Washington Post: "Letting Israel Self-Destruct" (Op-Ed)

[tomfodw]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34025-2004Aug25.html

Letting Israel Self-Destruct

By Daniel Seidemann

Thursday, August 26, 2004

JERUSALEM -- Take a run down the four-mile stretch of road that leads from Jerusalem to Maleh Adumim, which, with its 31,000 residents, is the West Bank's largest settlement. As you hit the "T" junction at the old road to Jericho, look to your left, up the wooded hill. The few Caterpillar earthmovers cutting into the terrain seem benign in comparison to the frenetic construction taking place elsewhere in the West Bank. Looks deceive. These earthworks may portend the end of the state of Israel as we know it.

The excavations represent the commencement of work on the plan known as E-1, which will create a continuous built-up area connecting Maleh Adumim to Jerusalem. If the Temple Mount in Jerusalem's Old City is the center of a clock face, and with Maleh Adumim due east of the city, E-1 seals Jerusalem on its 12 o'clock-3 o'clock quadrant.

The ramifications of this could hardly be starker. E-1 will cut East Jerusalem off from its environs in the West Bank, virtually ruling out the possibility of East Jerusalem ever becoming the national seat of Palestine. Given the topography, it will dismember the West Bank into two cantons, with no natural connection between them. If implemented, the plan will create a critical mass of facts on the ground that will render nearly impossible the creation of a sustainable Palestinian state with any semblance of geographical integrity. And denying the possibility of a sustainable Palestinian state leaves only one default option: the one-state, bi-national solution that signifies the end of Israel as the home of the Jewish people.

There is nothing new in the E-1 plan; it has been on the planning boards for a decade. Until now, each successive U.S. administration has made it clear that E-1 is the quintessential, unilateral act that predisposes the outcome of final status. As such, implementation will not be tolerated. The fate of E-1 is to be determined around a negotiating table, not by bulldozers.

:::snip:::

The writer is a lawyer in Jerusalem and legal counsel to Ir Amim, an Israeli organization concerned with the future of that city.

© 2004 The Washington Post Company

[Gyre]

1. If this was the most we were enabling them in

I'd be delighted. What I fear is a joint American-Israeli attack on Iran w/o congressional approval before November.

Gyre

[tomfodw]

2. I don't think...

Israel is in any position to pull an Osirak on Iran, and I doubt the US is in any position either. Not even together.

In any case, from what I've read, the neocon position is not to attack Iran but to encourage regime change from within. Which is not all that unreasonable, considering that the great mass of Iranian people is young and dissatisfied. Time is on their side. The danger would be that the mullahs, realizing the demographic imperative does not favor them, would seek to crack down even more than they've already done, provoking internal resistance that could conceivably reach near civil war levels, and then use some kind of external conflict as a distraction.

But, of course, the article itself was about Israel, not Iran. As a pro-Israeli American Jew, I think the settlements have turned out to be a poisoned chalice, or perhaps like the old fable of the boy who reached into a narrow-necked jar to grab a fistful of nuts, only he could not remove his hand without letting go of his bounty. The settlements are a powerful constituency in their own right, to say nothing of what they symbolize to others (both in and out of Israel). Democracy is messy, and the settlers are never going to go easily.

It would help if Israel could say convincingly, if we abandon the settlements, we will have peace. But how can they possibly feel confident of that? On the other hand, I think it's pretty safe to say that if they don't abandon the settlements, they definitely won't have peace. A true dilemma.