Wow, this is unbelievable. The Washington Post editorial page states that the reaction to Israel’s plans to build more settlements is overheated, that a two-state solution is alive and well, that settlements outside Jerusalem don’t block Palestinian access to a possible capital. I wonder if the writers have spent any time in the West Bank or East Jerusalem, let alone the ongoing ethnic-cleansing of Area C. Also notice the emphasis on land swaps. Do those involve removing the citizenship of Palestinian citizens of Israel? Do they want to be moved into a Palestinian state?
the reaction is also counterproductive because it reinforces two mistaken but widely held notions: that the settlements are the principal obstacle to a deal and that further construction will make a Palestinian state impossible.
Twenty-five years ago, Israel’s government openly aimed at building West Bank settlements that would block a Palestinian state. But that policy changed following the 1993 Oslo accords. Mr. Netanyahu’s government, like several before it, has limited building almost entirely to areas that both sides expect Israel to annex through territorial swaps in an eventual settlement…
Overall, the vast majority of the nearly 500,000 settlers in Jerusalem and the West Bank live in areas close to Israel’s 1967 borders. Data compiled by the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace show that more than 80 percent of them could be included in Israel if the country annexed just more than 4 percent of the West Bank — less than the 5 percent proposed by President Bill Clinton 12 years ago.
Diplomats were most concerned by Mr. Netanyahu’s decision to allow planning and zoning — but not yet construction — in a four-mile strip of territory known as E-1 that lies between Jerusalem and Ma’ale Adumim, a settlement with a population of more than 40,000. Palestinians claim that Israeli annexation of the land would cut off their would-be capital in East Jerusalem from the West Bank and block a key north-south route between West Bank towns. Israel wants the land for similar reasons, to prevent Ma’ale Adumim — which will almost certainly be annexed to Israel in any peace deal — from being isolated. Both sides insist that the other can make do with a road corridor.
This is a difficult issue that should be settled at the negotiating table, not by fiat. But Mr. Netanyahu’s zoning approval is hardly the “almost fatal blow” to a two-state solution that U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon described.
The exaggerated rhetoric is offensive at a time… etc.
Ah yes the same tired argument that Israel is magnanimously offering to annex “only” a small percentage of the west bank – that just happens to be the portions that have access to water, arable land and borders with any other country but Israel. Heard it before – it’s garbage.
This essay sums it up nicely –
http://lawrenceofcyberia.blogs.com/news/2008/08/treading-water.html
“This is a difficult issue that should be settled at the negotiating table”
I love how rightwingers, in their attempt to defend any israeli war crime, always use the excuse that its too difficult to discuss or resolve and can only be rectified by the two parties. The excerpt above is so full of discrepancies and b.s. that its not worth dissecting
I guess the Washington Post agrees with the US effort to impose a Sudetenland solution on the Palestinians. Taking a piece of someone’s else’s country can bring peace, the way it did in Europe in 1938.
RE: “Wow, this is unbelievable. The Washington Post editorial page states that the reaction to Israel’s plans to build more settlements is overheated, that a two-state solution is alive and well, that settlements outside Jerusalem don’t block Palestinian access to a possible capital.” ~ Weiss
MY COMMENT: It is not so much “unbelievable” as it is yet another instance of “déjà vu all over again”! ! !
FROM ELLIOTT ABRAMS, The Washington (Neocon) Post, 04/08/09:
SOURCE – http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/07/AR2009040703379.html
P.S. Elliott Abrams has totally convinced me [by the sheer power of his (il)logic and his very impressive math skills] to wholeheartedly support the Israeli settlement project in the West Bank.
As I understand it, the ‘Abrams Principle’ stands for the proposition that more Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank will result in a larger area for the Palestinian state. That’s why I say: “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead” with the settlement actvity; so as to result in the largest Palestinian state possible (from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River), no matter what that state is called. Fiat justitia! ( “Let Justice Be Done!” )
P.P.S. ALSO SEE: “In Israel-US relations, settlements are entirely beside the point”, Yair Shamir, Times of Israel‘ 12/26/12
LINK – http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/in-israel-us-relations-settlements-are-entirely-beside-the-point/
“Wow, this is unbelievable. ”
I assume that’s just a rhetorical flourish, because you have to have realized it was utterly predictable. I don’t remember if I bothered to write it down explicitly, but I knew this was the direction the Israel supporters would go.
I don’t have any particular love for the 2SS, but it’s useful to make a distinction between those Israel supporters (like Beinart) who really do want to see it, and those who just use it as an excuse for supporting Israel no matter what they do, on the theory that all the problems will be solved by magical negotiations sometime in the distant future, after Israel has taken all the land it wants to take. People who really do support the 2SS would not react the way the Washington Post editorialists have.