Posted on 06/12/2006 7:16:25 PM PDT by Sabramerican
Israel formulating alternative to PM's unilateral pullout By Akiva Eldar
In light of the international opposition to further unilateral steps by Israel, the government has begun to draft an alternative plan that would essentially convert Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's unilateral convergence plan into a bilateral move carried out in conjunction with Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen).
According to the plan now being drafted by the Prime Minister's Office and the Foreign Ministry, Israel would propose to Abbas that they reach an agreement to establish a Palestinian state with provisional borders in Gaza plus about 90 percent of the West Bank. The provisional border in the West Bank would match the route of the separation fence, with one exception: Israel would retain security control over the Jordan Valley.
In this way, Israel hopes to prevent the convergence plan as an implementation of Phase II of the road map peace plan, thereby acceding to the demands of the United States, Jordan, Egypt and others that Israel resume negotiations with the PA under the road map. Under this proposal, the parties would proceed to Phase II without waiting for the completion of Phase I, which calls for dismantling the terrorist infrastructure.
(Excerpt) Read more at haaretz.com ...
Under this proposal, the parties would proceed to Phase II without waiting for the completion of Phase I, which calls for dismantling the terrorist infrastructure.
Israel has a brilliant new plan to surrender while keeping the terrorists intact.
The other options are all worse.
You can't wait for the arabs to sort themselves out. They are never going to sort themselves out. The arab leaders have no mandate to make peace, so to talk peace with them is just embarrassing.
So anything Israel does in its own defense has to be unilateral. Who asks their enemy for permission to defend themselves?
Now, taking unilateral action, and calling it bilateral, thats pretty good. Israel chooses its border unilaterally, because obviously the arabs can never agree to any border at all. But its "bilateral" because the arabs have to live with it.
The border has to be sealed. Period. Sealing the border turns the problem around 180 degrees. Instead of Israel having to forever deal with an outlaw state on their border, it is Jordan who must deal with them.
The arab west bank will never be independent. It is doomed to be an outlaw state (hopefully cut off from Israel for at least a generation) or reabsorbed into Jordan. Jordan has decisions to make, because once Israel has sealed itself off, the territory has no choice but to look toward Amman. And Gaza, likewise, has no choice but to look toward Egypt.
Any ideas that Israel should give up land to unite the two territories should be a dead letter. In future it is arab land that must be the on the table. Every violation of the border must be paid with the loss of arab territory. Nothing else will work.
The unilateral plan is the Bantustan plan. Israel retains control of the Jordon valley, and what goes in, and what comes out, of the Bantustan. You know, when one thinks about Israel, it reminds us just how lucky we are to have Mexico as a neighbor, relatively speaking.
You were also for the Gaza withdrawal.
How do you think that's working out- even ignoring the hell of Gaza itself.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/726066.html
Faster out, faster comes the Civil War. Crisis, call for Jordanian intervention in West Bank, annexation. As for Gaza the Egyptians will say "no thanks."
I've long suggested they have the common courtesy to offer the Palestinians a reacharound instead.
As I said, any alternative policy is worse.
Jordan has no intention of involving itself in the West Bank. That tarbaby is for others to deal with. The Jordan government is not stupid.
Obviously, no one is ever going to ask me. But the mistaken belief that the west bank might one day be independent makes people do crazy things. It will never be independent.
It can't be, it is not viable economically, it has no markets, no source of commerce, no source of employment separate from Israel and separate from Jordan. And since it is extremely important that Israel seal its border, that leaves Jordan.
Israel has to get out of the business of managing arabs. Jordan may not want the territory, but refusing to govern it up until now has been political mischief. Israel should fix the game by opening the border with Jordan, at the same time it seals its own. Jordan will be left with no choice but to take control, or else suffer with an outlaw state on its own border.
Palestine already exists. Israel is jewish palestine; Jordan is arab palestine. Once Israel chooses its border, what remains is Jordan, whether Amman likes it or not. Gaza, by default, falls to Egypt by the same logic.
Just close your eyes and think of Christmas.
Let the left wing take over a country
and it is GONE.
Well that will just mean Jordan will have to monitor its border, and might be somewhat more relaxed about what goes in, as opposed to what goes out. You have a creative mind however, and that is not all bad.
You're not keeping up with the news. Condi Rice made sure it is not sealed.
Obviously Israel can not properly respond or it would not tolerate a barrage of daily rocket attacks.
No objective analysis would come to the conclusion that anything is better since the Gaza surrender. Everything is measurably worse.
How many Jews died in Gaza when there were Jews in Gaza, miliary and otherwise? Just asking. It is not a rhetorical question. The unsealing was an experiment headed towards its inevitable failure, and it will be resealed. It was just a matter of waiting for the evidence of the obvious to accrete.
"Jordan has no intention of involving itself in the West Bank. That tarbaby is for others to deal with. The Jordan government is not stupid."
In the past they demanded return of the territory. I think around the early 1990's I heard Jordanian diplomats not exactly renounce the claim totally but said the people don't want them back. Maybe things will flip. I have read the King say he wanted the top of the temple mount, and considers himself its guardian.
You don't ask. Seal the border with Israel, and open the border with Jordan, and they will have no choice but to deal with it. They're already begging Israel not to do that, because they know what will happen. They only have the luxury of standing on the sidelines as long as Israel does the dirty work.
Once Israel is out of the picture, the territories are doomed to shatter into civil war. Who would expect otherwise, outside the State Department, or Brussels?
Israel's posture must be to keep the chaos out of her own territory by sealing the border. Her posts on the border with Egypt are sitting ducks in any case. Open the border with Egypt. Egypt doesn't want the territory, but unless Israel has the stomach for ethnic cleansing, Israel doesn't want it either.
If the border with Israel is closed, and the border with Egypt is open, it will be Egypt's problem whether they want it or not.
Answer every attack by clearing and pushing the border back. The arabs will go berserk, but they are berserk every day of every week. After a couple of times, they'll get the picture.
Jordan has made it abundantly clear, that it wants no part of the West Bank, again and again.
Relatively very few. And if it was dangerous for them, a risk they took without complaint, they were protection for the citizens of Israel proper, who are now on the front lines.
Nothing but nothing good came out of the Gaza withdrawal. Except maybe Hamas' election win, which I consider just great.
Ya, except that arms will flow into Gaza. Eqypt would be more interested in what goes out, rather than in. But it is an interesting move of the pawn on the chessboard, just not one reasonably calculated to win the match.
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