I find this New York Times op-ed by Shmuel Rosner, “Don’t Annex the West Bank,” pretty radical. Here are its main points:
1. The settler right of Uri Elitzur and left of Reuven Rivlin are ready to annex the West Bank and grant citizenship and equal rights to everyone. Don’t do it! says Rosner.
2. Fences work. See also Rosner’s article in Salon on that.
3. A majority, “like me” says Rosner, have little faith in a peace process.
4. No unilateral withdrawal, citing Gaza.
5. Last paragraph sets forth two (inevitable?) consequences of annexation: (1) annexation without granting rights to Palestinans (which the world won’t accept) or (2) Annexation with citizenship ala Rivlin, leading to bloody warfare (?)(!) Rosner: “Or it could seek one peaceful state for two warring peoples, a road that would destroy Israel’s essence, endanger the Jewish majority and perpetuate a bloody conflict.”
The implication here is what we pretty much heard from everyone on our trip: do nothing (occupation forever).
Occupation forever because we want to “maintain Israel’s essence” and not “endanger the Jewish majority” sounds very dubious as a moral vision for Zionism.
Rivilin and Elitzur do have the moral high ground.
Roland Nikles blogs at this site. He recently visited Israel and Palestine and wrote about his trip in several dispatches here.
just reading rosner’s article now. what is this?:
israel ‘declaring’ something legal is meaningless!
having all of the ‘eretz israel’ under israeli jurisdiction is definitely not a ‘new idea’. and the reason the ‘peace process’ has failed time and again is not because ‘they couldn’t agree on the terms for separation”, it is because some political factions have no intention of ever allowing a palestinian state, which became quite evident with the release of the palestine papers.
‘force’ israel to forgo the peace process? ha! ‘sacrifice’ agreement? ‘sacrifice’ separation? as if forgoing the peace process and coming to an agreement was ever in the interest of right wing political parties in israel. read the old likud charter!
then rosner goes on to frame this ‘sacrifice as Giving up on the idea of an agreement ….leading them to support unilateral annexation! and doubling down writing Giving up not once but twice.
the people pushing annexation are not giving up anything, they are getting exactly what they want.
but the wort aspect of rosner’s article is the fact there is absolutely no mention of the fact that area c has been ethnically cleansed of 3/4 of its palestinian population for the purpose of annexation. giving the remainder of palestinians rights, which are not equal by any means because plans are already in place to corral those remaining palestinian citizens into banastuns inside area c, is disingenuous (and that’s a nice way of putting it).
annexing 60% of the WB and giving 50 thousand palestinians israeli citizenship while millions remain on the rest of palestine is criminal.
and it’s a glaring issue, not subtle, but in your face. because show me the plan where Rivlin (called the “old-school Likud liberal. He talks about equal rights and he means it.” or Elitzur are calling for the entire WB to be annexed and all the palestinians given equal rights. (even palestinian israelis do not have equal rights inside israel today) show me that plan, because i don’t think it exists for the “old-school Likud liberal”.
Rivilin and Elitzur do have the moral high ground.
compared to whom? why can’t they even create equal citizenship for palestinian israelis inside israel yet?
maybe i am just too pessimistic.
Rivlin doesn’t have the higher moral ground. The point of annexation is to gobble up more land with minimal amount of citizenship given.
Remember, Israel is actively pushing out Palestinians by making their life very hard on purpose, it is also very difficult for many to even gain citizenship for their spouses and the like, leaving many to even leave Israel(and then magically getting their citizenship revoked).
Rivlin is simply following the old Labor/Mapai model. If Nikles somehow points to Rivlin as someone occupying the “higher moral ground” you do kind of worry about his attachment to reality.
Shmuel Rosner is the new George Wallace: “
segregationoccupation now,segregationoccupation tomorrow,segregationoccupation forever”“Occupation forever because we want to “maintain Israel’s essence””
Israel is rotting from the inside. It can’t ever be stable. The essence is putrid.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decomposition
“Occupation forever” sounds too much like bukra fi mishmish.
I used to wonder why the First Jewish kingdom didn’t endure and it came down to numbers and regional power fade.
Why would now be any different? Because Israelis are going to concentrate? They don’t understand the risk that goes with YESHA