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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jacob Snyder who wrote (85706)	3/24/2003 3:13:26 PM
From: Jacob Snyder	Respond to of 281500

re: Palestinian Bantustans: Another source, this one an Israeli newspaper: The Defense Ministry has completed two alignments of the fence - a western one parallel to the seam line and an eastern one, severing Palestinian population concentrations in the West Bank from the Jordan Valley. Today the two first stages of the fence, from Mehola in the Beit She'an valley to Elkana near Rosh Ha'ayin, are in construction at a cost of NIS 2 billion. The construction is scheduled to be completed by the end of the year. The next section from Elkana to Mount Amasa near Arad will cost NIS 4.5 billion. The eastern fence is planned on the mountain slopes, along the "Alon axis" from Mehola to Ma'aleh Adumim and from there to the Judean Desert. The fence will leave two Palestinian enclaves which may come under Palestinian rule in the future. Ministers who took part in the tour said Sharon wants to use the two fences to outline the temporary borders of Palestinian state.... haaretzdaily.com

To: Jacob Snyder who wrote (85706)	3/24/2003 4:40:48 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

"This just confirms that the wall is not to separate the West Bank from Israelis, it's to separate Palestinians into their reservation," said Michael Tarazi of the PLO's negotiations support unit. Hey, I have a bright idea -- if the Palestinians don't like the Israelis building a wall, why don't they stop trying to blow up Israeli buses and restaurants in Tel Aviv and Haifa? The two phenomena are not unrelated, though you would never think so listening to the proclamations that issue of the Kingdom of Mendacity that is the PLO. Now, since Israel is being forced to build a wall in self-defense unilaterally, without a negotiated border, it's not going up directly along the Green Line, but is including some settlements (incidently, many Arab villages along the border are lobbying hard to be included on the Israeli side). I mean, what a total shock. Can you say "bargaining chip"? Sharon, btw, is being pulled from both sides. It is the Left in Israel that wanted the wall as a prelim to a pullback (it was big in Mitzna's campaign). It is the Right that either wants the wall to include more settlements (there was never any real question whether the big Jewish towns right over the Green Line were going to be included) or doesn't want the wall at all, because they still cling to the idea of Greater Israel. Of course papers that cannot conceive of any position to the right of Sharon cannot get this story right. Jeff Halper, a respected documenter of Israeli expansion in the occupied territories, said it was hard to justify building a wall through the Jordan valley as a protection against terrorism. "If you're talking in terms of terrorism from the Palestinian side, there's not much to attack in the Jordan valley. It's not like the wall on the other side where you've got Israel," he said. Hm, might control of the Jordan valley be necessary to keep ole Yasser from inviting Hizbullah to "come on down" from Syria? Things look quite different when you've got a neighbor who is reasonably bound by treaties vs. one whose word has been proven worthless a thousand times and will stoop to anything, untrammelled by even rational ideas of self-preservation. The simple fact is that the Palestinians, having convinced all of Israel except the unconvincable Far Left that Oslo was a ruse, are back to pursuing their favorite policy, ruinous maximalism. It will get them what it has always gotten them - a worse offer than before.