members, their enthusiasm for
their cause - an enthusiasm that is not matched by the pro-peace
left-wing movements or by the hard core Likud establishment members
- was the key factor that won the day and defeated the prime
minister. However, their fanaticism, their attempt to infiltrate
the party, their public calls for soldiers to refuse to obey the
evacuation orders, and their equation of the evacuation with the
deportation of Jews by the Nazi regime has brought the ruling party
to its senses as it begins to comprehend the essential threat to
the democratic process that is represented by these extreme and
vociferous elements.
The disengagement plan proposed by the Sharon government has, for
the first time in 30 years, made the specter of settlement
evacuation a real possibility, beyond the removal of a few huts on
isolated hilltops in the West Bank, constructed during the past few
years and then removed as part of a media campaign aimed at showing
the world that action is being taken. If implemented, the
disengagement plan would necessitate the evacuation of real
settlements, whole communities, including families, some of whom
have been living in the Gaza Strip, have built their houses and
brought up children and even grandchildren, over a period of three
decades.
It is easy to reiterate the slogan that, for a peace agreement to
be implemented, settlements must be removed and evacuated. It is
much more difficult to actually implement it on the ground. The
expected opposition to the first evacuations is likely to be a
rallying point for the right wing throughout Israel, drawing on
tens of thousands of supporters who will attempt to prevent the
evacuation. We are likely to witness intense activity and lobbying
on the part of the settler activists to prevent evacuation. Based
on the evidence of the past 20 years, Sharon's promise that there
will not be any Jews residing in the Gaza Strip by the end of 2005
seems impractical at this stage, unless the political constellation
undergoes significant change.
Practical Evacuation Questions
Beyond the political polemics, there are a series of practical
questions concerning settlement evacuation that have not been
adequately addressed by the policy-makers. How will settlement
evacuation take place? Will it be imposed by the Israeli government
via the agency of the army, or will it be carried out as a
cooperative project with the settlers themselves if, and when, they
finally realize there is no alternative? What sort of opposition
can be expected and will it reach the levels of physical violence
that many commentators fear? What will happen to the houses left
behind? Will they be destroyed or will they be left for the
Palestinian Authority (PA) to use for its own population? And will
there be plans for settlement relocation for the evacuated settlers
in new communities in the Negev, or will they simply receive
compensation and return to their previous places of residence,
mostly in the center of the country? This paper attempts to address
some of these questions from a practical and planning perspective,
in contrast to the political polemics that have accompanied the
public discourse surrounding settlement evacuation.
Planning for Settlement Evacuation
Settlements in the West Bank and Gaza have been established and
supported by all Israeli governments since 1967, and it is the
responsibility of the Israeli government to oversee the orderly and
safe evacuation of the settler population. While the right-wing
governments actively promoted settlement activity as part of their
attempt to retain control over the West Bank, the left-wing
governments (including those of Rabin and Barak) enabled the
expansion and consolidation of existing settlements, and even saw
the settlements as territorial pawns that should remain until the
final stages of negotiations so that they could be bartered for
concessions from the Palestinians. While this may be in direct
contrast with the public position of the Labor Party on the issue
of settlements - that they are an obstacle to peace and must be
removed - Labor is equally responsible, no less than any right-wing
government, for dealing with the issue of orderly settlement
evacuation. The option of simply leaving and announcing ahead of
time that all settlers must go by a certain date is not an
acceptable option to the vast majority of the Israeli public.
The options for settlement evacuation are varied but must include
some, or all, of the following factors:
1. Sufficient lead time between the details of the final
agreement and the eventual evacuation for settlers who are prepared
to go peacefully to arrange their own affairs. Sharon has made
it clear that the process of evacuation will be carried out over a
period of 18 months with full dialogue and coordination between the
government and the settlers as far as possible. While much of the
Israeli public has been cynical about the eventuality of settlement
evacuation, particularly after the cabinet decision that took the
issue off the agenda until March 2005, the government nevertheless
announced that it was preparing all the necessary relocation and
financial plans for that date, enabling the process to be
undertaken in an orderly fashion. Compensation packages are in
place, and these packages have become even more generous in order
to persuade more settlers to leave of their own accord prior to the
evacuation -anything to avoid, or limit, the degree of civil strife
that is expected to take place.
