Intelligence

A momentous day for peace: why Gaza matters to us all this morning

The Times Online guest contributors Opinion

Shimon Peres
DISENGAGEMENT BEGINS today. So does the day after. History never rests. Not anywhere, and clearly not in the Middle East. For many months disengagement was looming large over Israel’s public life. Disengagement also became a focus of the international community’s relations with Israel and the Palestinians. For more than a year it pushed aside other initiatives and considerations. But now it is happening, and it is time to refer to what will be the day after.

Disengagement will not be the last phase of the political process with the Palestinians. It is an important first step. It demonstrates the moral decision we have taken not to turn our nation that escaped slavery in Ancient Egypt into a nation of masters in the Land of Israel. Disengagement reinforces the power of Israel’s moderates to make decisions, and exposes the true size and political power of the extreme Right. It proves Israel’s capacity for taking the initiative in correcting the mistakes it made in the past in building some of the settlements, and it opens the door to future steps towards peace.

In the Middle East it is wiser to make long jumps rather than high jumps. By taking long jumps, we can proceed to our desired goal one jump at a time. But if we take the risk of taking one major high jump to the end goal, as we tried in Camp David in 2000, we will break our back, and require years of recovery to try again. Disengagement is a long jump. Now it is time for another jump. It too will not be the last.

We will continue building on the momentum created by this current step. In doing so, we will open the door for the Palestinians to establish a state with provisional borders on evacuated territories in Gaza and the West Bank. We can then proceed to negotiate with the Palestinians the permanent borders between Israel and the Palestinian state. The questions of Jerusalem and refugees are a matter for the future. Our bitter experience has proven that these issues are too explosive to settle in the next jump we make. We should not hold ourselves hostage to our inability to reach an agreement on these matters at the present. We must move forward on the things on which we can reach an agreement, such as the establishment of a Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank, and opening negotiations on permanent borders based on UN resolutions 242 and 338. The “road map” is there in place to help us to realise this shared vision of two states living side by side, peacefully and in security.

The Palestinians at their end have to move rapidly to establish law and order in the evacuated territories as well as a capability to prevent terrorism. Gaza should set the stage for the future. The Palestinians should succeed in establishing a functioning authority in Gaza. The world will be watching. Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas, the President of the Palestinian Authority) has demonstrated his commitment to a vision of a coherent, legitimate, democratic rule that has its citizens’ welfare at heart, and to unifying security forces. In a world divided between terror and anti-terror, the Palestinians also cannot afford to be on the wrong side of the dividing line.

But the world should not only watch. It should help, as it has done in the past. It should do so by privatising peace. Privatisation and globalisation are moving in lock step. A global world needs to be a peaceful world. So corporations should mobilise to help to build and secure the peace. Governments have budgets, but corporations have money. Governments are unwieldy and corporations are nimble. Corporations can become an agent of peaceful relations between nations. As we make peace with each other, we should also make peace with the age. In an age of open borders, global communications, human mobility, and wealth that is extracted from the mind rather than the land, economics is the new politics. Private corporations can help to bring this age to the Middle East. Every company that opens a branch, a factory, an office in Gaza and the West Bank is making future conflicts and wars a little less likely.

Today and the day after, Israel will continue to change its internal priorities as well. After we disengage from Gaza, we need to re-engage in strengthening our society, our economy, our relationships with each other. At the same time, we are developing two regions important to Israel’s future — the Negev and Galilee. We intend to invest greatly in further revitalising both regions, including improving education, health and transportation, and paving the way for further economic development and the promotion of industry. Thus, we are investing in our “many days after” so that we will be stronger economically, socially and geopolitically.

The Labour Party entered the National Unity Government to support disengagement. It was the responsible thing to do. Without our consistent support for disengagement in government and in parliament, it would not have taken place. We did so in line with our long-standing world view that calls for a resolution of the conflict with the Palestinians based on moral principles, mutual recognition and the establishment of two states. This continues to be our policy. We will work to make it happen. History stops for no one. There is not enough ice in the world to freeze its march. We can only hope to take the right steps necessary to make sure that history books will one day tell the tale of Israeli and Palestinian reconciliation.

Shimon Peres is the Vice-Prime Minister of Israel

August 15, 2005 at 01:09 AM in Middle East | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home