Need U.S. imposed comprehensive plan .....

Sunday, August 9, 2009

Haaretz Correspondent Zvi Bar'el: Need U.S. imposed comprehensive plan for complete withdrawal - freeze pointless otherwise

[Dr. Aaron Lerner - IMRA:
It is hardly surprising that Haaretz Correspondent Zvi Bar'el, like anyone who dogmatically thinks that withdrawal to the '67 will yield utopian peace (give me that Oslo religion - it's good enough for me) and thus recommends that a temporary reduction in terror be considered permanent in order to justify full withdrawal. The twist here is that Bar'el is linking a settlement freeze to the presentation of an imposed American "solution".

The propaganda campaign for an imposed "solution" is on.

Damn the democratic process.

We know what's best for Israel and if we can't get our way via the ballot box then let America impose it.

Meretz (3 Knesset seats) head MK Chaim Oron this morning embraced an American imposed solution (whatever it is) this morning in a live interview on Israel Radio in which he explained that it didn't matter what Fatah adopted at its meeting in Bethlehem. What matters is that Israel and the Palestinians sit at a table to be presented with the American plan.]

Freezing for failure

By Zvi Bar'el, Haaretz Correspondent 09/08/2009
www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1106160.html

It should be said from the onset: Do not freeze settlement construction, do not stop it in part or periodically, not for six months, not for a single day. As long as the U.S. administration does not present a comprehensive plan that explains its endgame - what the end will look like and what the shape and character of the Palestinian state will look like - the demand for a cessation of construction is pointless. It is a pathetic return to the doctrine of "confidence-building measures," which led nowhere. The demand to freeze settlement construction is like the demand to remove roadblocks or cease razing homes; all these demands and similar ones mean only one thing: making the continuation of the occupation a little more pleasant.

The demand for a cessation of settlement construction will have no impact on the political process as long as they are not telling the Israeli and Palestinian public what will happen with the half-million Israelis who already live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. How many of them will have to be evacuated? How much money will this cost and who will pay for it? Evacuating 7,000 Jews from the Gaza Strip cost more than NIS 10 billion.

Even if only 100,000 Jews are evacuated from the West Bank the move will cost, on the basis of this estimate, some NIS 150 billion - about 50 percent of the national budget for an entire year. It is true that it amounts to "only" about 8 percent of the cost of the American war in Iraq to date, and maybe for the sake of peace in the Middle East the U.S. administration would be willing to invest another 8 percent in the area, but someone in Washington must articulate this clearly. That would be much more convincing than halting the work of a crane.

American pressure yielded an impressive achievement when they twisted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's arm and got him to say that he wants "two states for two peoples." But what comes next?
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