NY Times arrogantly severs Ariel from Israel

Leo Rennert
American Thinker
11 September '10

The Israeli city of Ariel (population 20,000) was founded in 1978 with active encouragement of then-Defense Minister Shimon Peres -- for decades Israel's most dovish political figure. Its location is a mere two dozen miles from the Mediterranean Sea. While it also lies in the West Bank a dozen miles east of the 1949 armistice line, there is a wide Israeli consensus that spans left, right and center on the political spectrum that Ariel must be retained in any final-status peace agreement with the Palestinians.

Ariel fits President George W. Bush's 2004 pledge to Ariel Sharon that Israel, "in light of new realities on the ground, including major existing Israeli population centers," the U.S. will support Israeli retention of these West Bank urban centers in a final peace deal. In other words, the U.S. will not insist on a complete Israeli pullback from the West Bank.

More recently, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, while softening Bush's formula for territorial adjustments, also has recognized the need to modify the 1949 armistice line (usually referred to by the media as the pre-1967 line) so as to leave some major Israeli towns and cities in the West Bank on the Israel side of the border while still leaving more than 90 percent of the West Bank for a contiguous Palestinian state. Plus, all of Gaza, of course.

Reflecting Israel's strategic interests, Ariel is also protected by a counter-terrorism security barrier.

While Ariel was founded by mostly secular Jews, it resonates among many Israelis with its many biblical roots. Ariel lies in the hill country of Samaria which Abraham, the first Jew, traversed in his journey to the Promised Land. Joshua, who led the children of Israel into the Promised Land, is buried at the foot of Ariel.

Today, Ariel looks like any other Western city. It boasts a university, a hotel, an industrial park that employs thousands of Palestinians, a sports and recreation complex, a modern highway to the coast, and, due to open later this year, a major performing arts and cultural center.

(Read full article)

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