By Ted Belman
The Gaza conundrum has left the “peace process” on the back burner. But what is more important than either is the battle over settlements which is ongoing.
The GoI has committed to uprooting 21 “illegal” or “unlawful”, depending on your choice of adjectives, outposts and to freeze settlements. When the freeze was first accepted by Sharon he reserved the right to natural growth and only committed to not building outside settlement boundaries. Now the US is insisting that no building take place even in Jerusalem as defined by Israel if the settlement, such as Har Homa, is east of the ’67 line. Olmert has accepted this dictate and has ordered that no construction take place without his approval. Jerusalem’s Mayor Lupolianski, has announced defiance of Olmert’s illegal decree.
So far the Kadima government has not made a move to remove the 21 outposts but it has tried to prevent new settlements from being built particularly at Chomesh. Every time the government tears it down Jewish kids return to rebuild it. In addition MK Eldad stands with them in opposition to the government. The recent incarceration of the Jewish girls and their refusal to recognize the authority of the government is part of this ongoing battle.
Haaretz editorializes under the title, A thundering silence. The problem, as it sees it is set out.
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[..] it is impossible to separate this act of rebellion from its context: a growing number of citizens who deny the state’s right to enforce its laws on them.
Through this symbolic act of rebellion, and the religious Zionist leadership’s overwhelming silence in response to it, religious Zionism has positioned itself as a movement that denies the sovereignty of the state. It is no accident that the movement’s leadership displayed sympathy for the girls. Such widespread rejection of the Israeli legal system’s authority cannot be found among Israel’s Arab citizens, among the non-Zionist anarchists of the left nor even in the most extreme ultra-Orthodox circles.
This tacit support for the girls also reflects support for illegal settlement, and it highlights the serious problem of the new religious Zionists, whose loyalty to the state is conditional. As long as the state serves the goals of the settlements, they support it. But the moment a contrary decision is made – on territorial withdrawals or evacuation of outposts – this camp allows itself to break the law. If every group whose demands were not accepted were to behave this way, it would not be possible to maintain a state. No political camp has dared to challenge the state as blatantly as the national religious camp has done since the disengagement. The girls’ silence under arrest was only an appetizer.
Another serious problem in the religious Zionist camp is the way its members turn a means into an end. The settlement enterprise was supposed to serve the state. But it has become an end in itself, which first and foremost serves the religious Zionists. By comparing a freeze on settlement construction to the British Mandate’s White Paper, the settlers have shown that they view the institutions of the state as a foreign government. It is no wonder that some members of this camp are even willing to engage in terrorism and violent behavior. The tolerance with which they are treated merely encourages them. The message that these girls are trying to send is that there is no chance of evacuating outposts – not now, and not ever. [..]
I think they have it right and I suggest that the GoI fears the power of the people. That is Haaretz’s regret. But where does it come off adding “It is no wonder that some members of this camp are even willing to engage in terrorism and violent behavior.” Where is their evidence for same. This is an ugly smear.
And what is wrong with never abandoning the settlements? It doesn’t say. Maybe it is trying to say such position is an obstacle to peace. But hen again so is the mindset of the Arabs but Haaretz would never say that.
But in asking for respect for the law, the state and Haaretz don’t expect the same of the state. MK Uri Ariel arguesTreat illegal Arab construction as do Jewish construction
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MK Ariel emphasized that the fact in the very same area demolition orders were issued against building by Jews, for which permits had not yet completed, while almost completely ignoring Palestinian construction that is certainly illegal is revolting. “There is not even a façade of law and justice on the part of the prime minster in the matter of the outposts. The clear and broad discrimination that he carries out against the residents of the outposts is invalid from a legal, moral and human standpoint. Law and Order are not his concern but instead political and narrow self interests. The real contempt is the ignoring of tens of illegal thousands of Arab and Bedouin homes and the failure of the authorities to deal with them,” notes MK Ariel.
Haaretz goes further,
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Religious Zionism is slowly removing itself from the camp that carries the torch of the Zionist enterprise, and one can legitimately ask whether its behavior is not becoming anti-Zionist. [..]
In the past, religious Zionism symbolized the actualization of the state. Today, it symbolizes rebellion against the state.