2. Israeli government planning for alternative residential
solutions inside Israel through the construction of new settlements
or new neighborhoods in existing towns, to absorb the evacuees in
permanent housing conditions. One option for the Gaza
settlements is to construct new communities in close proximity to
the Gaza Strip or in other parts of the Negev region, similar to
the construction of the Shalom Salient settlements following the
evacuation of the Yamit region in the early 1980s. In the lead up
to the disengagement vote, heads of local government authorities
and development towns in the Negev region proposed the relocation
of settler communities as complete neighborhoods to their towns,
thus injecting a new, challenge-oriented population group to
communities that are presently experiencing socioeconomic and
developmental problems. Following the cabinet approval of the
disengagement plan, the government announced its intention of
immediately preparing blueprints and plans for settlement
relocation, including the financing of infrastructure and the
freeing up of lands, so that the alternative residential proposals
would be in place by March 2005.
3. The establishment of a public agency to deal with the wide
range of relocation problems, especially those relating to housing,
education and employment for the many settlers who work in the
public and municipal networks in the West Bank and Gaza, enabling
the efficient administration of these settlements. This is more
relevant for the residents of the Katif region in the Gaza Strip,
where the majority of the settlers are employed within the
settlement network itself, than for the settlers of the South
Hebron region, where the majority of settlers commute to Be'er
Sheva and other places of employment in the northern Negev. As with
all settlement relocation projects, the actual construction of
houses and other physical infrastructure is a relatively easy
problem compared with the creation of adequate employment
opportunities that will induce an evacuated population to move to a
new region and stay there in the long term. The experience of mass
immigration absorption in the Negev during the early 1990s
demonstrated just what a difficult problem this is.
4. The establishment of consultant and psychological services
for those settlers who are traumatically affected by their forced
evacuation, especially those who perceive such evacuation as being
the shattering of their political and religious aspirations.
The need for this became all the more apparent in the wake of the
evacuation of the settlements in northern Sinai which took place as
part of the implementation of the Camp David peace agreement with
Egypt in the early 1980s. During the period leading up to the
disengagement vote, many of the Gush Katif settlers, who had
relocated to the area following their evacuation from the Yamit
region 20 years earlier, played a major role in trying to persuade
the Likud Party members to vote against the agreement, reliving the
pain and anguish of the settlement evacuation they had already
experienced.
5. Adequate financial compensation for settler families to help
them get a new life in order. Unlike the Sinai experience, this
should be worked out in advance and not be subjected to a long
period of negotiation between settler leaders and government
officials. In the Sinai case, this only served to cheapen the
process in the public eye and it made the settlers out as a group
of economic opportunists who were prepared to eventually sacrifice
all their political beliefs for the sake of an inflated
compensation package. There is a catch-22 situation here. On the
one hand, the settlers wish to protect their future and to receive
adequate compensation to start a new life; on the other, the formal
rejection of the disengagement agreement means the settlers cannot
enter into any form of official negotiations with government
officials concerning the terms of their evacuation. The social
pressure on individual settlers to demonstrate rejectionist
solidarity was enhanced by the public declaration of the settlement
community's religious leaders (rabbis) that such an act would be
contrary to their religious teachings, and would be a betrayal of
the religious-political cause of settling the Land of Israel.
Residents of the Gaza settlements have been asked to sign a
document stating they will not enter into any negotiations
concerning financial compensation.
6. As far as possible, settler leaders and activists should be
involved, either publicly or privately, in the detailed stages of
planned evacuation, especially in cases where relocation will be to
new settlements that will be constructed for them inside
Israel. While many of the settler leaders will refuse to
undertake what they see as an act of "collaboration," it is
reasonable to assume that, once the reality sinks in, there will be
second-level leaders and activists who will be prepared to become
involved (even with the secret blessing of the political leaders,
and as far away from the eye of the media as possible) so as to
ensure the least-possible long-term disruption to the normal life
pattern of the average family. The presence of some settler
activists and leaders at private, off-the-record, track II
discussions would indicate that this possibility has been taken
into account. Statements on the extreme right-wing Kahane websites
to the effect that settlers are "allowed" to physically resist the
efforts of soldiers sent to evacuate them, goes against the grain
of the wider settler population which wishes to disassociate from
what it sees as its more radical and violent elements.
