The fifth and last decade

"Israel has the historic and legal right to remain in Judea and Samaria." (A Solomon) This is not what the rest of the world believe. And the rest of the world has ways to make its will not only felt but felt decisively and effectively. Remember F.W. de Klerk, the last President of apartheid South Africa. And Slobodan Milosevic and where he ended for having believed that Serbia had the historic and legal right to remain in Kosovo. What is more, Israel has no historic and no legal right (nor the means) to keep forever captive a stateless population of four million Arabs (see 'The CIA World Factbook'). Only dimwits believe otherwise.

" ... in the likely case that the West Bank is also taken over by the Hamas." (Sebastian) Hamas is the local branch of the Egyptian 'Muslim Brotherhood'. This was unknown, most apparently, by then-PM Sharon (historians are still debating who forgot to tell him), when he chose to abandon Gaza into the hands of this terrorist organization, rather than let Mahmoud Abbas have the key of the city. "What with Sderot? Ashkelon? And Chairman Abbas?", asked the cabinet's only voice of reason. "Don't be silly, Abbas is irrelevant. A not yet feathered chick. As for Sderot and Ashkelon, we shall say it is all because of Oslo", the PM answered. "They will gobble it up, believe me. When children bleed, mothers scream, and sirens howl, reason is deafened." Every wicked leader knows that. This is how Israel came to be plagued with an Islamist enclave it cannot live with, nor defeat, on its Egyptian border. The noxious fruit of a rotten policy. Sharon and his ministers thought that better a tiny Hamastan than a big settlement-free West Bank. After all, it is the Jewish people's right to defend itself. Never mind the Jew-haters who will claim otherwise. We can always go to the General Assembly and from there remind the world of our six million.

"I think people of the Jewish religion or who have a Jewish backround should be permited to live in Palestine." (Ralph) I think your view on the situation is twisted, distorded, and childish. No one, whatever be his religion or background, should be permitted to live in the midst of a stateless population as a foreign settler imposed on the locals by a foreign army. Israel is the very last democratic state on earth to allow its nationals to do just that. Obama doesn't want to expel anyone from anywhere. What he wants is a West Bank free of foreign settlements so that a Palestinian state can be established - so that the West Bank doesn't fall into the hands of Islamist fanatics, and Israel can survive as a Jewish and democratic western-oriented country. You surely have a serious problem grasping what is obvious to any sane clear minded person.

For the Last decade try Uganda

JL: "If you want peace, draw a line in the sand that no more settlers will cross." Israel is not entitled to chose where its own borders go, because a border is there to mark the line where *your* territory ends and "someone else"'s territory begins. Get it? To UNILATERALLY draw a line in the sand is to UNILATERALLY annex the territory that lies begind it, and in the case of Israel much of that territory (indeed, most of it) has been seized by its army via war, starting all the way back to 1948. The acquisition of territory by war is ILLEGAL. Israel therefore can not simply draw its borders as and where it sees fit, and its LEGAL borders remain those defined in the Partition Plan. If it wants more than that then it needs The Other Side to sign a treaty saying so.

If you want peace, draw a line in the sand that no more settlers will cross. Stop the expansion. You don't need the Palestinians for this operation. You will need lawyers and an international legal struggle, but the line drawing process must happen. Is Israel all of Mandate Palestine? Or is it near the 1967 borders? Until Israel settles the borders problem, all the others will remain and fester.

What is limited withdrawal? It is cover for a land grab. Israel has occupied land that does not belong to it for 40 years. There are now 3 million non-Israelis living under military law--among 300,000 Israeli settlers that live under Israeli law--with far more protections, more water and more services. Who is kidding who. Israel is not the victim in the West Bank.

Israel has the historic and legal right to remain in Judea and Samaria. We were there 4000 years ago, with a legal government and nation, and have since been dispersed, only to return and claim our land. The Arabs are interlopers, with no shred of legal or historic rights to this region, and no possible moral or legal basis to supplant the aboriginal population of Jews. The occupation of the West Bank by the Arabs living there is an unprecedented moral blight. Israel should no more relinquish its land than any other nation in the world today if squatters appear. It may be unpleasant to stand up to Muslims, inasmuch as they hold much of the world hostage due to their oil, but freedom and liberty and nationhood are not bought on the cheap.

