US embassy cable - 05TELAVIV5866

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 05 TEL AVIV 005866 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV, KWBG, KPAL, PINS, PREL, IS, GAZA DISENGAGEMENT 
SUBJECT: POSSIBLE POST-DISENGAGEMENT SCENARIOS 
 
This message is sensitive but unclassified.  Please protect 
accordingly. 
 
1.  (SBU) Summary: Predictions about the universe of 
post-disengagement possibilities can be grouped into three 
possible scenarios and two remote options, according to a 
range of Israeli observers.  The first scenario -- the 
roadmap scenario -- is the official position of the 
Government of Israel (GOI), which has pledged to encourage 
and support the Palestinians as they take steps to ensure 
security and demonstrate self-government in Gaza.  The second 
possible scenario -- the so-called Somalia scenario -- is 
predicated on an Israeli expectation of Palestinian failure, 
which will freeze further movement toward a two-state 
solution, as predicted by PM Advisor Dov Weissglas in his 
"formaldehyde" interview a year ago.  Polls suggest most 
Israelis expect this failure, but only far-right politicians 
and the settler constituency actually seek this outcome, 
which they could then exploit to derail future negotiations 
with the Palestinians or further Israeli unilateral 
disengagement from the West Bank.  The third scenario 
anticipated by a diverse group of Israeli academics involves 
more Israeli unilateral acts when PM Sharon, or his 
successor, faces obstacles in the roadmap process -- either 
Palestinian failure to control violence or a political 
impasse over permanent status issues.  A cadre of Israeli 
professors, pundits, pollsters and politicians analyzes 
Israeli and Palestinian politics under each 
post-disengagement scenario.  They generally discount two 
other options favored by the far left and far right, 
respectively: immediate movement to permanent status talks on 
the basis of the Geneva Accords; and, transfer of 
Palestinians from the West Bank to Gaza or Jordan.  End 
Summary. 
 
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THE ROADMAP SCENARIO: MOVING TO PHASE II 
---------------------------------------- 
 
2.  (SBU) WORKING ASSUMPTIONS: Incremental progress and 
reciprocal steps lead to progress toward realizing the 
President's vision of a two-state solution. 
Israeli-Palestinian cooperation post-disengagement continues, 
with the PA ensuring that the current truce by militant 
groups is respected, and the GOI undertaking some 
confidence-building measures to assist President Abbas.  The 
GOI aims to move gradually toward Phase II -- Palestinian 
statehood with provisional borders -- while the PA seeks 
rapid movement to Phase III (Permanent Status Agreement). 
Proponents of this view take their cue from Prime Minister 
Sharon, who has articulated, on several occasions, how he 
views the linkage between disengagement and movement onto the 
roadmap. 
 
3.  (U) PROPONENTS: PM Sharon told the Israeli public August 
15 that the Disengagement Plan is "good for Israel in any 
future scenario.  We are reducing the day-to-day friction and 
its victims on both sides... Now the Palestinians bear the 
burden of proof.  They must fight terror organizations, 
dismantle its infrastructure and show sincere intentions of 
peace in order to sit with us at the negotiating table." 
Sharon concluded: "this action is vital for Israel. ... It 
was something that had to be done."  On August 29, PM Sharon 
told Channel 10, "Disengagement was a one-time move and no 
similar move will happen in the future.  The next stage, and 
we are currently in the pre-roadmap stage, is to move on to 
the roadmap.  There are no more stages of disengagement." 
Sharon also clarified that "the large blocs of settlements 
which are so vitally important will remain in our hands. 
There should be no doubt about this.  Not all the settlements 
that currently exist in Judea and Samaria will remain.  You 
have to remember one thing.  Even according to the roadmap, 
the decision of where the borders will be, and which 
settlements Israel will have to remove, is the final stage of 
negotiations.  The final results can only be presented during 
the final stage (of the roadmap) because anything decided 
along the way will serve as the starting point for further 
negotiations."  Evacuation of isolated settlements not inside 
the blocs of settlements would only occur, he said, "during 
the implementation of the roadmap and during its final 
stage." 
 
