IMRA'S COMMENTARY: An End To Red Lines? Inviting a War of Attrition?

Aaron Lerner Date: 26 February 2004

Only a year ago the citizens of Israel gave Ariel Sharon an unprecedented
massive victory against his Labor Party challenger in a campaign that
focused on a proposal to unilaterally withdraw from the Gaza Strip.

Candidate Sharon savagely attacked Labor party candidate Mitzna's retreat
proposal as the idea of a "novice".

The Likud Party mandates swelled while Labor and Meretz shrank as a result
of this national referendum on retreat. Even many voters who previously
supported the radical Left Meretz Party opted to support the Shinui Party, a
party that warned in their campaign against the dangers of retreat ("We will
not withdraw without an agreement, since the Palestinians would interpret
this as a victory for terror that would invite the continuation of terror
from the point we withdraw from.").

A year later, Mr. Sharon is discussing taking steps that even "novice"
Mitzna would not have considered. He is doing everything in his power to
try and create circumstances that will enable him to somehow force the
Government and Knesset that were elected as a result of the public's
rejection of retreat to embrace retreat.

Does Sharon have "red lines"? Is there anything the he sees Israel as
requiring regardless of what Washington says? Apparently not. Speaking to
a meeting of angry and frustrated Likud MKs this week Sharon threatened that
if they gave him anything less than carte blanche that Israel could find
itself "with nothing". That is to say that there are no red lines that
Israel would stand by come what may, just lines that it would prefer not to
cross.

And as Sharon gave his party's leadership a taste of the fear campaign he
plans to run in order to try and force the nation to embrace retreat, the
shocking details of the retreat Sharon is willing to entertain became
public.

In a move that separates Sharon from all but the most radical Israeli Left,
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has proposed that instead of striving for a
demilitarized Palestinian Gaza Strip, Israel should invite the Egyptian Army
to deploy in place of the IDF, thus putting Egyptian forces essentially at
the gates of Ashkelon and within around 40 miles of Tel Aviv. So far Egypt
has rejected the opportunity to remove the key element of the Egyptian
Israeli peace treaty that made possible Israeli withdrawal from the entire
Sinai: a series of progressively more restricted limited force zones
spanning the Sinai to protect Israel against surprise invasion.

And if the Egyptian army won't come in, Sharon proposes that Israel also
retreat from the Egypt/Gaza border, thus removing the last obstacle to
massive weapons flows from Egypt to the Palestinians. Security officials
warned that this move would turn Gaza into one large "Karine A".

As for the West Bank, Sharon is entertaining the possibility of large
retreats - this at the same time that security officials warn of Palestinian
intentions to develop artillery and rockets capabilities so that they can
attack over whatever security fences will be in place. As bizarre as it
sounds, Sharon is working to create a situation on the ground in which the
IDF would ultimately not be deployed in a way that it would interfere with
the flow of these weapons throughout the West Bank.

Retreat supporters cite what they interpret as a stalemate in Lebanon as
evidence that the Palestinian threat can be held at bay regardless of what
arms capabilities they acquire.

Such an interpretation of what has transpired since Israel retreated from
Lebanon and Hezbollah brought in 12,000 Iranian missiles might follow if the
Hezbollah where Israelis. But they aren't Israelis. They don't think in
terms of days or weeks. The crusaders weren't expelled from the region
overnight and they have the patience to invest just as much time to achieve
the goal of ultimately cleansing the region of what they see as the modern
day crusaders.

When an Israeli timeframe is applied to Lebanon, the "stalemate" that
preceded the massive inflow of weapons to Lebanon is seen as a permanent
outcome rather than a strategic Arab achievement in their ongoing war of
attrition against the Jewish State. A war of attrition in which the interim
goal of demoralizing the Jewish enemy might be achieved by a low intensity
conflict whose resolution by decisive action Israel cannot justify due to
the heavy costs associated with breaking the stalemate.

Today the IDF bombs empty buildings on Lebanon in response to Hezbollah
attacks out of fear of the consequences if a stronger response may be met
with the blanket bombing of northern Israel by Hezbollah's 12,000 missiles.
A post retreat situation in Gaza and the West Bank promises the rapid
development of a Palestinian deterrent of such a magnitude that Israel might
choose to essentially absorb even medium intensity Palestinian terror rather
than risk bearing the heavy costs of breaking the "stalemate".

There can be no greater irony than that the man who so despised stalemates
in his military career should now be investing all his efforts into what in
the best of all reasonably possible outcomes will be a bloody and costly
permanent war of attrition/stalemate.

Dr. Aaron Lerner, Director IMRA (Independent Media Review & Analysis)
(Mail POB 982 Kfar Sava)
Tel 972-9-7604719/Fax 972-3-7255730
INTERNET ADDRESS: imra@netvision.net.il
Website: http://www.imra.org.il