Now that is interesting. Haaretz is arguing that Israel is synonymous with the Zionist enterprise. Thus to fight the state is to oppose Zionism. But the truth is otherwise. The state by its anti-settlement policy is thwarting the Zionist enterprise which after all is the resettlement of “the land” i.e. Ha’aretz.
When the Mitchell Report recommended a settlement freeze, PM Sharon said “The government regards settlements in all their forms as a vital national enterprise,”
Likud! Likud! Likud!
Livni brokers the pullout from Gaza, sues for “ceasefire” in Lebanon then says today that the “equation” ha s changed? What changed? The balance in her bank account? There needs to be a reckoning for what they did to Israel and the IDF.
Nobody wants Kadima to fall flat here, but everybody knows what they are like. No matter what they have got to be exorcised.
Think about this: Every major power got that way by totally and completely destroying their enemy and they DID NOT CARE about what other countries nor their enemies thought. Their rule was long and secure until they forgot what brought their prosperity. Force, money and extended borders produce security. These are not the aims of Kadima and Labour.
Twenty four days left with an ally in the White House.
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Survival will be all identifiable Hamas eliminated, re-occupation of Gaza and Likud Government in February. Anything less is suicide.
It’s not over until both the enemy is purged and the corrupt Israeli leadership is also purged. That includes the IDF, the Government and the financial backers of the leftist media and the corrupt political leaders.
davidstill:
A nuclear Iran need not have to attack Israel, in order to destroy us. The overt threat could destroy us in so many ways. Think about it? Would you want to live under nuke threat of an Nutter Country> Would you invest in Israels long term with investment? Would you immigrate or emigrate?
Hizbola and Hamas are Iranian proxies, armed, trained, and financially supported by Iran. As America almost went to nuclear war with Russia over Cuban missiles, and Russia going nuts with American missiles in Eastern Europe why should Israel allow potentially similar situation to develop few few meters from our borders and populations?
Gary answered correctly part of the problem with your position, But there is much more:
The primary function of Government is to protect her citizenry. Tit for tat even if we have a bigger Tit still leaves over a million Israelis vulnerable and allows the enemy to choose when and where he will attack you. While all of Israels enemy neighbors have rockets and missiles and I hope are taken into consideration by our military strategists they have not used them nor openly threatened to at least so far. Israel has a degree of deterrence so in their cases till now we have reduced motivation as opposed capabilities by deterrence. Allowing an enemy the initiative only encourages them to be more confident, allows them to build and rebuild their defensive and offensive capabilities which sooner or later we will have to pay the price, on every level Lives,Money, investments, economic growth regionally and nationally, places a million people under an umbrella of fear driving many residents(especially with young children to move to the center of the country and even emigrating from Israel). Israel would as up till now viewed her collective leadership of abandoning them to a terrorist group who could be crushed if the order to do so would be issued. Demoralizes The military and results in our best talents leaving such a career for more profitable and prestigious employment out of the military. Encourages all countries to pressure Israel where they would never dare if Israel behaved like a normal country (Its like inviting the world to kick us in the ass, and they will). Postponing the inevitable is like aspirin to Cancer, might help temporarily reduce the immediate pain but in the end you die and with much pain and agony.
Israel has my full prayer support for success in God’s commission to Joshua and King David:
KILL THEM ALL! SPARE NO ONE! SPARE NO WOMAN, CHILD, OR ANIMAL – YOU MUST COMPLETELY DESTROY THEM!
And THAT is very much within Torah Law. Today, we can finally understand why the God of Israel was so strict on defining this law with Joshua and David – to avoid what is occuring today and innocent lives being lost. Those who defy the God and government of Israel must be destroyed.
Yamit is right – the worst thing that could happen to Hamas is to be reduced to a shell of its former self, being dependent in every way on Israel like Fatah is in Judea and Samaria. There’s no need to eliminate it completely. They can run their affairs and if they want to be Islamist, that’s fine. But they’ll know if they attempt to harm Israel, they’ll come to ruin. The formula should be to leave the Arabs alone as long as they leave the Jews alone. When the Arabs break that simple rule – hit them hard. Hezbollah learned that lesson in 2006. It pays not to mess around with Israel. And so will Hamas. What would make such an arrangement work is Israeli deterrence, the only thing the Arabs respect. A piece of paper – or even peace on paper – won’t impress them. The goal should be to make the Arabs fear Israel enough to leave it alone – its not necessary to ask them to love the Jews or to have relations with the Zionists. Just keep your distance.
davidstill: The world will respond the way they always respond: against Israel and for the downtrodden underdog Pals who, no matter how much they terrorize, have become the new Christ figures to an anti-Semitic world looking to blame Jew Israel for all the trouble in the world.