------------------------------------- 
VIEWS OF THE ISRAELI PUBLIC, 
AND IMPLICATIONS FOR ISRAELI POLITICS 
------------------------------------- 
 
4.  (SBU) Pollster and sociologist Ephraim Yaar, author of a 
monthly Peace Index that surveys Israeli views on major 
issues relating to relations with the Palestinians, predicts 
that the Israeli public will be most influenced by the degree 
to which there is continued Palestinian violence 
post-disengagement.  Israelis "won't buy that the PA can't 
prevent it," Yaar told poloff September 13.  Some 71.5 
percent of Israelis think that unilateral disengagement from 
Gaza is only a first step toward an extensive evacuation of 
settlements from the West Bank, he said, but most of these 
Israelis condition their political support for further 
disengagement from the West Bank on a peace agreement with 
the Palestinians.  In a recent meeting with Embassy officers, 
Professor Dan Scheuftan of Haifa University reiterated that 
Palestinian violence has a strong effect on Israeli reaction. 
 Professor Mark Heller of the Jaffee Center predicts that if 
the Palestinian Authority manages to control violence, the 
GOI will offer some confidence-building measures (CBMs) to 
the PA, such as allowing the opening of a seaport and the 
airport in Gaza, expanding maritime area available to Gaza 
fishermen, releasing substantial numbers of "high quality" 
prisoners, authorizing voting rights for those prisoners 
remaining in jail, instituting safe passage between Gaza and 
the West Bank, and supporting efforts to re-equip Palestinian 
security forces and mobilize financial assistance to Gaza. 
 
5.  (SBU) Gidi Grinstein, President of the Re'ut Institute 
and former aide to then-PM Barak, told poloffs September 12 
that he predicts that either after Likud primaries to be held 
in the coming months or shortly after Israeli elections in 
2006, if re-elected, PM Sharon will move unilaterally to 
recognize a Palestinian state.  Permanent Status Issues (i.e. 
1948 issues such as refugees, Jerusalem, borders) are too 
difficult to resolve via negotiations, Grinstein said. 
Focusing on this basket of issues puts the cart before the 
horse.  A two-state reality should be the forerunner to 
negotiations, not the reverse, he said.  Professor Asher 
Susser, Director of the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle East 
and African Studies at Tel Aviv University, agrees in the 
strategic advantage of reversing the order of the Oslo 
process: "A Palestinian state is a fundamental necessity for 
Israel, and in Israel's long-term strategic security 
interest."  He emphasized, "Israel needs a Palestinian state 
in the West Bank and Gaza more than the Palestinians." 
 
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ISRAELI PERSPECTIVES ON PALESTINIAN POLITICS AND ELECTIONS 
--------------------------------------------- ------------- 
 
6.  (U) Former ISA (Israeli Security Agency) Deputy Director 
Ofer Dekel told an audience at the fifth annual 
Counter-Terrorism conference in Herzliya September 14 that 
"the pullout of Gaza eradicated one component of legitimacy 
for Hamas... and this absence of legitimacy (for further 
terrorism) will act as a restraint."  Dekel said that Hamas 
will transfer some of its capacity for terrorism to the West 
Bank, but predicted that the tahdiyah (calm) will be fragile 
but self-enforced until after Palestinian elections on 
January 25, 2006: "Hamas is very sensitive to its own public 
opinion and its leaders do not want to be martyrs."  Dekel 
said Hamas aspires to big-time politics and will attempt to 
demonstrate its political influence in the upcoming 
Palestinian elections.  Dekel indicated that the PA remains 
the most influential body in Palestinian politics, but also 
its most corrupt.  Dekel said that President Abbas could "buy 
off" the Fatah-affiliated Al-Aqsa Martyrs brigades, but 
Israeli force is the only means of restraining Palestinian 
Islamic Jihad (PIJ).  Dekel warned that the disintegration of 
Fatah, and resulting power struggles could lead to confusing 
anarchy, which would pose the greatest security threat to 
Israel. 
 
