May 5, 2005
THEY'LL TAKE WHAT THEY'RE GIVEN:
In the Mideast, ask the right question (Henry Siegman, MAY 5, 2005, International Herald Tribune)
Politically speaking, whether a viable Palestinian state is still possible is the wrong question, if only because by now it should be clear that Bush will not take the political risks entailed in ensuring the creation of such a state in the face of Sharon's determination to prevent it. The right question - the answer to which perhaps may yet invest the peace process with the energy and direction it now lacks - is whether there is still hope for the survival of Israel as a Jewish state.
For it is the Jewish state, far more so than a state for the Palestinian people, that is now threatened and in doubt. Whatever uncertainties exist about a Palestinian state, what is certain, even after Israel's disengagement from Gaza, is that it is only a matter of time before Arabs will constitute a majority of the population between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. When this happens, Israel will cease to be a Jewish state, both formally and in fact - unless it herds the majority Arab population into enclosed bantustans, and turns into an apartheid state.
It is a supreme irony that only a Palestinian state can assure the survival of Israel as a Jewish state. However as Sharon's settlement project continues and intensifies in the West Bank - not despite but because of the Gaza disengagement - and relentlessly diminishes and fragments the West Bank, Palestinians will sooner or later abandon a two-state solution and pursue the political logic of their own demography instead.
Palestinians will not settle for less than a state that is fully within the pre-1967 borders.
The Bush/Sharon insight that is driving the process is that you don't have to ask people what they'll settle for--we can impose solutions unilaterally.
MORE:
Why Gaza may spell a new start (Aaron David Miller, MAY 5, 2005, IHT)
Twenty-three years ago, under the iron-willed direction of the defense minister, Ariel Sharon, Israeli military bulldozers ground the Jewish settlement of Yamit into the sands of the Sinai desert.Posted by Orrin Judd at May 5, 2005 6:51 AM
The evacuation on April 23, 1982, of the last of 5,000 Jewish settlers constituted the final phase of Israel's withdrawal from Sinai, according to the terms of the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty. The images of Israeli soldiers dragging Yamit residents from their homes shocked the nation. The next day, the defense minister announced that this would be the final compromise and invited the public to help inaugurate 11 new West Bank settlements.
In July, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will preside over a potentially much more traumatic compromise - the evacuation of 8,000 Israeli settlers and the dismantlement of 21 settlements, including four in the West Bank. Unlike Yamit, the price paid will not be in return for peace but arguably as a consequence of Palestinian terror; and unlike Yamit, there is a very real possibility of bloodshed.
There is a real chance, however, that the Gaza withdrawal could provide a new beginning for Israelis and Palestinians.
It is a supreme irony that only a Palestinian state can assure the survival of Israel as a Jewish state.
And there are still some who can't quite fathom why Palestinians don't want such a state.
Posted by: Barry Meislin at May 5, 2005 9:45 AMEven stranger are those who think themselves hawkish but oppose forcing one on them.
Posted by: oj at May 5, 2005 9:50 AMThe Palestinians are getting the state that Sharon is giving them, whether they like it or not. The real question is if they can keep it.
Posted by: Mikey at May 5, 2005 10:29 AMThere is a significant segment of the Israeli electorate (about 10%) and a larger segment of the Diaspora which believes in the forced expulsion of Muslims from Jewish land, including all territory acquired in 1967. This is certainly morally defensible, why should Arabs be treated differently from Sudeten Germans or the Serbs of Krajina and Eastern Slavonia? But it is not politically possible. The Israelis are not mentally capable of doing the ugly stuff this would require.
Most of the Israeli right, including both Sharon and Bibi, understand that to rule over the 'Palestinians' is to turn Israelis into Spartans, an unattractive if not impossible prospect. Since that would be unsustainable for more than a generation, it is better to cut bait now, and create rational borders reflecting geographic reality.
Thus, the decision to unilaterally withdraw. Gaza is the easiest. One could even call it 'Giving Philisteia back to the Philistines.' It has no economic or religious significance to Jews and has a large, restive Arab population. Better to let Abbas handle them. The tough issues will be in Judea and Samaria because every inch is significant in Jewish history. Some areas will have to be given up. Hebron will be pivotal. It should not be too much of a problem to give up about 90% of the territory.
As for Jerusalem, if there is one thing that unites about 90% of Israelis, it is that no concession should be made concerning Jerusalem, particularly the holy sites, from which Jews were barred the last time Arabs had sovereignty over them. Maybe, some section of 'Jerusalem' akin to what Staten Island is to NYC can be surrendered to the Arabs but not much more. The majority Muslim part of Galilee could be transferred similarly.
The remaining land inside the new borders would be about 90% Jewish and a few percent Christian and Druze making a Muslim insurrection virtually impossible for a few generations at least.
Posted by: bart at May 5, 2005 10:33 AM"There is a significant segment of the Israeli electorate (about 10%) and a larger segment of the Diaspora which believes in the forced expulsion of Muslims from Jewish land, including all territory acquired in 1967."
They have God on their side:
[Num 33:50] And the LORD said to Moses in the plains of Moab by the Jordan at Jericho,
[Num 33:51] "Say to the people of Israel, When you pass over the Jordan into the land of Canaan,
[Num 33:52] then you shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, and destroy all their figured stones, and destroy all their molten images, and demolish all their high places;
[Num 33:53] and you shall take possession of the land and settle in it, for I have given the land to you to possess it.
* * *
[Num 33:55] But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then those of them whom you let remain shall be as pricks in your eyes and thorns in your sides, and they shall trouble you in the land where you dwell.
[Num 33:56] And I will do to you as I thought to do to them."
Posted by: Robert Schwartz at May 5, 2005 6:42 PM