Matt Yglesias

What Was Disengagement

You often hear it said that the fact that Palestinian attacks emanated from Gaza at Israel even after Israeli “disengagement” from Gaza proves that Israel lacks a real partner in peace with which they can negotiate. Steven Walt observes that it’s hard to take this very seriously when Dov Weisglass, the architect of the disengagement policy when Ariel Sharon first articulated it, said at the time that the point of the policy was to create political breathing space so as to ensure that Israel wouldn’t need to concede the creation of an independent Palestine:

Is what you are saying, then, is that you exchanged the strategy of a long-term interim agreement for a strategy of long-term interim situation?

“The American term is to park conveniently. The disengagement plan makes it possible for Israel to park conveniently in an interim situation that distances us as far as possible from political pressure. It legitimizes our contention that there is no negotiating with the Palestinians. There is a decision here to do the minimum possible in order to maintain our political situation. The decision is proving itself. It is making it possible for the Americans to go to the seething and simmering international community and say to them, `What do you want.’ It also transfers the initiative to our hands. It compels the world to deal with our idea, with the scenario we wrote.

Now maybe you think this is a correct strategy. But the strategy is was what it was—an effort to give better talking points to an Israeli government that wasn’t serious about negotiating a two state solution. And in that it succeeded, as witnessed by how often the talking point surfaces. But people parroting those talking points are lying to themselves or lying to you.