The Page One Feature this week in The Jewish Press analyzes Ariel Sharon’s recent statement (on the eve of the Gaza withdrawal) that he had "reached a deal with the Americans."
What, exactly, was that deal? What did
Israel receive for its disengagement plan? And what — since Israel has now carried out its end of the bargain — does the United States owe Israel?
The public record of the deal is the April 14, 2004 letter from George W. Bush. Most attention has focused on two statements in that letter: (1) it “seems clear” Palestinian refugees must be resettled in a Palestinian state rather than
Israel, and (2) it is “unrealistic” to expect a complete Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank, in light of major Israeli population centers there. But the heart of Sharon’s deal is not in those two statements. It is in three express assurances — contained elsewhere in the Bush letter — representing formal promises by the United States to Israel.
The significance of those promises has not been widely appreciated, perhaps because they cannot be fully understood without reference to Sharon’s letter to Bush dated the same day, and other matters external to the April 14 letters themselves.
But if these sources are considered together, the deal
Sharon made becomes clear.