7.  (U) MK Ephraim Sneh (Labor), who also addressed the 
Herzliya conference, argued that President Abbas is the one 
best positioned to confront Hamas, but predicted that Abbas 
would not do so before the January elections.  MK Sneh 
predicts that Abbas will have greater political clout after 
the elections, and this will allow him to impose his demand 
for disarmament four to five months later.  Professor Susser, 
who is an expert on Jordanian politics, said he believes 
Hamas will emulate the role of Jordanian Islamist parties. 
"Hamas won't want to win the elections, but they will do as 
well as they would like to," i.e., win sufficient votes to 
demonstrate political power, but not enough to assume 
responsibility for governing Gaza.  Presidential and 
parliamentary elections and institutions are important 
because they confine the Palestinian national enterprise to 
the West Bank and Gaza and reduce the role of the diaspora, 
in Susser's view.  Thus, elections -- even with Hamas 
participation -- are an important stepping-stone to a 
two-state solution.  Hamas will not participate in the 
January 25, 2006 elections on President Abbas' current 
conditions, he added, but Abbas ultimately will accept Hamas 
in the political process even if the group has not disarmed. 
 
--------------------------------------------- ---- 
THE SOMALIA SCENARIO: PALESTINIAN FAILURE IN GAZA 
--------------------------------------------- ---- 
 
8.  (SBU) WORKING ASSUMPTIONS: Status quo antithetical to 
U.S. objectives in the Middle East.  The Palestinians drop 
the ball after disengagement.  The GOI will stay put, cease 
further disengagement and make no further "concessions" in 
the face of Palestinian failure to stop terrorism. 
Proponents of this view accept the analytic perspective 
articulated publicly by Dov Weissglas in his famous October 
2004 "formaldehyde" interview with Ha'aretz journalist Ari 
Shavit in which the PM's Advisor predicted that the 
Disengagement Plan would create circumstances that will 
freeze the political process with the Palestinians.  However, 
we should not necessarily assume that PM Sharon and his 
advisors, including Weissglas, still adhere to the 
formaldehyde theory, or seek a continuation of the status 
quo.  In his address to the UN on September 15, Sharon 
stated: "The right of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel 
does not mean disregarding the rights of others in the land. 
The Palestinians will always be our neighbors.  We respect 
them, and have no aspirations to rule over them. They are 
also entitled to freedom and to a national, sovereign 
existence in a state of their own." 
 
9.  (U) PROPONENTS: Those who expect this scenario include 
politicians who opposed disengagement as well as some of 
Sharon's erstwhile allies.  MK Netanyahu (Likud) wrote in his 
resignation letter to the Israeli cabinet on August 7, 
"Unilateral withdrawal under fire without compensation is not 
the way (to reach peace and security).  I am not prepared to 
be a partner to a step that ignores reality and blindly 
advances the establishment of an Islamic terror base that 
will threaten the State (of Israel).  I am not prepared to be 
a partner to an irresponsible move that endangers the 
security of Israel, divides the Nation, sets the principle of 
withdrawal to the 1967 lines, and further endangers the unity 
of Jerusalem."  And there are those within Sharon's camp who 
also forecast what direction Israeli policy will take if Gaza 
becomes chaotic.  In an August 17 interview with Al Rai 
Al-aam, FM Shalom said: "If Gaza turns into a base for 
shooting missiles at Israel and increasing Palestinian 
attacks, it will be impossible to move on to another step and 
take a new risk." 
 
--------------------------------------------- ----------- 
ISRAELI PUBLIC PESSIMISTIC ABOUT PALESTINIAN PERFORMANCE 
--------------------------------------------- ----------- 
 
10.  (SBU) Interpreting data from his post-disengagement 
Peace Index survey, Professor Yaar said that Israelis feel 
betrayed by the Palestinians and the Oslo architects.  "Oslo" 
is now a "negative brand name," and a majority of Israelis 
are pessimistic regarding the possibility that the 
Palestinians have the (will) to establish law and order."  If 
Gaza remains/becomes a base for attacks on Israel, then a 
majority of Israelis will oppose further evacuations in the 
West Bank.  Yaar said a majority of Likud members are against 
disengagement, but a majority of the Israeli electorate 
supports disengagement, "and Sharon knows it."  Yaar said 
that Likud members may hate Sharon, but they may also believe 
that remaining in power is more important than ousting 
Sharon.  Dr. Mark Heller of the Jaffee Center for Strategic 
Studies explained to poloff on August 29 that before 
supporting any further "concessions," the Israeli public will 
ask of its leaders: "What is in it for us?"  He views the 
possibility of another Israeli disengagement in the near 
future as "inconceivable." 
 
