WHAT THE BULLDOZER KNEW:

Sharon's Party Setting Evacuation Plan (Scott Wilson, 3/05/06, Washington Post)

The Kadima party, far ahead in opinion polls before Israel's parliamentary elections later this month, is drawing up a four-year plan to evacuate thousands of Israelis living in scattered West Bank settlements and move them into larger ones that Israel intends to keep under any final peace agreement.

Avi Dichter, the former director of Israel's Shin Bet security services and a top Kadima candidate, told a radio station here Sunday that "Israel will have to define, by itself, its final borders, and that will involve the consolidation of smaller settlements into settlement blocs."

Israeli Arabs Reflect on Hamas Win (Scott Wilson, 3/05/06, Washington Post)

With national elections less than a month away, parties that represent Israel's Arab population are struggling to maintain their small foothold in the Israeli parliament. As the parties grapple with new legal barriers, fresh competition and a frustrated constituency, at least one coalition is drawing a lesson from Hamas's recent victory in the Palestinian territories: The solution is Islam.

The United Arab List has adopted an explicitly Islamic message in the hopes of inspiring thousands of Arab voters who have boycotted past elections. Using Koranic verse and showcasing religious candidates, Sarsur's party, called the Islamic Movement, and its secular-nationalist partner are seeking to unite Israel's religious Islamic parties, who like their more radical Palestinian counterparts have long disagreed over whether to take part in elections that, in effect, presume the legitimacy of the Jewish state.

By winning a parliamentary majority in its first national elections, Hamas has validated for many members of Israel's religious Islamic parties the virtue of participating in mainstream politics. But the Islamic turn here has alarmed a coalition of Zionist parties, which narrowly failed last week to have the United Arab List disqualified from the March 28 elections for advocating the creation of an Islamic state in Israel.

"Hamas gave the Islamists here an example to follow," said Jafar Farah, director of the Musawa Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel. "The Arab parties will never win a majority here, so their position is much different. But Hamas's participation has affected positively the discussion within Israel's Islamic movement."

Had Ariel Sharon not effectively created a Palestinian state the Arab parties would be well on their way to winning a majority in Israel.

Posted by Orrin Judd at March 5, 2006 4:42 PM