The UN Security Council approved a resolution Tuesday stressing that the Israeli-Palestinian peace process initiated by the United States last year is irreversible and urging intensified efforts to achieve peace throughout the Middle East.
The vote was 14-0, with Libya abstaining because the resolution did not condemn Israel’s “siege on the Gaza strip” and intensified settlement activities.
The resolution, co-sponsored by the United States and Russia, backs “the determined efforts” by Israel and the Palestinians to conclude a peace treaty and fulfill the vision that they can live peacefully side by side as independent democratic states.
Translation: the US and the ‘quartet’ will force Israel back to pre-1967 borders, soon.
With the accession of the Obama administration, we can expect that the White House and Defense Department will be on the same page with the State Department about this. Therefore, this will happen. It will happen even if the Likud wins the upcoming elections and forms a right-wing coalition, and even if the handful of American Jews who disagree burn tires in the streets of Brooklyn.
At a minimum it will mean a withdrawal from most of the West Bank, possibly allowing for minor border adjustments to include some major settlements in Israel. It’s not clear when/if the Golan will go back to Syria and it’s not clear what else the ‘peace’ treaty will dictate about refugees, the Temple Mount, etc.
The position of the Right that Israel must retain all of the Land of Israel is moot. It will not happen. The position of the Center (that’s me) that Israel must not withdraw from any territory until there is a Palestinian leadership that actually is prepared to live at peace is moot. There will not be time. The position of the Left that such a withdrawal would be a Good Thing, is … about to be proven wrong.
Tens of thousands of Jewish residents will be relocated, the exact number being dependent on the aforementioned border adjustments, because ‘Palestine’ must be Judenrein (even though Arabs can be full citizens of Israel). If the experience of the 8,000 Jewish residents of Gaza is a guide, this will be at least a disaster (I don’t know what it will be if there is violent resistance, as did not happen in Gaza).
The puppet Fatah government of the West Bank, even if it is protected by NATO troops will either fall and be replaced by Hamas, or it will be “unable to control” terrorist elements. Israel will therefore be sandwiched between terrorist proxy armies on her northern, southern and eastern borders. The narrow 9-mile wide ‘waist’ of Israel near Kfar Saba, the so-called “Auschwitz borders” will return.
So what must Israel do before this comes to pass? Several things come to mind:
- The security fence should be completed, and Israel should seek US support for it to mark the eastern border.
- The IDF should develop strategies for fighting terrorism from the West Bank without the ability to maintain a permanent presence there.
- The IDF should develop strategies to decisively defeat Hamas and Hezbollah.
- The state should prepare for an influx of former settlers who must be provided with housing and jobs. Israel should demand sufficient compensation from the Quartet to ensure that what happened to former Gaza residents will not happen again (and their needs must finally be met).
- The state should expect the demands of the Israeli Arabs for ‘national rights’ to take center stage once the ‘occupation’ can’t be used as the explanation for Arab ‘anger and frustration’.
These are dark times for the Jewish State. In a sense, I agree with the despicable PM Olmert when he says that Israel has to live with a reality that includes giving up the territories.
The difference is that Olmert pretends that Israel has some volition in the matter, and that it is possible to achieve ‘peace’ — whereas I see that Israel has no more choice than Czechoslovakia did in 1938, and must prepare for war.
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