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YEAR IN REVIEW 5764 - ISRAEL: Many developments in Israel, but just one key word: disengagement
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By: LESLIE SUSSER Jewish Telegraphic Agency
If the year 5764 could be summed up in one word, it would be disengagement.
After more than three years of inability to make progress on proposals to end Palestinian violence or advance the "road map" peace plan, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon seized the initiative: He announced that Israel would withdraw unilaterally from the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank in order to "disengage" from the Palestinians.
Sharon's plan, officially launched April 14, redefined the international agenda on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Despite his refusal to coordinate the plan with the Palestinian Authority, which he does not consider a credible negotiating partner, Sharon secured widespread international and regional support.
Partly in response to the Bush administration signaling it would accept new housing within existing settlements, Israel announced in August that it would build 533 homes in West Bank settlements near Jerusalem. The Arab League and Palestinian authority are against such growth, saying it is in breach of Israel's 2001 agreement to halt settlement activity.
But the plan, which entails the evacuation of 21 Jewish settlements in Gaza and four in the West Bank, has run into fierce opposition from the settler movement and the Israeli right, and Israel's security services warned of the possibility of violent resistance.
In what threatened to be a serious debacle, Sharon's own Likud Party rejected the plan in a party referendum. Sharon still managed to push it through his Cabinet on June 7 - but only after firing two hawkish ministers and watering down the plan.
The amended plan provides for evacuation of settlements in four separate stages, with a fresh vote before each stage. The first vote is scheduled to be held by March 1, 2005, with all settlements and army installations evacuated in Gaza by the end of 2005.
After initial skepticism, the Bush administration warmly welcomed Sharon's plan as a potentially historic turning point. At a White House meeting April 14, Sharon and President Bush exchanged letters endorsing the plan.
In his letter, Bush also endorsed two key Israeli positions for a final peace deal with the Palestinians: that it is "unrealistic" to expect Israel to return to the pre-1967 "Green Line" boundary with the West Bank and that Palestinian refugees would have the right to return to a future State of Palestine, not to Israel.
The members of the international quartet who formulated the road map - the United States, European Union, United Nations and Russia - also expressed support for the disengagement plan and offered to help rehabilitate the Gaza Strip after an Israeli withdrawal.
Quartet representatives also made it clear that the offer of aid was conditional on the Palestinians carrying out security and other reforms they had agreed to in the road map.
Concerned a post-withdrawal Gaza could become a hotbed of fundamentalist terrorism that could spill over into its territory, Egypt offered to play a stabilizing role. But the Egyptians, too, laid down conditions, insisting that the Palestinians unify their security forces under a single command, as envisaged in the road map.
The Shin Bet security service suggested that right-wing extremists were gearing up to use violence to foil the evacuation, possibly by striking against Sharon or other Cabinet ministers.
On June 15, as his amended disengagement plan started taking shape, Sharon was cleared by Menachem Mazuz, Israel's new attorney general, of wrongdoing in the so-called "Greek Island Affair."
Sharon still faces possible criminal charges in an unrelated matter, over money his sons raised to pay back illegal campaign funding. Still, exoneration in the Greek Island Affair strengthened him politically at a crucial time.
Throughout the year, Palestinian terrorism continued to take Israeli lives, but the volume seemed to be decreasing. This was the case in Gaza, where Israel struck powerful blows against the leadership of the fundamentalist Hamas movement, assassinating its leader, Sheik Ahmed Yassin, on March 22 and his successor, Abdel Aziz Rantisi, less than a month later. Hamas threatened rivers of blood in retaliation, but the attacks never materialized.
In the West Bank during the first six months of 2004, there were only four "successful" suicide attacks emanating from the West Bank, compared to 17 in the same period in 2003. The IDF's Central Command ascribed the decline to army activities in West Bank cities, pinpoint intelligence, and the erection of part of a controversial security fence between Israel and the West Bank.
On July 9, the United Nations' International Court of Justice ruled that the fence was illegal because it intruded in places into the West Bank - which the court deemed "Palestinian land'' - and called on Israel to dismantle it.
Denouncing the ruling as biased and politically motivated, Israel argued that the court failed to take into account the basic reason for building the fence: Palestinian terrorism. Although the ruling was merely advisory and non-binding, the Palestinians welcomed it as a significant step in their campaign to turn Israel into an international pariah state.
Indeed, within two weeks they had turned it into a resolution at the UN General Assembly, ordering Israel to dismantle the fence. Though the resolution also was non-binding, the unanimous support of an expanded European Union raised the prospect of an unprecedented rupture in Israel's relations with Europe.
Israel's position in the region also was affected by fallout from the American war in Iraq, as well as the ongoing confrontation with the Palestinians.
On Dec. 19, just days after the capture of Saddam Hussein, Libyan leader Col. Moammar Khadhafy announced his readiness to dismantle his weapons of mass destruction programs, which many believed were aimed primarily against Israel.
At the same time, the unrelenting clashes with Palestinian terrorism led to strains in Israel's strategic relationship with Turkey. Turkey's Islamist-led government accused Israel of state terrorism, though trade and military ties were not immediately affected.
In parallel with the decline in terrorism, there were signs that Israel's economy was emerging from a three-year slump. In the first quarter of 2004, GNP grew by an impressive 5.1%.
But the recovery failed to trickle down to the weaker socioeconomic sectors: Despite the growth, unemployment reached a 12-year high of over 11%. Despite the economic upturn, 1.3 million Israelis, or one of every five citizens, including a third of Israeli children, still were living below the poverty line in 5764.