7. As much settlement relocation as possible should occur during
the summer months when children are on vacation, so that they can
be in place for the start of the new school year, and so that no
school will be disrupted by sudden closure or a gradual loss of
students over an extended time period. Depending on whether
Gaza communities decide to be relocated in toto or are absorbed
within existing towns and communities, it is preferable for
school-age children to be absorbed within existing institutions
rather than to create entirely new institutions where the common
history of evacuation will remain a painful theme for a disaffected
population.
8. No settlements should be destroyed or razed as happened in
Sinai, especially in the Yamit region. As of the time of
writing, the government has decided that all settlements will be
physically destroyed. This is partially due to the settlers'
request - they do not want to see Palestinians living in their
houses or using their synagogues. The Palestinians, too, are
divided on this issue: some see the maintenance of the settlement
infrastructure as constituting the ultimate victory over
colonialism, as well as a partial means of providing housing
solutions to Palestinians. Others, however, see the retention of
the settlements as an act that will ensure luxury housing for the
elite while the masses remain in the refugee camps, thus enhancing
the political frustrations on the part of much of the
population.
The settlements can either be sold or handed over to the
Palestinian Authority/state and can serve as potential housing
solutions for some of the refugee population. It will be for the
Palestinian state to decide whether, for political and emotional
reasons, to destroy these settlements because they remind them of
the occupation era. Outside powers (especially the United States)
should bring pressure to bear on the Palestinian side that this not
happen, if only because of the short-term economic implications of
erasing a potential housing stock that can serve an important
objective in the resettling of Palestinian refugees. In the lead up
to the disengagement vote, it was suggested that the settlements be
handed over to third-party forces who, in turn, would hand them
over to the PA. But at the end of the day, there is nothing to
prevent the public scenes of Palestinians entering the former
houses of the Katif settlers with the accompanying jubilation of
the perceived victor. This will be painful for the Israeli public,
particularly for the settler families. But given the nature of
contemporary media, nothing can be done to prevent these scenes
from taking place and being broadcast around the world.
The challenges facing the committed settler population need to be
emphasized so that they do not feel completely isolated from the
rest of the Israeli population. The State of Israel will face many
new challenges in a post-conflict era - in the fields of education,
welfare and health policies, and in developing the country's
peripheral regions, especially the Negev, in south of the country -
and the settler population is ideally suited to meet them due to
their ideological fervor and commitment to the state, for the
benefit of the entire Israeli society. Groups of young committed
religious students, those who normally act as the political
vanguard for the right wing in demonstrations and the construction
of new settlement outposts, have a role to play in doing precisely
the opposite, namely assisting families in their move and bridging
the gaps between different sectors of society that are in favor of,
or opposed to, settlement activity.
Can Gaza be a Precedent?
Should disengagement take place, it would constitute an important
precedent for any future settlement evacuation in parts of the West
Bank. Currently, there is stronger support among the Israeli public
for a withdrawal from Gaza than from the West Bank, given the
demographic disparities between Israelis and Palestinians in the
region, and the fact that few Israelis believe holding on to the
Gaza Strip enhances the country's security profile. Should
settlements successfully be evacuated from this region, there is a
chance that those segments of the Israeli public that support a
Gaza withdrawal but are not clear about their position with respect
to the West Bank could shift their attitudes in favor of further
withdrawals. It is to be expected that a real disengagement from
Gaza will change the terms of the public discourse within Israel;
as such, predictions today - prior to any disengagement or
settlement evacuation actually taking place - concerning the future
of the rest of the Occupied Territories are futile. Success can be
measured in two main areas: a significant decrease in the amount of
violence against the Israeli population, and a relative ease of
settlement evacuation. For the Israeli on the street to be
convinced that the withdrawal from Gaza could be repeated
throughout the West Bank, he/she would expect suicide bombings to
cease or, at the very least, undergo a significant reduction.
Equally, an excessive use of violence on the part of Gaza settlers
against the troops sent to evacuate them could turn large sectors
of the Israeli public against them - with little differentiation
being made between Gaza and West Bank settlers, not least as it is
assumed that the latter will come to Gaza to support their fellow
settlers if, and when, the first evacuations are implemented.
However scenes of successful relocations of families and
communities could convince these same sectors that, however bitter
a pill to swallow, relocation and evacuation is achievable in the
long term, including in those areas of the West Bank that have
until now been perceived as irreversible.