Friday, September 17, 2010

While we're talking about the West Bank settlements, whose members number close to 300,000--let's not forget what happened to the settlers in Gaza after the Disengagement. P David Hornik hasn't:
In the 2005 disengagement Israel removed about 10,000 “settlers” from Gaza and northern Samaria, with promises (sincere at the time) that the Israeli government would ensure that their lives—their homes, livelihoods—were quickly rebuilt elsewhere in Israel.
As is now known and acknowledged by all, Right, Left, and Center, this resettlement endeavor has failed miserably and many of these people—among the country’s most patriotic citizens—have been reduced to ongoing distress. This quite apart from other dire consequences of the disengagement, just some of which are the rise of the Hamas regime in Gaza and the constant rocket attacks on southern Israel.

By the most conservative estimate I’ve seen, the number of “settlers” who would have to be cleared out of Judea and Samaria to make room for the Jew-free Palestinian state would be 80,000 (it being assumed, with unwarranted optimism, that Israel would be able to keep the larger settlement blocs where a large number of the settlers live). If you’re wondering how a country that couldn’t resettle 10,000 people would be able resettle 80,000—or, actually, a lot more, according to most estimates—so am I.
Just one more question left ignored in these muddled peace talks

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1 comment:

NormanF said...

That's one of the elephants in the room but the crucial one remains the Arab refusal to accept Israel as the Jewish State.

That has bedeviled all the peace efforts from the 40s onwards and shows no signs of changing in our lifetime.

You'll have to await for the arrival of the Messiah for that to happen.