|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Author: Oliver Moore
Date: 20050420
Disengagement and the Fallacy that Reciprocity is Inherently Good
Yesterday, at a pre-Pessah toast in Ness Ziona, Benyamin Netanyahu renewed his attack on Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's unilateral disengagement plan. He made a specific argument against it, and a rather original one at that. The gist of this argument was to compare disengagement to Oslo. This is different from saying it will tear the nation apart and lead to civil war, different from saying it rewards terror, different from saying it constitutes a betrayal of Likud ideology, and although it is different from saying it sets a harmful precedent, Netanyahu made the precedent argument later in the same speech. Gil Hoffman wrote on the Jerusalem Post website on April 18th: "Netanyahu said he warned before the Oslo process began that it would lead to violence. He said he was glad that Sharon had ruled out a second unilateral withdrawal, but that if Israel did not insist on reciprocity, the result could be a repeat of the tragic results of Oslo." Hoffman then quotes Netanyahu: "We have to insist that if the Palestinians don't stop terrorism and incitement, we will not be obligated to any step, and certainly not to transfer territory," Netanyahu said "Without reciprocity, this will lead to catastrophe. I said it 10 years ago and I say it now." Disengagement is like Oslo, Bibi's argument goes, because it lacks reciprocity, that is, it involves Israeli concessions without reciprocal Palestinian concessions. This makes little sense at first glance; Oslo was fundamentally reciprocal; it was the result of ongoing negotiations, it assumed the validity of exchanging land for peace, and it sought to built trust between the parties. Surely these are all elements of reciprocity. To Netanyahu, who served as prime minister during Oslo and thus had to conform to its framework, the problem with Oslo was that the Palestinians, time and time again, found a way to avoid fulfilling their commitments, thus undermining the reciprocity of the peace process. This idea is expressed by Natan Sharansky, in his recent book, The Case for Democracy, which, aside from its opposition to disengagement, is refreshingly lucid. Sharansky describes how, serving in Netanyahu's government, he pressed the American administration, under the banner of reciprocity, to hold the PA to its obligations. Israel was fulfilling its duties, and Arafat was evading his, Sharansky points out. Reciprocity was the concept that he and Netanyahu championed as an answer to this problem. By placing more diplomatic emphasis on reciprocity, they hoped to force Arafat to carry out his end of the agreement. Neither Netanyahu nor Sharansky were supporters of Oslo to begin with, but since Israel had already committed to it, the best the Likud could do was insist that the agreement at least be upheld.
This background clarifies Netanyahu's seemingly obscure comparison of Oslo to disengagement. The danger inherent in both, he says, is that they lack reciprocity. Already, at this stage of the argument, a major weakness appears: Oslo, though lacking in reciprocity in practice, was entirely reciprocal in theory. Unilateral disengagement has been non-reciprocal from its very inception. A right-winger like Bibi faces certain difficulties when criticising disengagement. The disengagement plan's very essence is its unilateralism, or non-reciprocity. Therefore, a strong attack upon it must deal with this point, but to demand reciprocity is really to suggest negotiation, and negotiation with the Palestinians tends to be the province of the Israeli left. So Bibi cannot simply call for negotiation instead of unilateralism, that would make him into a supporter of Oslo. Thus he falls back on his old concept of reciprocity, itself only a compromise between ending the Oslo process altogether and continuing in Peres's path. Having recuperated reciprocity from the diplomatic dustbin, Bibi makes a leap of logic and paints Oslo as inherently non-reciprocal
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
