Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Israel, Palestinians, Peace and Ethnic Cleansing

CHALLAH @ Moshe Arens

That the Palestinians - whether those led by Mahmoud Abbas, who is submitting the application for membership at the UN, or those led by Hamas in Gaza, who are opposed to this application - do not want to see any Jews in their land is disgusting but not surprising. What is at first sight surprising is that they believe that such an expectation is actually realistic, that it is doable.

They are possibly encouraged by the fact that some on the Israeli left call for the uprooting of Jews who reside beyond the Israeli-Jordanian armistice lines of March 1949. No less surprising is that the present administration in Washington, although opposed to Abbas' initiative at the UN, seems to have bought into this concept, with its insistence that all Israeli building activity beyond the armistice lines must cease. Some of the European nations, probably without giving the implications of this demand a second thought, seem to be going along with the views of Washington on this subject.

But actually, there is no reason to be surprised. Ariel Sharon, as Israel's prime minister in 2006, carried out such an ethnic cleansing operation in the large Jewish settlement bloc in Gush Katif, using the Israel Defense Forces to forcibly uproot 8,000 Jewish farmers from their lands. If it could be done in the Gaza Strip, why should it not be done in Judea and Samaria and also in East Jerusalem, possibly mitigated by some land "swaps" with the Palestinians?

As a matter of fact, Sharon's successor as prime minister, Ehud Olmert, in the heady days, when he still believed that he was leading Israel to victory during his unfortunate Second Lebanon War adventure, said that his next step after his "victory" in Lebanon would be the uprooting of Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria. Of course, the miserable ending of the Lebanon operation changed all that. Unquestionably, however, Sharon's "disengagement" in Gaza had left its mark upon the expectations and subsequent demands of the Palestinians.

Encouraged by the declarations from Washington, Abbas has refused to negotiate with Israel unless all building activity beyond the 1949 armistice lines ceases, and unless Israel is prepared for an agreement that would be based on these armistice lines. So now he is going to the UN.

The irony of the situation is that Sharon's "disengagement" in Gaza, which many believed would be a step toward Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation, has actually become a stumbling block, planting the idea in the minds of the Palestinians that ethnic cleansing of Jews from the areas beyond the armistice lines is realistic, while all those who are acquainted with the Israeli political scene know that what happened in Gush Katif is not going to happen again.

It is this Palestinian misconception, more than anything else, that has prevented the resumption of Israeli-Palestinian negotiation during the past two years. The Palestinian initiative at the UN marks the indefinite postponement of such negotiations for the time being.

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