Gość: marcin
IP: 62.233.188.*
20.10.03, 22:33
wspaniali patrioci........
Polakom by się tacy przydali w Wilnie ;)
No one can remove the settlers by force
by Yisrael Harel
In addressing the future status of the settlements in Israeli-Palestinian
final status arrangements, we first have to ask whether, considering the
terrorist war being waged over the past 16 months, any agreements at all are
possible. In view of the Israeli mood, what are the chances of successful
negotiations?
Barak was prepared to give up 96 percent of the West Bank and Gaza. It is
impossible to withdraw in this way from nearly all of the territories
without dismantling settlements and removing their residents. At Taba in
January 2001, Barak's government increased the offer to 98 percent, along
with part of the Halutza Dunes region inside Israel, with all the
ramifications this precedent carries for future Palestinian demands. Had
Arafat responded with a genuine readiness for peace, the Israeli public
would have been persuaded that this constituted the end of all violent
conflict with the rest of the Arab world as well. A majority would have
supported Barak, even at the cost of a severe internal rift and perhaps
domestic violence.
Arafat responded to Barak's unbelievable concessions by raising a new and
far-reaching demand: the right of return. Arafat knows this demand is
totally unacceptable to the vast majority of Israeli Jews--94 percent,
according to one poll. It was here that he revealed his true face, even to
those who still believed him: it is not peace he wants, but the destruction
of the only Jewish state in the world. He proceeded to follow up with the
current campaign of terrorism and attrition. The reaction of the Israeli
public- -a sense of betrayal by Arafat and massive support for Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon--needs little elaboration.
Accordingly, it is extremely unlikely that in the near or even foreseeable
future the political status of the settlements will change. Indeed, they
will continue to expand, in land and in population. Just as it would not
cross the mind of any sane Jew to evacuate, say, the residents of Jericho,
so the Arabs (and those Jews who delude the Arabs into believing that armed
struggle will "break" the settlements) must understand that it is no longer
possible to evacuate Maale Adumim, Ariel, Qiryat Arba or Qedumim.
The most important theoreticians and ideologists of the Arab world have
insisted--some still insist--that the State of Israel is a fleeting episode.
Arafat witnessed Israel's hasty withdrawal from Lebanon and yielded to the
temptation to believe that it would behave similarly in Judea and Samaria.
If there is one single Israeli community that has proven how wrong he was,
and that provides the vanguard for the strong stance of the entire Israeli
people, it is the settlers. The Arab world insists blindly on misreading the
substance and true motivation of the settlers--the historic, Zionist,
religious and national ethos that drives the majority of the settler
community.
The settlements, like any living organism, continue to develop and grow.
Last year, despite terrorist attacks on the roads that killed more than 100
men, women and children, the settler population grew by 5.7 percent
(compared to 2.7 percent among Israelis as a whole, including immigrant
absorption, and 10 percent among settlers in a "normal" year).
In the first Intifada, despite casualties from stones and firebombs, the
Jewish community in Judea, Samaria and Gaza tripled in size: from about
50,000 to around 150,000. Today there are some 220,000 settlers. The
Palestinians chose then, as now, to believe the claims of their supporters
from the Israeli extreme left, that the settlers came to improve their
quality of life and that consequently a war of attrition like that waged
over the past 16 months would cause them to flee.
Here too they are wrong. If Maale Adumim and Ariel, for example, have turned
into vibrant cities that attract new (and primarily non- religious)
settlers, this puts the lie to that argument. Even as Israelis continue to
debate "concessions" for peace, additional settlements like Beitar and Alfei
Menashe will reach populations of 15,000 and achieve recognized urban
status; the territories will comprise 4-6 Jewish cities of over 30,000
residents each, some 50 communities of over 5,000 Jews, and around 90
additional communities, many of them with a population of over 1,000. Does
anyone really believe that, even if the leftist Meretz Party takes power in
Israel, it will be possible to dislodge a population this size? Yet these
are the numbers of settlers that will inhabit the settlements, despite
Palestinian opposition, within a few years.
I do not know precisely what the political status of the settlements will be
in any possible future agreement. One thing is clear: whatever agreement is
reached, no one will remove us by force. Nor can anyone stop the growth of
the settlements in terms of their size and population. Thus there is wisdom
in the assertion that, at least in these territories, a Palestinian state
cannot be established with enough land to sustain a population the size of
that within the Palestinian Authority, where 96 percent of the Palestinians
live in areas A and B. I believe it is already too late for this to happen.
Hence a future solution will have to draw upon the contribution of
additional states, Jordan and Egypt, to a territorial solution for a
Palestinian state.
