Tom, I am not privy to the motives behind the settlements, I know some people in the IDF that are strongly against it, but others feel differently, particularly some the Jewish extremists that believe that the whole area west of the Jordan should be "Greater Israel". One thing is clear to me, the Palestinians are under the false impression that "time is on their side" and see no urgency to come to an arrangement that will give them a state and self expression as a nation (they will have to do a lot in the area of "nation building", since they were never a nation separate of the "Arab nation"). The settlements activities, while possibly offensive, is good in that it demonstrate quite clearly that the longer they fuss around the smaller the foot print of the state they might eventually have. If they wait too long, like another 50 years, they may have not state. They already wasted 50 years (BenGurion and Sharet tried in vain in the late 40 early 50' to come to a peace settlement that would have given the Palestinians a state, possibly, within what was then Jordan, after all, 70% of Jordanian are "Palestinians"), another 50 years, and the proponent of a "greater Israel" will surely win. Gradually, just as the Christian Arab minority has been expelled almost totally from the "territories", the "Palestinians will migrate back to where they came from or elsewhere.
Zeev |
