The situation in Gaza

Despite intense opposition from within his hawkish Likud Party, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is forging ahead with his plan to unilaterally withdraw Israeli settlements from Gaza. Under that plan, actual evacuation of Gaza settlements would begin by March. Since Mr. Sharon persuaded his cabinet to approve the Gaza pullout on June 6, he has lost his Knesset majority and shattered his relationship with nationalist settlers who have been his staunchest supporters for more than a quarter-century. Leading advocates of settlements in the Sharon cabinet have either resigned or been fired by the prime minister, whose party retains less than half of the 120 seats in the Knesset. For now, Mr. Sharon’s political survival likely will depend in part on the Labor Party, headed by his political arch-rival Shimon Peres. How long such an uneasy political marriage will last is unknowable.

While Mr. Sharon has decided to risk his political future on pulling out of Gaza, similar statesmanship has not been in evidence on the Palestinian side. Working in tandem with Syria, for example, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other rejectionist groups have harshly denounced Egypt for attempting to work out security arrangements that would prevent Gaza from descending further into chaos following an Israeli pullout. To stabilize the situation in Gaza, Egypt is attempting to reduce the number of Palestinian security organizations, most of them heavily armed groups, accountable to no one, who are affiliated with competing factions in Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement. At present, there are estimated to be anywhere from nine to 12 of these groups operating in Gaza. Egypt is attempting to persuade the Palestinians to reduce this number to three. Although Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Korei supports this Egyptian initiative, he is powerless to stop Mr. Arafat from torpedoing Egypt’s effort to facilitate a Palestinian withdrawal.

Right now, Cairo is focused on persuading Mr. Arafat not to sabotage its efforts. Although Mr. Arafat has said publicly that he will cooperate, he has made similar declarations in the past, while working behind the scenes to foment violence and prevent Israeli-Palestinian negotiations from succeeding. Veteran U.S. peace negotiator Dennis Ross, who has perhaps more personal experience negotiating with Mr. Arafat than any other American, suggests that Mr. Arafat may try the same thing once again in Gaza. To deter him from sabotaging Israel’s disengagement from Gaza, the Egyptian government must make it clear to Mr. Arafat that it will do something it has been loath to do in the past: go public with criticisms of his efforts to wreck the peace process.