"By employing anachronistic and illegitimate colonialist methods, the Israel of Menachem Begin and Ariel Sharon defied international law and the demographic realities on the ground to swallow large swaths of land it was incapable of digesting." (A. Shavit) Better late than never. Why has it taken you so long? "After unilateralism was tried during the disengagement, it became clear that the latest magical solution was an illusory solution." (A. Shavit) You are portraying the Sharon of 2005 as a mere dreamer and castle builder. I find it very hard to believe you. Of his mental faculties at that time, your opinion sounds much lower than mine. "[the Israeli majority] understood that Israel had to carefully leave the territories, even though such a withdrawal would not end the conflict." (A. Shavit) No one can say for sure if it would end or not end the conflict. One thing is undeniable: As long as there are settlements and occupation, the conflict cannot end.

If Ari Shavit likes to represent a chronic of stupidity he must looks to a mirror and write down what he watch. I see no logic in his article. Ari deliberately starts his chronic after Six-Day War because if he describes situation from 1947 or earlier it will not fit his conception. As for Ari all problems start from ?occupation?, before there was a paradise, - finish ?occupation? and we all return to this paradise again. If you have no memory, you may ask people who remember this time to tell you about Arab terror against Israel. He has not been taught by all catastrophic sequences of Oslo experiment because a fanatic has no ability for critical analysis.

Obama wants to Expel 500,000 Jews from the West Bank in order to create a racialy pure Palestine where people of the Jewish religion or who have Jewish backround will not be permited to live. I think this is unfair. I think people of the Jewish religion or who have a Jewish backround should be permited to live in Palestine. Why are the Arabs against diversity? Why do they want a racialy pure State? If Obama supports the expulsion of 500,000 Jews in order to make peace in Palestine....then Israel can improve on this plan by expelling all the Arabs from the West Bank in order to make peace. I do not see the difference. Can someone explain the difference to me? I am waiting.....

With its dominant power and the mediocrity of Arabs, Israeli politicians can debat for as long as they can tolerate. Nothing would change the fact that this holy land belong to Palestinians and to Muslims, even despite the actual balance of power and world reality. It would not be long (on the scale of History) that all parties concerned would agree to a unified and democratic Palestine where all people of the three faiths would be forced to live together. LThe model of South Africa is but an example. There is no lunatic thinking in this but forsight.

It was taken from ther Jordanians. And let them figure it out.

"What will force the Palestinians to change and demand 'one man, one vote' ?" (Nick) Be patient. Suggested reading: "Battle of the numbers: Jewish minority by 2020", [between the sea and the Jordan river] by Professor Sergio Dellapergola, of the A. Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry, the Hebrew U in Jerusalem, and Senior Fellow at the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute. www.a-ipi.net/article30324.html

Shavit is right about the situation, but there are no easy solutions. Partial withdrawals only create another South Lebanon or Gaza. The Palestinian leadership just won't accept any reasonable deal and even if they do we are giving up real assets for a piece of paper which will not be worth much in the likely case that the West Bank is also taken over by the Hamas. Maybe just annexing the settlement blocks and imposing a reasonable long term border (dismantling settlements beyond the border) but leaving the army on the other side could work. It's not perfect, but it provides security and may transform the conflict into a border dispute, while defusing the demographic and international problem. But it has lots of risks too, specially in terms of internal unity and emboldening the Palestinians to continue fighting.

One South Lebanon is enough, we don't need a second. Everything Shavit says is right, but he offers no solution. Partial withdrawal? What on earth would that accomplish? I don't think most righties would be against that if they thought it would work, but it is folly. The article was well written, but the last paragraph brought me back down to earth.

Mr Shavit should look into this source of stupidity that he touches on at the opening of this artilce. These are not mere political blunders. They fundamentally emanate from racism, it is the the same blindness that doesn't let him see that Israel already is another South Africa.

