Olmert is the worst Prime Minister in Israeli history (BaraK a close second). His lack of strategic depth, and corrupt character and his inability to lead make him a dubious source for vision and perpective on what israel's future should hold. The Idea that a staunch likudnik who was mayor of Jerusalem, doesn't make his remarks on Israel's future borders more sincere but actually in line with his entire premiership. Olmert chose expediency over duty (bolting likud for kadima, and becoming Sharon's ultimate yes man) which in Israeli governance is the only way to get on top. Olmert thought he could do what Sharon did and evade prosecution on the numerous corruption charges swirling around him by becoming the darling of the left. Like Sharon he would become protected like an 'etrog' it could have worked if he didn't have 6+ investigation ongoing and a failed war in the north. But this only brings us to annapolis, what is the reason for his charge today for a return to the 49' armistice borders.... he is thinking of legacy. 

Now for Batar's corollary to Olmert's statements, of democratic and jewish thus retreat to undefensible borders and to cede the national and spiritual capital of the Jewish people to the PA. The idea that Israel's demographic problems can be solved through retreat is intellectually untenable. First it still doesn't deal with the 1.5 million israeli Arabs who already 20% of the population and are the majority in the Galilee. Will you also propose to cede the galilee as well. As for Palestinian Arabs the demographics has been proven to be inflated and politically contrived (cite your demographic statistics and then I will cite mine). Then there are the pragmatic considerations....disengagement is a failure with 30 rockets and mortars landing in Israel just this week. Iran through Hamas now has a foothold on Israel's southern border. What makes you so optimistic gthat the same thing won't happen in Judea and Shomron. I mean first there was the oslo farce, then the lebanon retreat which ended up in a failed war in 2006 and then the ethnic cleansing of Gaza of its Jewish inhabitants which has resulted in Hamastan.

 

The fact is that the two state solution has only brought calamity on Israel and far more terrorism on iuts street. The Arabs deceptive use of diplomacy as a tool to garner greater legitimacy and better capabilities can no longer be ignored by anyone with rational intelligence. The palestinian population is some of the most genocidal population on the face of the earth and you talk about ceding the golden city Jerusalem. A city that has thrived for the first time in millenia b/c of the Jews not despite them.

 

The fact is there are other options if only you think outside the pseudo progressive Israeli elitist box. Here's one to think about; Jordan in '88 illegaly stripped 250,000 palestinian living in Judea and Shomron of Jordanian citizenship....lets start there.

To the impartial observer there may be more than a little sense in what he said - and what sayeth thou?

Personally, I think that Israel should decide what they want to do without outside interference because they are the ones who will have to live with the consequences.

However I think Obama and other American politicians will seize upon this as a starting point for a two state solution.  An agreement that will never happen (or will not last) because Hamas will now want more.

 

Israel giving up control of anything should not be an issue, it should not be on the table, it should not be considered, it should not be on the list for consideration and it should not be discussed.

 

Isreal needs to focus on the tasks that are at hand that need to be solved now, not on issues that might possible surface 30 years after open hostilities between Israel and Palestinians have stopped.

 

 

 What I always wondered is why all Presidents risk American prestiege by trying to

"solve" the Middle East? It never works, doesn't do a bit of good. Do we expect our Presidents to be the Messiah? Oh

yes, I forgot.

A few of points I should make clear:

I only brought up the subject because Olmert's career is finished - if he were still a politician looking to keep a seat in the Knesset I wouldn't pay much attention to him. But now he can say what is really on his mind. And he has been where I haven't - the prime ministers office- and obviously understands things that I don't, so I want to hear what he has to say, because now, for a change, there is a solid chance he is being honest with us.

 

Yes, the Israeli retreat from Lebanon was a fiasco. But before then, since 1985, the Israeli presence in Lebanon was also a fiasco. So in perspective...

 

I wouldn't call the retreat from Gaza "ethnic cleasning". I think maintaning a small Jewish community in the midst of a hostile Moslem population was never viable. The cost in life, limb, and money didn't justify the benefits. Don't go telling me that is just a scale model of Israel surrounded by Moslem nations. It doesn't scale up. The Jewish residents of the Gaza strip always had an alternative.

 

The Arabs won't like Israel any more if she gives up control of the West bank. They won't like Israel any less is she stays. But I think there is a better option than what you could call "occupation", and you could call "claiming our divine right". I don't care what you call it. It doesn't look right.

 

US presidents and Israeli prime ministers keep negotiating with Moslem radical leaders becasue they have to choose one of three options:

1: Admit the idea of reaching a long term sensible agreement with Islamic countries is impossible, and risk open warfare where you will lose because the other side has a bigger arsenal of human lives it can afford to expend.

2: Reach an agreement which satisfies the other side, in which case you lose because they won't compromise on anything.

3: Keep up the pretense of perpetual negotiation with a solution "just around the next corner of the roadmap", which serves to keep everyones weapons safetied and holstered, and fools all the Eurowimps, Israeli lefties, and American voters. 

 

Well which would you choose?

 

Flawlessly Machieviellian. I take your point. Though it isn't negotiation that I find annoying, so much as making

hyperbolic claims for it. There is nothing magical about "diplomacy" or "negotiations". Diplomat is just a fancy word for

broker.

But as you said, it fools the Eurowimps, Israeli lefties and American voters. Though it is not clear to me that it keeps everyone's weapons safetied and holstered.

the definition of ethnic cleansing is the forced removal of one ethnic group (9000 Jews) from a territory (Gaza). The fact that these Jews have some where to go does not make disengagement any less of an ethnic cleansing.

