Why the West Bank Settlers Are Not a Barrier to Middle East Peace

Jewish settlements continue to be built on the West Bank, and those who hope for a two-state solution in the Middle East can often be seen wringing their hands in despair over the question. The thought of trying to tear down the settlements and return all the settlers to Israel seems politically impossible, as well as a logistical nightmare.

What's the problem here? The settlers elected -- in violation of international agreements and Israeli promises -- to live in what will become a Palestinian state. So let them. If they don't like it and want to return to Israel they can. Or they can stay where they are -- after all, millions of Arabs live in Israel.

The settlers may object that the Israeli government has at times colluded in their invasion of the West Bank, but they need to be reminded that state collusion in a criminal act is no protection under international law.

I think Israelis should be encouraged to live wherever they want -- with the clear understanding, however, that when the peace agreement is made, the West Bank is part of the Palestinian State. All of it. The settlers are, after all, outlaws and invaders. The West Bank is to Israel what the Sudetenland was to the Nazis.

The settlers acted in the belief that Israel was an outlaw state that would support their covert aggression, and redraw the boundaries of Israel to include them.

But why should law-abiding Israelis agree to such a corruption of their nation's ideals? Let the settlers go. They asked to live outside Israel. Let them have their wish.

(In his inauguration speech, Obama talked of a whole new way of doing things. To understand the cultural paradigm shift that engendered this change -- the shift that both Bush and the Taliban have resisted so fiercely, see my website for information on THE CHRYSALIS EFFECT: THE METAMORPHOSIS OF GLOBAL CULTURE).

 

 

Comments

[Yisrael Medad]

a. Truth Fighter, you mena this?
Article 25.

In the territories lying between the Jordan and the eastern boundary of Palestine as ultimately determined, the Mandatory shall be entitled, with the consent of the Council of the League of Nations, to postpone or withhold application of such provisions of this mandate as he may consider inapplicable to the existing local conditions, and to make such provision for the administration of the territories as he may consider suitable to those conditions, provided that no action shall be taken which is inconsistent with the provisions of Articles 15, 16 and 18.

Since the "ultimately" was in the future and the Mandatory (Gt. Britain) was "entitled", and we don't know about the "local conditions", you are on to something. But we all know that the reason for this was the riots and pogroms and attempts at ethnic cleansing by Arabs at Tel Hai, Jerusalem, Jaffa, Hadera and Petah Tikva between 1920-1922 (not to speak of later acts of terror and violence). England knucled under Arab pressure, that's all. No real rights.

2. You are mistaken. Arabs arrived as an occupying conquering imperialist force in 638. And actually no one knows about that conversion shtick.

3. And they were consulted, well, as much as any popyulation was consulted but since they were a foreign invader in any case, so what?

[Yisrael Medad]

This sentence: "The West Bank is to Israel what the Sudetenland was to the Nazis" doesn't make sense.

Actually, Judea and Samaria are the Sudetenland to Israel as it was to Czechoslovakia.

It is part of our national homeland.

It's where Jews lived for many centuries and from where they were ethnically cleansed by Arab rioters and armies.

It was promised to us by the Supreme Council of the League of Nations.

It is a security barrier to attacks on Israel, its industrial centers, populated cities and its international airport by terrorists with shoulder heat-seeking missiles, etc.

[fight for truth]

YISRAEL MEDAD:

TWO MISCONCEPTIONS :
1. The Supreme Council of the League of Nations only gave the Jews 56% of historic Palestine, and

2. The Palestinians have been there as long as the Jews have been there. Who knows if some of the Palestinians were converts to Christianity and Islam from Judaism over 2000 yrs?

Lastly, who the heck gives an illegal occupier, England the authority to give away land on which another people are already living in? Will the USA allow it if Russia and China decided to give Native Americans 56% of USA because they have suffered enough, without even consulting the people of USA in the process? The truth is the Arabs in Palestine were not even consulted during the process. Churchill famously said he did not have to because blacks don't have rights.
Israeli supporters are too pickled in their own revisionist history to see the truth.