http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/Printer&cid=1122863986 097&p=1006953079897

The writer is director of the Global Research in International Affairs Center, and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs. He is a member of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East spme.org

In the extensive debates over Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, one element has been missing whose absence speaks volumes: the regional dimension.

In the past, the regional impact of such a dramatic act would have been front and center. How Israel’s move would affect relations with the Arab states and the likelihood of conflict or peace throughout the area would have been the subject of almost obsessive speculation. Why is nobody talking about such things in the context of this important development?

Most obviously – yet surprisingly – the total end of any Israeli presence for about half the Palestinians will not have much impact on Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, or Saudi Arabia. There are two ways the regimes and debate within the Arab world could react. Yet for different reasons, both points of view will lack constituencies that can effectively represent them.

On one hand, it could (and should) be asserted that withdrawal shows Israel really wants peace and is ready to turn over almost all the territories captured in the 1967 war to a Palestinian state if the conflict could truly be ended. Anyone who actually bothered to follow the Israeli debate can see this.

But it will be amazing enough if much of Europe comprehends this point, far less the Arab world. The usual stereotypes will hold in the Arab media, much of it directed by the Arab states: Israel can do nothing good and what is said about that country is a matter of propaganda not analysis. The regimes need to demonize Israel to justify their continued dictatorship and misrule.

Thus, some Arab liberals will point to this action as showing peace is possible and that the Israelis are real human beings and perhaps reasonable ones, but such statements are going to be few. A tiny number might even point to the withdrawal as an example of how a democratic country handles even the most difficult and passionate of disputes without violence and permitting freedom of expression.

YET WHAT about the alternative conclusion, that the withdrawal proves Israel is weak and that it shows terrorism is working? Certainly, there will be those in Hamas and Hizbullah that will make such claims but they will not be repeated too often by others. Why? Most basically because the Arab states and Iran do not need or want the image of a weak Israel.

To be useful, Israel must be seen as strong, as an imminent threat. Only if this is so can the “Zionist menace” justify continued dictatorship, high military spending, and a denial of internal freedom. Unless Israel is a threat, the battle could be left to the Palestinians and there is no ability to use the issue as a professed grievance against the West.

In addition, it is no accident that propaganda against Israel as being weak and easily defeated comes most often from revolutionary and terrorist movements rather than the states and the media they largely control. This is an old debate in the Arab world, the kind of approach that led to the massive Arab defeat in the 1967 war, which the rulers have not forgotten.

If Israel is so weak, radical groups can argue it is time for the Arab states to go to war and devote all their resources to defeating it. But if, for example, Syria made that mistake it would be a disaster that might well prove fatal to the regime there.

Therefore, there will be no big response in the region and the withdrawal will have little effect on Arab states’ policies. The limited exception is Egypt, which will now have to manage its border with the Gaza Strip, either getting tough or being permissive toward arms smuggling. For the moment, though, that country is preoccupied by other things, notably the start of its presidential election campaign.

What about the Palestinian debate? It faces similar alternatives, though tilted in a somewhat more militant direction. Nothing could be more revealing than the fact that it will simply not be permissible for Palestinians to give in Arabic the pragmatic response most beneficial for them.

Who, after all, will dare say:

The withdrawal shows Israel wants peace and is ready to end its presence in the territories and accept an independent Palestinian state.

The Palestinians should seize this opportunity to show they can create a stable government that serves the material needs of its people and stops terrorism against Israel.

The best strategy is one of negotiation and compromise to reach a negotiated peace treaty with Israel.

Certainly, many – not only in Hamas but also in Fatah – will argue that the withdrawal is a great victory for terrorism and shows the need to escalate the violence. Yet certainly Palestinian pubic opinion is aware this is no great solution. It has too much experience to underestimate Israel in that way. Much of this talk will have more to do with Hamas competition with Fatah than in setting any new policy.

The withdrawal will thus make no big difference in general Arab and Palestinian thinking or actions. That point itself is one of the main reasons the unilateral withdrawal policy was adopted in the first place: if the Palestinians are not going to move toward a comprehensive peace agreement for a long time or even implement their own commitments to stop terrorism and incitement to commit violence, Israel must determine its own security arrangements.