11.  (SBU) Dr. Heller, who has written on the Palestinian 
response to disengagement, assessed, however, that a 
Palestinian political mindset concerned about "principles" 
will prevail over pragmatic decision-making based on economic 
or other considerations.  He cited the burning of the Erez 
industrial zone at the outbreak of the second Intifada in 
2000 as an historical example of how the Palestinians respond 
in crisis in ways that are directly contrary to their 
economic self-interest, and predicted that Palestinian 
leadership will not be pragmatic on issues such as 
international passages.  (Note: One of the first events 
post-disengagement was the burning on September 12 of 
factories in the Erez industrial zone that had employed 
hundreds, and, at times, thousands of Palestinians.)  Dayan 
Center Director Susser warned that many Palestinians believe 
time works in their favor, and that delay in realizing a 
two-state solution will lead to the "South Africanization" of 
the Palestinian-Israeli conflict -- a process directed toward 
a one-state solution where Palestinians are the majority. 
 
--------------------------------------------- --- 
SCENARIO THREE: UNILATERAL ACTS IN THE WEST BANK 
--------------------------------------------- --- 
 
12.  (SBU) WORKING ASSUMPTIONS: Asymmetric demographic growth 
of the non-Jewish population in the areas west of the Jordan 
River -- both Israel and the West Bank -- will dictate 
further, accelerated Israeli unilateral disengagement from 
areas in the West Bank that lie on the "Palestinian side" of 
the serpentine separation barrier, which will become the de 
facto border.  Consolidation of settlement blocs on the 
Israeli side of the barrier, including within the large 
"fingers" that protect settlement blocs such as Ariel, may be 
accompanied by withdrawal of settlements and outposts 
elsewhere as Israelis come to view the holding of territory 
in largely Palestinian areas as a strategic liability. 
Professor Arnon Soffer of the University of Haifa has 
produced a series of demographic studies that have persuaded 
the political leadership and the general population that 
disengagement is in the interest of Israel. 
 
13.  (U) PROPONENTS: Proponents of further unilateral acts 
range from those who seek consolidation and permanent 
retention of Israeli settlement blocs to those who favor 
unilateral withdrawal from isolated outposts.  These 
scenarios would diminish the role of the roadmap and create a 
degree of uncertainty regarding the ultimate destination of 
the two parties.  Deputy Defense Minister Ze'ev Boim, on a 
tour of Ariel, September 5 said: "Whoever thinks 
disengagement from Gaza will continue with disengagement from 
the large settlement blocs is very wrong.  We will see that 
this does not happen."  Former National Security Advisor Uzi 
Dayan, who heads the Tafnit organization that calls for a new 
agenda for Israel based on separation from the Palestinians, 
announced September 20 a plan for 32 West Bank settlements to 
be evacuated and a temporary border established.  Critics say 
such unilateral moves are ill conceived unless based on 
negotiations with the Palestinians.  MK Ephraim Sneh (Labor), 
told an audience at the Herzliya Counter-Terrorism Conference 
on September 14 that  "Sharon's worldview is that 90 percent 
of Eretz Israel will be under Israeli sovereignty while Gaza 
and seven cantons in the West Bank will form a Palestinian 
state." 
 
DEMOGRAPHIC CHALLENGE REQUIRES DEFINITION OF BORDERS 
 
14.  (SBU) Dayan Center Director Susser told poloff September 
13 that Israelis increasingly have come to appreciate that 
holding on to territory in Palestinian areas is a strategic 
liability, not an asset.  Sharon's strategic view has moved 
above military calculus, and Susser attributes some of this 
change to his advisors' (e.g., Dov Weissglas) increasing 
receptivity to the ideas and predictions of academics rather 
those of the ideologues of the settler movement who 
"controlled the office of the Prime Minister two years ago." 
Sharon, whom Susser now views as Israel's De Gaulle, saw the 
status quo as destructive, and opted to preserve and secure 
the "state of Israel" rather than the Eretz Israel of 
religious Zionists.  Susser added that Sharon and other 
proponents of disengagement have not done enough to explain 
the underlying rationale for disengagement.  In Susser's 
view, Sharon's Disengagement Plan was not undertaken for 
"peace," but to keep Israel Jewish.  "A million Russian Jews 
changed nothing -- it only delayed for a decade the 
demographic realities, i.e. that Jews will be a minority in 
(Israel and the West Bank) by 2010.  Professor Uriel 
Reichman, President of the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center 
and a founder of the Shinui party, agrees, and on September 
14 told an audience at his Center that Israel must come to an 
internal consensus on the permanent borders it seeks in an 
eventual agreement with the Palestinians.  "If we remain 
stuck (in the West Bank), we will have a binational state." 
 
