PALESTINE: BETWEEN IRAQ'S OCCUPATION AND THE ROADMAP TO PEACE

The Problem:
Israel: We have to confiscate Palestinian land and demolish Palestinian homes because there are suicide bombers???
Palestine: We have to defend ourselves because Israel is slowly confiscating all our land and demolishing our homes, We have no military to defend ourselves and our land. If we do nothing, we will soon have nothing at all???
The Possible Solution:
CLICK HERE > http://www.indybay.org/news/2003/04/1605768.php

It was said again today in the newspapers. Sharon is refusing to consider dismantling any settlements, even the outposts that were erected illegally. Moreover, he will not even freeze construction or establishment of new settlements before all Palestinian violence stops. In other words, Israeli encroachment and annexation of land in the Occupied Territories will continue no matter what.

Sharon says that he's ready to make painful concessions but he refuses to say to anyone what they are unless the Palestinians stop all resistance.

Sharon's responses are expected. Most of the members of his cabinet are against any concessions on settlements and most are also against the creation of any kind of Palestinian State.

The Road-Map to Peace is a dead document, still-born, aborted by the Israelis. They have demonstrated over and over that they will not accept any reasonable two-state solution.

So maybe the Palestinians need to call Mr. Sharon's bluff, if that in fact is what they believe it to be. End the violence and see if he goes through with what he said he would do.

When has that worked? Cite examples. Be specific.

Sharon will define how long no violence must last. Meanwhile extrajudicial killings will continue as will raids with tanks and helicopters into the centers of Palestinian cities and refugee camps. The checkpoints will remain in place. Curfews will continue. Settlers will continue to assault, attempt to run over and shoot at their neighbors. Crops and homes will be bulldozed. Settlers will set up new outposts and expand old ones. The IDF will continue to shoot and kill Palestinians they deem suspicious. No doubt suspiciousness will be defined as violence so Sharon will be provided a basis to claim that the violence hasn't ended.

Meanwhile, the U.S. will sit on the sidelines, continuing to send billions to Israel with no attached strings. Strings that would hamper ongoing Israeli actions are political suicide in Washington.

The U.S. and the U.N. Need to step in and set the Borders back to 1967 with the settlements now being in Palestine, the People who do not want to live in Palestine can move to Israel....
For Possible Solution where both sides win:
CLICK HERE > http://www.indybay.org/news/2003/04/1605768.php

Angel's solution is a reasonable one. But there is no force on the planet Earth that is able or willing to bring it into being.

The U.S. will never act independent to or against the wishes of the policies of the Israeli government. When the Israelis political consensus favored a solution along the Alon plan (Semi-autonomous enclaves for Palestinians within the Occupied Territories with limited control of resources.), the U.S. backed the Israel in negotiations. It never went beyond the Israeli position toward a stand closer to what the Palestinians wanted.

It is significant that most of the members of Sharon's cabinet are against any kind of Palestinian state. Most are for a military solution, clubbing the Palestinians into submission with vastly superior military power.

The UN cannot be expected to do anything that unless the major power (the US) allows it. The UN track record in defending human rights is dismal (remember Bosnia and East Timor).

So we are faced with a situation where the Israelis want to annex all of the Occupied Territories. If that is what they want, then they will have to accept as citizens, everyone who lives there.

Currently, Israel wants the territory but not the inhabitants. It is against giving back enough of the territory to allow the inhabitants to create a viable state. That leaves only one humane recourse. They're going to have to take the Palestinians in whether they want to or not.

Nope, not gonna happen;

Sending the Palestinians to Jordan is a much more viable solution.

It was easy for the Israelis to dislodge and remove Palestinians from the western lowlands in 1948. Its a much different thing to move them out of the highlands that comprise the West Bank where they have lived for more centuries than there ever was a Jewish domination of the region.

Israel won't ethnically cleanse the West Bank wihout signing its own death warrant. Israel has to learn to bend or it will eventually be broken.

"He (Benny Elon) says that the Road Map is merely a "rehashing of the decades-old goal of trying to seat two peoples on the western side of the Jordan River" - an objective he calls "unworkable" and "dangerous." Mr. Elon merely rehashes the old fallback that critics of the two-state solution have resorted to for decades.

What is unworkable and dangerous is the Rube Goldberg occupation system that puts full control of land and water resources into the hands of the Israelis, full rights for Jews in the Occupied Territory, immunity for Jews from prosecution for crimes against Palestinians, and relegates the non-Jewish inhabitants of the land to enclaves and reservations with limited rights in the land in which they live.

Elon's solution simply exacerbates the conditions that underlie the present conflict. He makes the Bedouin Hashemite kingdom of Jordan the depository for Palestinians that Israel will consider "trouble makers." He will leave large populations of other Palestinians to live in their native land but without full rights as citizens within it.

The Zionist vision of people like Elon ignores the 2500 years of history that have elapsed since there was a Jewish hegemony over any part of Palestine. It ignores such facts as that the Samaritans, who lived in Samaria were, for the most part, assimilated into the Arab-speaking majority that lived there. Until the 1980's, Israel considered even the Samaritans that continued to practice their religion, as Arabs.

The ties of Arab-speaking peoples in Palestine to their land, especially in the highlands of the West Bank, are strong, probably stronger than thoseof any Israeli to Israel. Elon and people like him are not going to be able to ignore that.

The only solution that will allow a Jewish state without inviting continuing conflict, is for Israel to withdraw to parts of Palestine where Jews are now an established majority (i.e. within the pre-1967 borders), where they can than start to develop a friendly, peaceful, cooperative relation with the rest of the inhabitants a Palestine.

Elon and people like him claim that Israel has to steal more land and drive away more of the people, otherwise the situation is "unworkable and dangerous," an irrational notion that easily falls apart when it is honestly explored. The truly "unworkable and dangerous" course is the one that Elon advvocates.

I've been reading your comments re this issue, and I agree with you. Obviously you are a rational, learned individual, and your responses are intelligent and researched. Thanks for sharing your views. They are appreciated.

"The only solution that will allow a Jewish state without inviting continuing conflict, is for Israel to withdraw to parts of Palestine where Jews are now an established majority (i.e. within the pre-1967 borders), where they can than start to develop a friendly, peaceful, cooperative relation with the rest of the inhabitants a Palestine. " Quote from Riobard
A possible Solution where both sides might win:
CLICK HERE > http://nyc.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=56156&group=webcast
What we have now is:
Israel: We have to confiscate Palestinian land and demolish Palestinian homes because there are suicide bombers???
Palestine: We have to defend ourselves because Israel is slowly confiscating all our land and demolishing our homes, We have no military to defend ourselves and our land. If we do nothing, we will soon have nothing at all???
End the conflict by ending the cause of the conflict.