Israel is in the midst of conducting the most strategically pinpoint military campaign that the world has ever witnessed (in the most densely populated urban environment in the world).
The IDF deserves many medals and recognition for how little collateral damage there has been. Personally, I would have just dropped a few big bombs the way Hamas would have done if they had access to them, but I would be considered much less careful and deemed an unacceptable General in the IDF.
yamit82: I hope you do not mistake my meaning. I fully support Israel. I fully support ending rocket attacks that kill or try to kill innocent people.
My peace plan: when Israel withdraws, let them fire back at Gaza city the biggest bomb they have each time Hamas sends a rocket toward Israel. That way, the noise makers can not talk about proportionality but will have an eye for an eye, with a much more severe poke at their eyes. A few big ones in Gaza City randomly sent in will do great damage but then that is what Hamas wants to do when it sends rockets toward Israel. How then will the world respond?
davidstill
yes war is hell isn’t it? People get killed wounded displaced and all suffer some level of trauma. SO?
Peskin: It is a bad marriage. She is there living in one or two rooms of the house (the house that Obama says he would defend if it were attacked by Hamas) and making life miserable for you.
She is psychologically imbalanced, suicidal and violent most of the time. The best you can do is control your own temper but at times, due to it being a failed marriage and because of the close proximity of the living space, you too become justifiably enraged at times.
Obviously a divorce is called for. The question is who gets the house? Do you split it? Do you buy her out? Do you find her new digs and put her on support? Peskin – having said that my solution is silly, a suggestion which I admit is not new and probably unworkable and unrealistic, then what is your recommendation??
Gary: Probably I am dreaming and engaging is excessively positive, wishful and unrealistic thinking. This idea might be a non-starter but sometimes bold ideas and new suggestions will make everyone think of possibilities. Israel is small, Gaza is smaller, Arabs cannot live with Jews so get them out of the region in a new place where they can prosper without their old baggage
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Yep, you are dreaming-and in technicolor yet
At some point a bold initiative must be imposed. The Pals have shown that they cannot make a good decision for themselves and they go out of their way to punish their own if that means giving Israel a hard time. I think that the instant scholars, hack academics and book pushers of the moment are wrong: Palestinians do not need victory to make them feel good, they need the shock of reality to press home the point that they are not going to snatch victory out of the jaws of defeat and evil.
The Palestinians are already talking like victors who can now dictate the terms because losing in the past to Israel has always resulted in gains for the Arabs.
This time they need to be reminded that defeat means defeat and that they accept what is good for them, not what they want. Israel wants peace and the Palestinians want Israel. There is something very wrong with that picture. Israel has to say point blank that they care more about Israel than peace with the Palestinians and I think that this operation is a first excellent step.
This is the opportunity for Israel to come out and say that no part of Israel will ever be made into a Palestinian state – Gaza was an experiment that reminds us what a Palestinian state without iron-clad guarantees from their Arab nations will look like.
We have seen and experienced enough and now it is time to tell them what the score is and what the plan is for the future, whatever that plan entails (and I am sure it will be 100 times better than anything envisioned in the sick minds of terrorists who care less about their own people and nothing for Israel)
I’ve advocated this approach here and elsewhere for years. It accommodates Palestinian nationalist aspirations and is consistent with a two-state (contiguous) solution while returning J&S to its rightful owners and providing Israel with security and breathing space.
The Pals will never willingly go for it but as a wise philosopher once said,
You can’t always get what you want but if you try sometime, you might find, you get what you need.
