I've been mulling over the Hillel Halkin piece I linked in this post yesterday. Brooding over it, might be more accurate. There must be something here I'm missing, because none of it makes the least bit of sense to me.
Israeli public opinion has, in recent months, turned more and more against "convergence." Whereas a narrow majority of the country's population might have supported it at the time of Mr. Olmert's election victory, a clear majority today opposes it. And yet as practically the sole campaign plank on which he and his Kadima Party ran, and as the linchpin to his strategic vision of Israel's future, it is not a plan that he can give up without losing the raison-d'etre of his prime ministership.
So far, so good. No disagreement there.
The Hezbollah border raid that triggered the fighting in Lebanon needs to be seen against this background. On the one hand, it added yet another argument to the anti-"convergence" camp's arsenal: Here was yet one more reminder of what Israel can expect when it withdraws unilaterally from territory in which hostile forces are allowed to remain, as Hezbollah was allowed to remain in southern Lebanon in 2000.
Ditto. I couldn't agree more. Except that, obviously, we have that other hand coming.
On the other hand, it also presented the Olmert government with an opportunity to show both Israelis and the world what Israel's enemies can expect if they attack it from an evacuated West Bank. What we are doing to Hezbollah, the message went, we will also do to West Bank Palestinians who attack us across the border we establish.
But, no. See, here, where the argument was headed all along, it starts to fall apart. As Halkin has already pointed out earlier, the continuing barrage of qassams from Gaza have "done the job" of digging an early grave for Olmert's "convergence" plan, not only because they followed Israel's unilateral withdrawal that was supposed to result in "disengagement," but because Israel has not shown the will to do to the Gaza arabs what needs to be done to stop the attacks. And why is this? International pressure, humanitarian concerns, all of the same problems plaguing the war in Lebanon, all of the same problems that would plague any attempt to do anything effective to "West Bank Palestinians who attack us across the border we establish." But there's more.
In a very real sense, therefore, the future of "convergence" depends on the outcome of the fighting in Lebanon. If Israel manages to crush Hezbollah, or to pave the way for a political settlement as a part of which Hezbollah will be disarmed and forced to abandon its military positions along Israel's northern border, unilateral West Bank withdrawal may still seem a viable option. If the results are less than that — if, say, Hezbollah emerges from the weeks of combat and its negotiated aftermath with its fighting units still intact — "convergence" can be kissed goodbye, at least for the foreseeable future.
Halkin published this essay on July 25th. By that time, several Israeli citizens had already lost their lives to Hezbullah katyushas. Kiryat Shemona was already a ghost town. Nahariya and Sefat and Hatzor were already taking hits. Everyday life in Haifa had already been crippled. Since then, the cost of this war, in human, economic and diplomatic terms has continued to escalate exponentially. Given the chance, Israel will surely crush Hezbullah, or at the very least achieve the political settlement Halkin describes, God willing. But the price is already too high, was already too high on July 25th. And it's utterly unacceptable that Israel would maneuver itself into a position in which it will have to pay such a price in the future to crush or reach a political settlement with "West Bank Palestinians who attack us across the border we establish."
In other words, even the best, quickest and most comprehensive victory possible at this time in both Gaza and Lebanon could not possibly justify any further unilateral withdrawals. I have to believe that, once this war is over, the Israeli people will send that message loud and clear to Ehud Olmert.