Leslie Susser is the diplomatic correspondent for the Jerusalem Report.
After more than three years of inability to make progress on proposals to end Palestinian violence or advance the "road map" peace plan, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon seized the initiative: He announced that Israel would withdraw unilaterally from the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank in order to "disengage" from the Palestinians.
Sharon's plan, officially launched April 14, redefined the international agenda on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Despite his refusal to coordinate the plan with the Palestinian Authority, which he does not consider a credible negotiating partner, Sharon secured widespread international and regional support.
Partly in response to the Bush administration signaling it would accept new housing within existing settlements, Israel announced in August that it would build 533 homes in West Bank settlements near Jerusalem. The Arab League and Palestinian authority are against such growth, saying it is in breach of Israel's 2001 agreement to halt settlement activity.
But the plan, which entails the evacuation of 21 Jewish settlements in Gaza and four in the West Bank, has run into fierce opposition from the settler movement and the Israeli right, and Israel's security services warned of the possibility of violent resistance.
In what threatened to be a serious debacle, Sharon's own Likud Party rejected the plan in a party referendum. Sharon still managed to push it through his Cabinet on June 7 - but only after firing two hawkish ministers and watering down the plan.
The amended plan provides for evacuation of settlements in four separate stages, with a fresh vote before each stage. The first vote is scheduled to be held by March 1, 2005, with all settlements and army installations evacuated in Gaza by the end of 2005.
After initial skepticism, the Bush administration warmly welcomed Sharon's plan as a potentially historic turning point. At a White House meeting April 14, Sharon and President Bush exchanged letters endorsing the plan.
In his letter, Bush also endorsed two key Israeli positions for a final peace deal with the Palestinians: that it is "unrealistic" to expect Israel to return to the pre-1967 "Green Line" boundary with the West Bank and that Palestinian refugees would have the right to return to a future State of Palestine, not to Israel.
The members of the international quartet who formulated the road map - the United States, European Union, United Nations and Russia - also expressed support for the disengagement plan and offered to help rehabilitate the Gaza Strip after an Israeli withdrawal.
Quartet representatives also made it clear that the offer of aid was conditional on the Palestinians carrying out security and other reforms they had agreed to in the road map.
Concerned a post-withdrawal Gaza could become a hotbed of fundamentalist terrorism that could spill over into its territory, Egypt offered to play a stabilizing role. But the Egyptians, too, laid down conditions, insisting that the Palestinians unify their security forces under a single command, as envisaged in the road map.
The Shin Bet security service suggested that right-wing extremists were gearing up to use violence to foil the evacuation, possibly by striking against Sharon or other Cabinet ministers.
On June 15, as his amended disengagement plan started taking shape, Sharon was cleared by Menachem Mazuz, Israel's new attorney general, of wrongdoing in the so-called "Greek Island Affair."
Sharon still faces possible criminal charges in an unrelated matter, over money his sons raised to pay back illegal campaign funding. Still, exoneration in the Greek Island Affair strengthened him politically at a crucial time.
Throughout the year, Palestinian terrorism continued to take Israeli lives, but the volume seemed to be decreasing. This was the case in Gaza, where Israel struck powerful blows against the leadership of the fundamentalist Hamas movement, assassinating its leader, Sheik Ahmed Yassin, on March 22 and his successor, Abdel Aziz Rantisi, less than a month later. Hamas threatened rivers of blood in retaliation, but the attacks never materialized.
In the West Bank during the first six months of 2004, there were only four "successful" suicide attacks emanating from the West Bank, compared to 17 in the same period in 2003. The IDF's Central Command ascribed the decline to army activities in West Bank cities, pinpoint intelligence, and the erection of part of a controversial security fence between Israel and the West Bank.
On July 9, the United Nations' International Court of Justice ruled that the fence was illegal because it intruded in places into the West Bank - which the court deemed "Palestinian land'' - and called on Israel to dismantle it.
Denouncing the ruling as biased and politically motivated, Israel argued that the court failed to take into account the basic reason for building the fence: Palestinian terrorism. Although the ruling was merely advisory and non-binding, the Palestinians welcomed it as a significant step in their campaign to turn Israel into an international pariah state.
Indeed, within two weeks they had turned it into a resolution at the UN General Assembly, ordering Israel to dismantle the fence. Though the resolution also was non-binding, the unanimous support of an expanded European Union raised the prospect of an unprecedented rupture in Israel's relations with Europe.
Israel's position in the region also was affected by fallout from the American war in Iraq, as well as the ongoing confrontation with the Palestinians.
On Dec. 19, just days after the capture of Saddam Hussein, Libyan leader Col. Moammar Khadhafy announced his readiness to dismantle his weapons of mass destruction programs, which many believed were aimed primarily against Israel.
At the same time, the unrelenting clashes with Palestinian terrorism led to strains in Israel's strategic relationship with Turkey. Turkey's Islamist-led government accused Israel of state terrorism, though trade and military ties were not immediately affected.
In parallel with the decline in terrorism, there were signs that Israel's economy was emerging from a three-year slump. In the first quarter of 2004, GNP grew by an impressive 5.1%.
But the recovery failed to trickle down to the weaker socioeconomic sectors: Despite the growth, unemployment reached a 12-year high of over 11%. Despite the economic upturn, 1.3 million Israelis, or one of every five citizens, including a third of Israeli children, still were living below the poverty line in 5764.
Leslie Susser is the diplomatic correspondent for the Jerusalem Report.
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