 

As for your three choices...they are exactly what I said not to do at the end of my above response, which is think within the pseudo progressive box. There is more then three options and the options you did provide were spurious and meant to lead the reader to a certain point of thought...to be more precise to lead to YOUR way of thinking. Which is half the problem...anyone who doesn't believe in a two-state solution is immediately cast as a "divine rightist" or marginalized as unrealistic. Whereas the fanatic leftist secularist and their diplomatic equations of appeasement that have & do lead Israel to far more death, terror & hardship are considered the honest brokers!  WHat a joke!

 

 

Ezekiel,

              First off, the idea of 9000 Jews going to live in the midsts of 1 milion hostile Moslems in an already overcrowded strip of land makes as much sense as Archie Bunker going to live in Harlem. It makes as much sense, equally, as myself going to live in Bnei Brak or the ultra-orthodox neighbourhood of Mea Shearim. Legally I can do it. The locals will be pissed off about it and they will try, unfairly, to get me evicted. But going to live there in the first place would be incredibly stupid.

 

O.K, I gave three options, and you tell me there are more. Go on, I'm all ears. I couldn't think of any more options for dealing with our Moslem neighbours, but I am eager to listen. Just don't put in the right-wing-settler-twaddle about the Moslem residents of the West bank living peacefully under Jewish rule. If you learn the Islamic culture you will realize that is about as realistic as the Jewish residents serving pork sausages for Friday night dinner.(With Dijon mustard and roast potatos). It goes against their religion.

Wow! You really out did yourself in this post....

So if i'm to understand you correctly...disengagment was an ethnic cleansing, but one that is understandable. Well for those out there who desire to have some moral and logical consistency. Forced  ethnic cleansing of an innocent population is never allowed. These people were not commiting constant heinous acts of terror (though the Israeli media would want you to believe so), these people were living in the land of their ancestors, and their only crime was that they were Jews living as a minority in an Islamic community. Whether or not this creates friction is not the issue. And though you may like it the the metaphor extends the presence of a Jewish state in a muslim region!!! But we don't even have to go to that point, which for some reason you think is not applicable. What about the Galilee which has a majority of Arabs who are in constant friction with the Jewish inhabitants....should we pull out there???? Your rebuttles are conveniently bereft of answers to these issues. Instead you create a conceptual box of a two state solution as the only VIABLE solution.

 

This of course is the lefts ultimate weapon....if not a palestinian state what else???? The fact is that this paradigm has ruled over Israel for the past 2 decades. By virtue of this monopolizing paradigm any one I will suggest will immediately deemed as "extreme" or "imposiible" or "the world won't allow it." But I will make my suggestions no matter how I will be cast, b/c the fact is a two state solution at this point is absolutely rediculous!!!! To think that the Palestinians on all levels are interested in accomodation, sacrifice and fair play with the Zionists is absurd, oput of touch and just willfully ignorant given the history of the last 15 yrs (since OSlo)

 

1. Jordan illegally stripped 250,000-300,000 palestinians of Jordanian citizenship. Point here is that Israel should make the Palestinian issue not only Israel's  problem but a regional problem. Here international for once is on Israel's side.

 

2. Israel must engender a culture that understands they are at war and will be for a long time....this will first free the culture from the leftist myopic solution and usher in a new dialogue of solving this problem...inherent strength opf a democracy is its deliberative quality....Israel should take advantage. Thus far the two-state solution as Batar more then makes clear is the only one the table...this needs to change.

 

3. Israel can create its own phased plan, can use diplomacy deceptively...little by little every time a terrorist act is commited in gaza...israel will transfer those participants and his family to the West Bank. slowly Gaza will become a waste land. its farbetter to only have to deal with one entity (westbank) then having to deal with two.

 

4. Topple heshimites and create Jordan as the palestinian state, if seen through its demographics it is defacto a palestinian state (80% of population is palestinian). I would rather solve the Palestinian crisis then have a fragile peace with the heshimite kingdom.

 

5. Every a missile is launched from Palestinian local israel launches 10 times that in return. Gloves off...world can bugger off. They are not the one having rockets land in their towns and cities.

Ezekiel,

             Some of your points are deserving of a reply (I don't have a reply for all of them...)

Sometimes you have to think like the enemy. Think what you would do in his place, and realize that the enemy will probably do exactly that. Then think again.

 

Jordan drew first. They gave up all responsibility for the West bank and the Palestinians. Having dropped that hot potato, they are not going to pick it up again in a hurry. We should have done that first. Too late now.

 

You may have noticed by now that no Arab states are too concerned for the welfare of the Palestinians. Do you think we will be doing them a favour by letting them take responsibility for them? Do you really think you can topple an Arab regime? Do you think other Arab nations will tolerate a "Palestinian" Jordan?  Jordan is a relatively sane and peaceful country - in middle eastern terms - turn it into Palestine and you make things worse for yourself and everyone else. You are up against something bigger than you here.

 

I didn't accuse the settlers of Gaza of any crime other than stupidity. Whats the point of creating a Jewish state, where Jews can live among a Jewish majority, if you are going to make a virtue of living as a minority among Gentiles? If you want to live as a threatened minority community in the midsts of an overwhelming radical Moslem population you can do that in France, or Belgium, or Sweden, or Bradford in the UK.

 

Look up some maps of he Bible period.  You will see that Gaza was never the land of the ancestors of Israel. Northern Jordan was. Nahariya wasn't. There was little Jewish settlement on the coast even during the reign of David and Solomon, and what there was fell between Ashdod (more or less) and Haifa. After the destruction of he first temple, the Israelite population was concentrated mostly in Jerusalem and Judeah.

 

As for the last point, I agree. Let them have a state, and then blast them away after they fire the first shot.  But they just might take the state first and then....