No, It's A No-Win Situation

By Muhammad Hallaj

Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir finally achieved the impossible: He charmed someone. At least publicly, the Bush administration was pleased with Shamir and the ideas he brought to Washington during his recent visit.

The administration, embarrassed by its protege's insensitive disregard for the opinion of mankind, was prepared to be relieved by any sign of life in Israel's conscience and went out of its way playing the optimist by seeing possibilities in Shamir's prescription for the occupied West Bank and Gaza. The fact that Shamir came up with any proposals at all was bound to be met with a sigh of relief in Washington for a variety of reasons. It helps mitigate the feeling that Israel's government and society are so badly divided that no peace process is possible. It also eases the need to press Israel to do something other than club people on the head.

So the Shamir proposals, regardless of their merits or demerits, came as a welcome reprieve for Mr. Bush and his foreign policy advisers. Shamir exhumed the defunct Camp David agreement and presented it to Washington as new Israeli thinking. He wants the Palestinians to end their resistance to Israel's occupation, then to choose representatives who would first demonstrate their fitness for election by declaring in advance their acceptance of Shamir's plan of limited "self-rule ' " Then he would put before them his take-it-or-leave-it plan for circumventing self-determination.

Shamir's ideas are couched in terms calculated to appeal to uninformed opinion. He speaks of ending "violence" to create an atmosphere conducive to elections; he speaks of giving the inhabitants of the West Bank and Gaza an opportunity to select negotiators; and he speaks of negotiating an agreement acceptable to both parties. It sounds downright democratic.

Given Israel's assertion that it has sovereign claims on the West Bank and Gaza, the Palestinians are left with two unacceptable choices: either a Palestinian Bantustan under Israel's dominion, or a continued Israeli military occupation.

The most objectionable aspect of the scheme is that it is based on the premise that the West Bank and Gaza are contested rather than occupied territories. In that sense, their fate becomes dependent on the wish of the occupier and not the consent of the occupied. It is the antithesis of self-determination.

Furthermore, Shamir's proposal-by making the future of the occupied territories subject to an agreement between the occupier and the occupied puts the Palestinians in a no-win situation. The negotiations can begin only if the Palestinians first agree to ditch the PLO. And they can succeed only if the Palestinians give in to Israel. If they do not, the negotiations fail, and Israel gets back the status quo minus the intifadah.

Given Israel's assertion that it has sovereign claims on the West Bank and Gaza, the Palestinians are left with two unacceptable choices: either a Palestinian Bantustan under Israel's dominion, or a continued Israeli military occupation. Shamir's scheme is not a plan to solve the problem of the occupied territories. It is a plan to solve Israel's problems in the occupied territories. It is not a plan for ending the occupation; it is a plan to help Israel enjoy the occupation. It is understandable why an Israeli prime minister would concoct such a plan, but it is not clear why the Palestinians would have any incentive or interest in helping him pull it off.

Muhammad Hallaj is director of the Palestine Research and Education Center in Fairfax, VA, and editor of its magazine, Palestine Perspectives.