(Editor's note: The following article by Arie Stav, appeared in the January 1999 edition of Nativ, Israel's premier literary and political journal, of which he is editor.)
Benjamin Netanyahu, Ariel Sharon and Yitzhak Mordechai each presented to the Likud conference their account of the achievements of the Wye conference. What all three presentations had in common was a confession of failure and defeat. In the case of Sharon the despair was overt; in the case of Netanyahu it was disguised by demagoguery and populism; and as for Mordechai, he overlaid it by expatiating, as is his wont, on matters on which he has nothing to say.
There is no doubt that the sharpest impression was left by Sharon. His defeatism in contrast to the opportunism of his two partners in the troika developed at a dizzying speed, making it difficult for those who pinned great hopes on him to assimilate. One tended to minimize his part in the destruction of the settlements in the Sinai. In part, this was because of the open regret he expressed over this error in his life and in part it was because Sharon integrated strategic thinking and the Zionist vision, especially since these two areas were detached long ago from the spiritual world of the common Israeli politician. As a result, Sharon became a sort of last of the Mohicans.
Sharon is the father of the doctrine of the canton in which he wanted to concentrate the Arab population of Yesha. Ninety-five percent of the Arab population would be in districts taking in the Arab cities, including Shechem, Jenin and Ramallah and would enjoy a maximum of autonomy in them. The fact that these districts are separated from one another would negate the danger that geographic continuity would represent. The threat of a Palestinian state to Israel would thus be removed. I remember how in a visit to my office he presented to me a map of his cantons and explained in detail the advantages flowing from his plan, as well as the disasters facing Israel if the Arabs were to be united in a territorially contiguous territory.
The strategic principle to which Sharon
was most firmly attached was control of the mountain
spine. The famous expression "He who rules the
mountain ridge rules the Land of Israel" never left his lips. In
an endless number of guided trips by bus (for the
Israeli public) and by helicopter (for foreign VIPs), Sharon
explained again and again the vital importance of the
mountain range to the existence of Israel. In response to
those who asked difficult questions about ruling over
large numbers of Arabs, Sharon pointed to the mountain
spine, which was practically empty of population. When
he stood at the outlook of Elkana or in Karnei Shomron
he pointed to the coastal plain straight out from the palm
of his hand and quoted from the words of his political ad-
versaries, Rabin or Peres, on the dangers presented
by the narrow waist of Israel. All this became part of
the folklore of the loyalists of Eretz Yisrael.
Sharon had doubts about the strategic importance of the Jordan Valley [to which Labor governments traditionally paid obeisance], a narrow and deep canyon, a classical slaughter field for the troops spread in it or trying to cross it. The coastal plain, where the vast majority of the Jewish population is concentrated, is nothing but an easy target. The only strategic value, therefore, lies in the mountain range. It is no accident that in its recommendations the Pentagon affirmed that the mountain spine is essential to the survival of the Jewish state. The endlessly repeated words of Sharon have remained true now for 4,000 years. The abandonment of the mountain means return to the borders of 1967 and the creation of a cause for war. Even should the Jews hold on here or there to some area in western Samaria (an assumption in itself the stuff of fantasy) this will have no military value. Moreover, considering the range and precision of the firepower in the hands of the enemy today compared to what it had in June 1967, the situation of Israel is now vastly more difficult than it was at that time. If, then, the mountain spine was decisive, its importance today is doubly and triply more so. It is in fact the only strategic value in western Eretz Yisrael.
But now, with unbelievable speed, the chameleon Sharon has changed his colors. Yesterday's exponent of the cantons has become an enthusiastic supporter of geographic continuity for the Palestinian Authority. The man who protested fervently that any percentage over 9% was a danger to Israel's security, and therefore unacceptable, is the man who gave Arafat with a stroke of the pen 27% of the territory. The mountain spine, empty of population, the only strategic value without which Israel, according to his own analysis, will be destroyed, was turned over by Sharon, as if it were a matter of no importance. As usual, in turning his back on strategic principle, he was dragged into meaningless pronouncements he himself does not believe in. In his miserable appearance together with Netanyahu, after the cabinet endorsed the Wye agreement, Sharon demonstrated total confusion and mindlessness. He justified turning over the territories to Arafat with the argument that in doing so "we have blocked in fact the way to the borders of 1967 and so closed the dangerous breach of the Oslo agreements."
The exact opposite is the truth. He has turned over an additional 27% of Yesha to Arafat, something even Yitzhak Rabin had not considered. It increases by 900% the territory in Arafat's hands; in other words increases by hundreds of percent the infrastructure of terror and forms a firm basis for establishment of a Palestinian state over Judea and Samaria. Sharon has now acted to produce exactly the situation against which he argued day and night before he settled into the seat of Foreign Minister.
February 1999 - 11 - Outpost