one-act tragedy

JPN Commentary:

The United States is continuing to play games of theater with Israeli settlements. While, as the article below points out, marking boundaries of settlements could have the long-term effect of legitimizing them or even becoming de facto borders for an expanded Israeli state, the so-called “pressure” on Israel to dismantle settlement outposts is nothing but show business.

These outposts are largely mobile home communities that have been set up by settlers, ostensibly without government approval. However, an investigation by an Israeli governmental panel actually commissioned by the prime minister’s office and released earlier this year clearly established that the Israeli government was supporting the outposts, both with funding and by looking away as their establishment violated Israeli law.

Moreover, emptying these outposts is a far easier proposition than the withdrawal from Gaza was. It has been done before, on numerous occasions, when it suited the government’s purpose. But it would not have been accompanied with the fanfare, the media coverage, the crying young women that the Gaza withdrawal was. Hence, Ariel Sharon is in no rush to do it.

Any genuine American pressure would result in the virtually immediate disappearance of these outposts. But that pressure, despite the claims in this article, is not forthcoming. While serious evacuations, especially of major settlement blocs, cannot be expected without a threat to American military aid to Israel to force them, any serious insistence from America would most certainly be sufficient for the removal of the outposts. The lack of such action is a powerful indicator that the US is simply working with Sharon to produce the theater that has been the Gaza withdrawal and its aftermath.

U.S. backs down on settlement boundaries demand

“The Truth About Camp David” by Clayton Swisher is an invaluable resource for better understanding America’s complicity in this horror show, or as an Amazon reviewer who doubted the spin coming from the Clinton-Barak camp when the talks collapsed put it, “So that’s how they did it!”

p.238: Barak deputized Yossi Alpher, a former Mossad officer and Oslo supporter, to work with Yoram Ben-Zeev, a Foreign Ministry official serving as deputy director of North American affairs, in order to rally American Jewish support. Alpher says he traveled to major U.S. cities, helping to “write the next day’s editorial in the main newspaper, welcoming Israelis and Palestinians to Camp David and wishing them success.” Moreover, he met with hard-line Jews who, in Alpher’s view, “tended as a matter of course to be more hawkish on Israel’s behalf than Israelis were.” Among them was Richard Perle, a close adviser to presidential candidate George W. Bush. Perle promised Alpher that “no peace agreement would be acceptable if Barak gave Arafat a foothold in Jerusalem” and that if such a settlement came to pass he would “personally advise Bush to condemn the agreement.” As the summit got under way, the Bush campaign would distance itself from Perle’s comment, which Perle insisted was only “made in passing.” Through reporters, Bush offered Clinton his “best” as he tried to broker Middle East peace.

Where is Bush on Jerusalem now?

Expanding Wasteline: According to Israeli Interior Ministry data, the state continues to reinforce settlements in the West Bank. In fact, there has been a sharp increase of 12,683 settlers living in the territories since the start of 2005. Last week, Prime Minister Sharon vowed to build inside the settlement blocs and connect the settlement of Maaleh Adumim to Jerusalem, while the IDF began expropriating Palestinian land to build the security fence around Maaleh Adumim.