Hassan Tahsin

Sharon has overstepped the bounds and refused all American advice that would allow the peace process to succeed and the road map to be implemented. Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas’ visit to Europe, which will follow his visit to Washington, will be aimed at demanding that EU nations confront Israel’s obstinacy. Sharon insists on building a security wall dividing Israel from occupied Palestine and refuses to release Palestinian prisoners.

In the meantime, Bush has demanded that Sharon deal with the consequences of his action without backing up this advice with any concrete American plan for implementing the road map. The Palestinians’ request that the Americans set out a time frame for the road map to which both Palestinians and Israelis would be committed was met with “no comment” by the Bush administration.

Thus the peace process is once again held up by a new Israeli-imposed obstacle — the dividing wall. The dangers of this obstacle became especially clear after Mahmoud Abbas and Sharon’s visit to Washington and the latter’s refusal to stop building the wall. The Israeli Labour Party initiated the idea of a wall, but the Likud party strongly rejected the idea at the time because it would mean delineating the borders of the Palestinian state. This is an idea rejected in its entirety by all Israeli political parties.

Today the situation is different — the Likud, led by Sharon, has built 150 kilometers of this wall. Many political observers wonder at this U-turn in the party’s stand. The Labour Party’s idea was a simple one aimed at separating Israelis and Palestinians for security and protection. Sharon and his party’s idea is not simply about separation but represents a method of enclosing, encircling and confining. It is part of a larger political plan aimed at dividing up the parts of the Palestinian state and turning them into cantons — unconnected and therefore impossible to control or administer by a central government. At the same time it paves the way for Israel to seize a greater portion of the West Bank.

The deal that Sharon had previously offered — of a Palestinian state on 40 percent of the West Bank land on the condition that the Palestinians accept this offer as final — confirms this.

Sharon is keeping secret all the executive plans for the dividing wall, even from some of his Cabinet ministers. Instead he presents the drawings for each section as needed, for fear that details of the wall’s intrusion into Palestinian land would be leaked — which would make the EU rise against him and rouse Washington’s ire. Sharon’s realization of the danger of his action and what could result from it has made him demand the wall be built quickly, despite the initial understanding that it would be built slowly owing to the huge expense of construction, some 1.2 billion euro.

Sharon’s insistence on building the security wall and his defiance of the American administration, which has demanded he halt the project, indicates that he wants the current situation to explode. He is placing a roadblock in the way of the road map to accelerate its failure. He is not fazed by Washington’s anger because history has taught him that it will not last long. The American administration has surrendered to the status quo imposed by Israel although it flaunts the road map and international law. This will turn the current peace efforts into a replica of the American-made Dayton Peace Accord, which divided Bosnia-Herzegovina into cantons.

The result will be a Palestinian state in name only — without identity — a state that will have been eviscerated before it even comes into being. Its name will read: “The Palestinian State ... Made in America”