SEPARATION BARRIER AS THE PROVISIONAL BORDER 
 
15.  (SBU) Professor Susser said Sharon's actions and 
statements suggest that his plan is to consolidate settlement 
blocs behind the separation barrier.  Disengagement from the 
West Bank to within the area protected by the separation 
barrier must occur within the next five years, or the dynamic 
of the Gaza move will be lost.  The status quo will endanger 
the historical Zionist enterprise, in Susser's view.  "The 
impotence of the GOI vis a vis the settlers is over.  Gaza 
demonstrated the limits of their power.  Imposition of state 
on the settlers, not the other way around."  Likud and Labor 
are parties representing ideologies Israelis no longer 
believe in -- Likud as the party of Eretz Israel and Labor as 
the party of peace with the Arabs, he said.  Israelis have 
moved to the center and form a "Zionist majority without a 
party."  If Sharon's vision is "Gaza First, Gaza Last," then 
Sharon has understood nothing," Susser concluded in response 
to a question about this possibility. 
 
DISENGAGEMENT AS STRATEGY 
 
16.  (SBU) Professor Dan Schueftan, a Senior Fellow at the 
National Security Studies Center of the University of Haifa 
and an outspoken out-of-the-box observer, claims to have laid 
the intellectual underpinning for Sharon's disengagement 
policy in his 1999 monograph entitled, aptly, 
"Disengagement."  Schueftan told poloff August 29 that he 
anticipates further unilateral steps rather than negotiations 
with the Palestinians over roadmap implementation. 
Specifically, he predicts there will be another unilateral 
disengagement in 2007-8 from the Samarian mountains in the 
West Bank, and that by 2012-15 Israel will decide 
unilaterally again to divide Jerusalem rather than face the 
security threat that will be posed by 250,000 isolated Arab 
East Jerusalemites, who, he predicts, will be recruited to 
perpetrate terrorist acts after the separation barrier is 
completed around the West Bank.  Schueftan predicted a Likud 
victory in upcoming elections, but did not think a Netanyahu 
victory in the Likud leadership battle -- despite Netanyahu's 
anti-disengagement discourse -- would make it any less likely 
that the GOI would pursue further unilateral disengagement. 
 
---------------------- 
Two Discounted Options 
---------------------- 
 
17.  (SBU) Two options generally discounted by these mainly 
centrist Israeli observers, are: (1) immediate movement to 
permanent status talks on the basis of the Geneva Accords; 
and, (2) transfer of Palestinians from the West Bank to Gaza 
or neighboring states.  Most centrists in Israel discount a 
political solution model on the Geneva Accord, a model for a 
permanent status agreement put forward by Yossi Beilin, 
Chairman of the Yachad Party, and Yasser Abed Rabbo, a former 
Palestinian Minister.  Dr. Menachim Klein of Bar-Ilan 
University is a member of what might be called the "religious 
left."  A former settler, he now believes that it is in the 
interest of Israel to withdraw from the territories as part 
of a negotiated settlement, not unilaterally.  Gidi Grinstein 
said such a "package approach" would be destined to failure, 
while Professor Susser views the substance of the Geneva 
blueprint as muddled on key issues such as the right of 
return.  Susser said the work on articulating fundamental 
principles (rather than a concrete blueprint) of Ami Ayalon 
and Sari Nusseibeh is more promising, as these two peace 
activists have developed understandings and support for 
"moving beyond 1948 to focus on 1967 issues chiefly focused 
on land" rather than competing and irreconcilable historical 
narratives.  On the extreme right, Israeli proponents exist 
for transferring Palestinians from the West Bank to Jordan or 
Gaza, but even some of the political representatives of such 
movements, such as former MK Avigdor Lieberman (Yisrael 
Beitenu), have acknowledged the inevitability of a 
Palestinian state, albeit not situated within 1967 borders. 
Indeed, Lieberman has ignited concerns among Israeli Arabs 
that some Israeli towns, such as Um el Fahm, will be included 
in the territory of a future Palestinian state so as to 
remove non-Jewish populations from the state of Israel. 
 
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