Great article. So why are the Palestinians and the Americans still talking about a 2-state solution if its dead? I suppose I understand the US and Israel still perpetuating a policy of "ambiguity", but why the Palestinians? Why don't they forget the dream of a separate state and demand full rights in the country that controls them? Perhaps the Palestinians have also fallen for a trap in the form of the PA? It gives the illusion of sovereignty to the world, brings in lots of UN money and keeps the corrupt leaders in power. But it will never lead to anything but the "homelands" of the blacks in SA. So what will force the Palestinians to change and demand "one man, one vote"?

It took speaking to a Palestinian for you to understand? What was wrong with your powers of comprehension previously? TATA

The press also failed us. Not enough analysis. No-one spotted that what seemed logical: i.e. our returning to what we had before 1948, was illogical from the perspective of the extra we had already added in 1948. No-one imagined that such a detail would throw into question our right to regain what we'd lost. No-one expected the others to presume to want to regain what they had lost. No-one wondered what would be done with the population we had inherited; it was assumed that most of them would go back to Jordan in exchange for peace and that the people in Jerusalem and Hebron would not mind doing what the post-48-ers had done and become citizens of the Jewish state. No-one thought to ask the Palestinians themselves, of course. And no-one thought to tell us too much either.

Shavit is right - the occupation is eating us up from within, we cannot endure with it, it must not endure with our support. Never mind the slightly distorted route he took to get there - we have to end the occupation before it ends us. Whether this works for a Prime Minister only interested in one more day in his seat, and for a Defence Minister in accumulating more millions for himself but unable or unwilling to stand up to the settlers who are the source of our corrosion, are the real questions. Shavit has not analysed that yet. He should.

...five big loaves of bread plus two big fish for breakfast, just as a fur-shpeiz, would finish off any ordinary mortal... ...the analogy with current Israel is brilliant...

Ari Shavit..your bottom line is just the recipe for another decade of Nothing Good. You mention withdrawal from territory..how about settlements! If we don't move (some of us settlers) we will never prove that we really accept the possibility of a future two State solution. Jerusalem is not mentioned..Oh, if we would have taken the idea of a Saudi flag over Temple Mount..Reminding us of the reality that the Messiah just aint here and freeing us from always having to control and enter into conflict. The Time Has Come..the time is near...

by hanging on to the West Bank and laying siege to Gaza. This can be seen by the Global reaction of disgust and horror for Operation Cast lead. The problem Israel has is that overtime many Israelis have forgotten that the West Bank does not actually belong to Israel in a legal sense

1.Whenever it comes to important hidden mysteries, preachers most often tell us just the opposite. 2.Examples: the earth is flat, the earth is the center of the universe, stars revolve around the earth, creation was done in 6 24-hour days, etc., etc. 3.The most shocking mistake made by preachers is a thousand times more grievous than Original Sin. With regards to the hidden mystery about God and The Devil, preachers have once again told us just the opposite which is the fundamental reason why there is no peace in The Middle East. 4.Get ready for the most awaited Breakfast of Five Loaves that catches the TWO BIG FISH, i.e., the Devil and The One True God. 5.The Five Loaves Formula resolves The ME Conflict justly, instantly, permanently, comprehensively and in our days. 6.Because the Formula comes from God Himself, there will be no need for debates, discussions, initiatives, accords, dialogues, etc.

to understand how situation is unfair, could we Please just one time imagine we are in palestinian's place ... an army controling tel aviv, jerusalem, negeev ...where we live. Checkpoints everywhere. No israeli with pass, no israeli money beacuse everything is under palestinian control. Palestine who does not decide what borders are : Israeli houses being taken and taken everyday because some of palestinian thinking it could be good in future exchange for peace ... and hat to say about gaza ... ? I met palestinian in territories and then I undesrtood we had not to be unfair

You want to know what Israel has to do Ari? Do the legal and legitimate and right thing. Pull the IDF out of the West Bank,including East Jerusalem, and hand the whole sorry mess Israel has made of it to the UN. They will blanket it with NATO troops and with money, as they did with Kosovo and will oversee a peaceful transition to a democratic Palestine, with Jewish as well as Arab citizens.

This article makes a lot of sense, even if one doesn't have to agree with every detail in it. However, I'm afraid a "limited" withdrawal from the West Bank (honestly, I don't know what Ari Shavit means with that) won't do it for Israel this time. This time the world wants to see "the real deal".... ....and that from both sides.