Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: kattracks
Yes, the wall is the only answer. It must be more than just a wall, too -- it must be a security zone wider than the max effective range of small arms like RPGs and mortars.

That still won't be wide enough to protect them from the type of rockets that are being fired at them from Lebanon. Ultimately, the Israelis are going to have to retain the right and capability of taking out any threatening military assets across their borders.

I know that the Israelis feel that all of Palestine should belong to them. The Palestinians feel just as strongly that it all belongs to them. Each side is going to have to give up something, whether they want to or not. The Israelis are going to have to pull out of their settlements for now, and accept the fact that they are trying to grab for too much. Secure national survival within a part of the promised land is preferable to assured destruction while stubbornly grasping for what is beyond their reach.

At the same time, if the Israelis must abandon their W Bank and Gaza settlements, then all of the Palestinians and "Israeli Arabs" (at least the muslim ones, Christin Arabs should be welcome to stay) need to be out of Israel as well. Better a semi-peaceful transfer of populations now than a deadly ethnic cleansing later.

20 posted on 04/16/2002 9:05:51 AM PDT by Stefan Stackhouse
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]


To: Stefan Stackhouse
Yes, the wall is the only answer. It must be more than just a wall, too -- it must be a security zone wider than the max effective range of small arms like RPGs and mortars.

IMO the best solution is a unilateral withdrawl from most of the West Bank while maintaining some strategic high ground near East Jerusalem and the northern Jordan river valley. This would displace some settlers living deep inside the West Bank, but they can be resettled in the northwestern area of the West Bank where Israel prime is at its narrowest corridor.

This should be enforced by a wall like the one at Lebanon. Israel's ace in the hole here are the Christain Arab refugees it allowed in after the fall of the SLA. These folks are pretty hardcore and have no love of the PLO. As such some of them may be willing to form the nucleus of a Christian Arab puppet state on the West Bank with its headquarters in Bethlehem. The various wourld churches would eventually play ball with this plan because they are all in competition with one another for access to the Churches of the Nativity and Holy Sepulchre. This state would help secure Israel's eastern flank along with the aforementioned annexation of WB territories by settlers at Israel's narrow point.

24 posted on 04/16/2002 9:23:05 AM PDT by Cu Roi
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson