MidEast Report

JORDANIAN KING CANCELS TALKS WITH BUSH
And the fallout of Bush's cave-in to Sharon begins.
(Al Jazeera)
"The reason behind cancelling the trip is clear as Bush's backing of the Sharon plan made the king's visit embarrassing and meaningless," Jordanian political analysts Jamil al-Nimri told Aljazeera.net

"Jordan was hoping to make the disengagement plan part of the 'road map' and not eradicate the peace initiative completely by legalising settlements and scrapping the right of return," added al-Nimri who writes for al-Arab al-Yawm daily.

RELATED:
Israel Planning Big Investment in West Bank Settlements
(New York Times)

"Mr. Netanyahu said Sunday that Israel could now "fortify our hold" on blocs of West Bank settlements. He told Israel radio on Monday that he would approve investment for settlements that would not be enclosed on Israel's side of the new barrier it is building against West Bank Palestinians.

"There, we are going to invest," he said. "I myself am going to approve hundreds of millions of shekels to invest in the settlements beyond the main fence." "

That's right, friends. Not satisfied with the assurances they obtained from Bush that they may annex West Bank settlements into Israel, Israel plans to continue to invest in settlements outside their now-expanded borders. Boggles the mind. As expected, Bush's knuckleheaded endorsement of Sharon's plan, rather than provide any opening for peace, has only emboldened Israel's hardliners.

Daniel Pipes of the Middle East Forum always has interesting things to say about the Middle East, even if I disagree with much of it, but he's flat-out, dead wrong on the issue of settlements and their significance in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Some analysts consider Jews living in the West Bank and Gaza to be one of the leading obstacles to resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. I disagree with this argument,and for two main reasons. First, it assumes that Palestinian Arabs seek only to gain control over the West Bank and Gaza, whereas overwhelming evidence points to their also aspiring to go further and control Israel proper. Therefore, pulling Israelis from the territories does no good.

In fact, it probably does harm. Imagine that Israelis were uprooted and the Israel Defense Forces pulled back to the 1967 boundaries — what then? Messrs. Friedman, AbiNader, and Kucinich assume the Palestinian Arabs would be grateful and reward Israel by tending to their own gardens, permitting Israel quietly to go its separate way.

But I expect a quite different reaction : Palestinian Arabs will see a pullback signaling that Israel is weak, appeasing, and vulnerable. Far from showing gratitude, they will make greater demands. With Jenin and Ramallah in the maw, Jerusalem will be next on the agenda, followed by Tel Aviv and Haifa.

Ahh, so the issue is not morality, but credibility. The best argument that Pipes can produce for keeping the settlements is that to abandon them would make Israel appear weak. I find that quite revealing. What Pipes has given us here, then, is mere intellectual cover for the more honest hardline Israeli expansionists and radical settlers.

Pipes goes on to refer to the settlements issue as a "political triviality," which makes me wonder whether he's ever actually visited the Occupied Territories and seen the constant, everyday oppression of the Palestinian population which the maintenance and protection of the settlements requires. Trivial? I wonder if he would consider it trivial if it was his home that was bulldozed and his family's land that was confiscated to make room for new settlements? I wonder if he would consider it trivial if he was forced to wait for two hours in the hot desert sun at an Israeli checkpoint every time he wanted to go to work, or take his children to school, or to visit his relatives in the next town? I don't that he would.

I think that Palestinians may be more prepared to accept the existence of the Jewish State than Pipes realizes, though that is arguable. What is inarguable is that the continued settlement activity and Israeli military presence which it requires only weakens Palestinian moderates and strengthens Palestinian extremists.

posted by Matt Duss @ 1:14 PM