Israel Matzav

How to live with the status quo

In a lengthy article in Saturday's Toronto Globe and Mail, it took until the fourth computer screen to reach some semblance of balance. But the truth is that this is probably the best solution at the present time.

Settlers may be split on whether the hilltop youths’ tactics are justified, but they and their supporters share a sense of urgency. As was the case in 1973, when pressure was building on the Israeli government to return the West Bank to Jordan in exchange for peace, settlers today believe that even the right-wing government of Benjamin Netanyahu is prepared to yield to international pressure and give their land to a Palestinian state.

“The international community today is obsessed with this immediate solution of two states,” says Mr. Dayan, the Yesha leader. “It is futile.”

Having a Palestinian state on the outskirts of Tel Aviv, Mr. Dayan says, is not a formula for peace. “Peace will come if the perception of Israel is that it cannot be beaten,” he says. “We [the settlements] are not an obstacle to peace. … We strengthen Israel’s perception of being a strong country and therefore we bring peace closer.”

Esther Karisch and Benny Katzover, the current leaders of two of the first settlements founded in Samaria, know that their communities are too far from the Green Line ever to be included in any land swap. They, along with two regional youth leaders, have broken away from Yesha to plan their own defences. What will they do if the soldiers come to evict them?

“We will fight,” says Ms. Karisch without hesitation. “We will not kill anybody, I promise. … But we will do almost everything except this.”

Mrs. Shoham of Ramat Gilad says the same: “I will fight for my home like a tigress fighting for her cubs.”

Is compromise possible? Not according to Mr. Dayan. The maximum he believes Israel can afford to offer in negotiations isn’t close to the minimum that Palestinian leaders need. However, “that’s not as terrible as it sounds,” he insists.

“We can reach a modus vivendi – an accommodation that is less than peace, less than a final-status solution – but that will make the life of all of us, Israelis and Palestinians, better.”

Such a situation “has its shortcomings,” Mr. Dayan acknowledges, including continuing to withhold full political rights from the Palestinians. But if both sides work to improve Palestinian living conditions, it’s better than the futile peace process, he says.

This idea – a well-provided, semi-autonomous Palestinian authority – is the most today’s West Bank settlers say they’ll agree to. Tomorrow’s settlers, with their radical yeshiva educations, likely won’t support even that.

Hani and Eyal Shvalb, both 22, are one face of that future. Both are children from other settlements who have moved to ever-expanding Elon Moreh, that spot where God spoke to Abraham.

Mr. Shvalb is in the yeshiva, and Ms. Shvalb has given birth to their first child, now four months old. They plan to have nine or 10.

“In another 20 years there will be a Jewish religious majority here,” Mr. Shvalb says proudly, referring to all of Israel, including the occupied territories. And there will be no place for a Palestinian state, he says. “If there were two states here, there would be war.”

Mr. Shvalb, about the same age as some of the hilltop youth, describes the Palestinians as children crying for candy that they should not have.

The idea that 180,000 (the smallest number being thrown about) revenants are going to be expelled from their homes without any protest and any opposition to make way for a 'Palestinian state' is simply laughable. No one who lives beyond the green line is going to go quietly - not even (if you bother to read the entire article) the 'economic settlers' whom they believe won't fight.

On Wednesday, we will mark the sixth anniversary of the expulsion from Gaza. (For the record, it was originally scheduled for Tisha b'Av - a day which is the most tragic day in Jewish history, and someone woke up in time and realized that was not a great idea). Six years later, most of the 8,000 - 10,000 Jews who were expelled from Gaza still don't have homes or jobs. And they think that another 180,000 are going to go quietly into the night?

And why should they? To accommodate a gang of terrorists that won't recognize Israel's 'right to exist' as a Jewish state, and will use whatever land they - God forbid - control to try to expel the rest of the Jews from the rest of the land?

It's long past time to stop fooling ourselves that a 'Palestinian state' will bring peace. It won't. It will only make matters worse.

The autonomy idea is the only realistic game in town, but the 'Palestinians' have never been willing to discuss it. And so we continue with the status quo.

Labels: Judea and Samaria, Palestinian state RIGHT NOW syndrome, two-state solution, unilateral declaration of statehood

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:36 PM