A Written, Signed Agreement

The Jerusalem Post editorialized yesterday on Sharon’s speech to the nation, finding in it “the logic behind the historic turn around that we are now experiencing and the world is now witnessing:”

Though called unilateral, disengagement is thus really an unwritten, unsigned agreement with the international community.  The agreement says: if we hand over territory fully to a Palestinian government, you will hold that government diplomatically and economically responsible, and we will hold it militarily responsible, if it refuses to eliminate terrorism from its realm. . . .

Actually, though called unilateral, disengagement is really a written, signed agreement with the United States. 

In President Bush’s April 14, 2004 letter to Sharon, accepting the disengagement plan, the United States set forth this assurance (among others) to Israel:

The United States will lead efforts, working together with Jordan, Egypt, and others in the international community, to build the capacity and will of Palestinian institutions to fight terrorism, dismantle terrorist organizations, and prevent the areas from which Israel has withdrawn from posing a threat that would have to be addressed by any other means.

The U.S. promise was not simply to hold the Palestinian Authority “diplomatically and economically responsible” if it does not eliminate terrorism, but rather to actually lead the efforts to have the PA dismantle terrorist organizations and “prevent [Gaza] from posing a threat that would have to be addressed by other means.”

The U.S. obligation is not part of an amorphous “unwritten, unsigned agreement with the international community,” but rather a specifically negotiated promise, committed to writing in a letter signed by the President of the United States, involving action to achieve the specified result — not just to "hold [the PA] accountable" in some diplomatic or economic fashion for a future failure. 

As Israel completes a traumatic, difficult and dangerous disengagement from Gaza, that promise is now due.