Reject the no-partner legacy

By Avishai Margalit

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon chalked up two achievements during the past year. The first of these achievements is known and recognized: He proved that it is possible to evacuate settlements from the territories. His other achievement was his considerable contribution to the eradication of corruption. It is possible to write this last sentence without a trace of irony. The explanation: The most corrupt and corrupting body in Israeli society is the Likud Central Committee. Sharon appears to have repressed the power of this body, perhaps because he felt on his own flesh and on his children's flesh the extent to which this central committee was corrupt and corrupting. These are indeed impressive achievements, but Israel is still bleeding and drained as a result of the bloody conflict with the Palestinians.

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But the left of the Labor Party and Meretz is not exempt from dealing with the question of the partner. Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) and his colleagues from the old leadership of Fatah are not looking like serious partners for negotiations on a permanent status agreement - they lack all political and moral authority in Palestinian society. Relative to them Hamas is certainly not a partner for negotiations on a final status agreement - it is at most a partner for very temporary truces.

There is one body in Palestinian society that is able and willing to conduct negotiations on a permanent status agreement, a group that truly has moral authority within its society and potentially political authority as well. These are the prisoners - both those who are currently in prison and those who are already out - mainly the ones from the Fatah, whose leader is Marwan Barghouti.

The issue of Barghouti's release is secondary at the moment. The primary issue is to conduct negotiations with him, and this is possible even when he is in prison. This is how the negotiations in South Africa began when Nelson Mandela was still in prison; this is how the negotiations on the future of Algeria began with Ahmed Ben Bella, and the incarcerated IRA prisoners were also the main force in shaping the agreement in Northern Ireland. It must be recalled that in Israel, too, the calm that was achieved during the disengagement from the Gaza Strip would not have been achieved without the prisoners having forced it on the organizations there.

Now is the time to make the prisoners the address for an agreement. The left must reject the legacy of "there is no partner." It is not within the left's ability to ensure a partner but it is the left's responsibility to promise to try to find a partner who is able and willing to reach an agreement. The prisoners headed by Barghouti are a promising start.

The writer is a professor of philosophy at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

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