The Hamas strategy as gleefully broadcast by the CBC is to kill a number of Israelis while demonizing Israel worldwide through co-operative anti-Israeli media such as CBC. (EG Today’s CBC headline : Worldwide protests urge end to attacks on Gaza , instead of reporting the other side demonstrating in favour, which is “World Cheers as Israel sets to crush Terrorists”)
This is the leftist strategy which won the war for North Vietnam and and in Lebanon for Hezbollah.
So, will it work once again?
I have never heard anything from a senior Fatah member indicating that they want peace – they just want less war until they gain national status and have a huge army to defeat Israel.
The only “good” thing about Fatah is their venality – they are less ideologically Islamic and they can be bought (though the bribes go to the top and do not filter down to the people who will once again turn to jihad as an alternative to Fatah.)
I feel the answer to Gaza is to assign most of it to Israel and part of it for a Palestinian “home” that would include the north end of the Sinai on Egyptian territory. West Bank residents will choose to go there with the promise of free homes, employment and other great incentives. It could be made into a 10-year project dependant on good behavior.
Egypt will agree to territorial concessions because their rich Arab brothers will, in effect, buy it for the Pals. Besides, if Israel is about to make any concessions and agree to any form of a bordering state, then she must get more than just peace, she must get proof that Arabs are serious about solving this problem and serious about peace. Arabs must prove that peace is a priority for them or it will never happen. I am sick of Arabs passing off their shit to the US and Israel as if they have no part in contributing anything tangible.
Ted and Yamit, your solution involves more of the same and the status quo is untenable. It will lead to more weapons, more terror and more of all that we have come to expect from the Pals. If the Arab countries do not have a stake and a vested interest in seeing their refugees experience good lives free from Islamic extremism, then Israel will be deluged with a problem that tends to get worse, not better, over the years.
The home in the Sinai on the Mediterranean should be jointly patrolled by Israel, Egypt, and their own Pal police and it will replace the West Bank and Gaza and all claims to those areas. Putting to an end the idea of a right of return should be the first agenda item after this Gaza operation – Israel needs to make it clear that any peace will not support such a concept.
Probably I am dreaming and engaging is excessively positive, wishful and unrealistic thinking. This idea might be a non-starter but sometimes bold ideas and new suggestions will make everyone think of possibilities. Israel is small, Gaza is smaller, Arabs cannot live with Jews so get them out of the region in a new place where they can prosper without their old baggage.
You might be right here in this perception. That’s why I support a very degraded Hamas, without abilities to Harm and reduced motivation, based on deterrence. Every time they seem to get the strike Israel itch we hit them where the sun don’t shine.
2 states: favored by US; by UN; by most peoples in most nations.
Kramer: ok but note, please, that the UN will put observer into play to keep rockets from going off again. But this must not be like UN in Lebanon, where Hez. allowed to rebuild etc.
I use this comment to send to readers these photos of what is taking place:
http://cryptome.info/0001/gaza-kill/gaza-kill5.htm
http://cryptome.info/0001/gaza-kill/gaza-kill4.htm
http://cryptome.info/0001/gaza-kill/gaza-kill3.htm
the professionalism of IDF clearly seen here
they are not a people! They are Arabs.
ethnic minorities seeking independence,
Kurds
Chechens
Basques
Kashmir
Moldava
Tamils
Catholic Northern Ireland
Frogs in Quebec
There are around the globe literally hundreds of ethnic, religious, and tribal conflicts of (usually) minorities seeking either autonomy or political independence.
Isn’t it strange that the only such conflict the world and you seem to concern itself with is with a non people trying to steal Jewish Land. Your beliefs and strange ideological conclusions are not supported by the facts, as usual. You are an antisemitic leftist fascist.
The only ultimate solution is a two state solution. Israel nor any State cannot rule indefinitely another people whose desire is to attain independence. The British learned that over 60 years ago when they left mandated Palestine in frustration. A defeat of Hamas might just bring a two state solution one step closer.
We must prevent a Pali State at all costs therefore based on the end game of our political defeatists and pygmies, I will settle for any solution that keeps Hamas in power even a no win for Israel war.
A no win result would bury Kadima and Labor at the polls and the real bottom lineis that no IDF soldier or serviceman should be put at risk for those political war aims. Very isidious if not outright odious and deceptive.
This is probably the main reasons that Intl. pressure has not been brought to bear, all understand the end game.