Israel Matzav

Israel Concedes

... Sharon dropped hints that the next step was to incorporate the main blocs of Israeli settlements on the West Bank, and dismantle the remainder, in effect creating national borders for Israelis and Palestinians. Olmert says explicitly that this is his program. Likud, the conservative party, argued against it on the grounds that it is unwise to pull out of the West Bank without receiving reciprocal concessions from the Palestinians. The collapse of the Likud vote shows that Israelis were not convinced that any such deal is possible, and in the absence of an alternative they are willing unilaterally to break the murderous stalemate between themselves and the Palestinians.

That means re-housing an estimated 70,000 West Bank settlers. Does Kadima, do the putative coalition parties, really have the stomach for what would be a sort of ethnic cleansing of one's own kind? Ehud Olmert does not command trust as Sharon did. Ari Shavit, one of Israel's most respected commentators, and a left-winger, is not alone in warning that Kadima's program, if fulfilled, may not be the end of Zionism but it would be the beginning of the end. On the far side of the security fence Hamas is promising to return the whole of former Palestine — that means Israel — to Muslim hands, and over the horizon Iran is busy with its nuclear weaponry. Fortress Israel is taking shape, but life within it looks set to be as fraught as ever.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:41 AM