By Meron BenvenistiThe strangest claim for justifying the disengagement plan incorporates an interesting metaphor from the world of tow-trucking. Those who employ it describe the plan as a unilateral towing effort to retrieve a broken vehicle, known as "the Palestinian Authority," from the "mud of violence" and move it "in the direction of dialogue."
The metaphor could be dismissed as an unsuccessful attempt to camouflage the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza because of Palestinian violence and to present the evacuation as a so-called unilateral initiative. The unilateral aspect, however, is not a matter of camouflage or an excuse; rather, it goes back to the roots of the effort to return to the tried-and-true route taken by Israel (and the Jewish yishuv before the establishment of the state) for almost 90 years, from which it deviated for a short and tragic period - that of the Oslo era and its aftermath.
It is clear why Ariel Sharon (and his yes-men) stress the "unilateral" aspect, for in this way he destroys the last vestige of the Olso process, which is based on recognition of the Palestinians as a legitimate entity that represents a collective with the right to determine its own needs and aspirations and the ways of obtaining them. The "unilateralism" is an attempt to turn back the wheel to the period when Israel tried to rob the Palestinians of the ability to decide their future on the grounds that they were not a legitimate collective entity but rather "terrorists."
But why is it that groupings that are not partner to Sharon's attitude toward the Palestinians agree to this unilateralism, which denies any effort to conduct normal dialogue between the sides to the conflict? The accepted explanation is that the collapse of the peace process, the rejection of the outstretched hand and the war on terror have proven that there is no partner, or at least that the Palestinian leadership is not yet ripe for such a role. But this approach is too simplistic. After all, if indeed the Palestinians are unready, how will the "towing" succeed? And in general, it is clear that there are no "unilateral" moves but what was once known as "a dialogue of deeds:" Each side answers a move by the other side with a move of its own, and this duel continues with bloodshed, until one or both of the sides is exhausted.
It appears that the slogan of "unilateralism" based on the "lack of a partner" is meant to free them of the need to wrestle with the legitimate claims of the other side and to justify the use of - immeasurably greater - force by the Israeli side.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/605586.html
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