Fitzgerald: What's Behind Opposition to the "Settlements"JIHAD WATCH: Opposition to what are so tendentiously called "the settlements" is not about the "settlements" at all. It is about whether Israel is going to be allowed to decide for itself the minimum conditions of its own survival, or whether others -- apparently to include an Administration so deeply unlearned in the history of the area, and in the claims, and rights, of the Jews to build these "settlements" (simply Jewish villages and towns) on land that was always intended for Jewish settlement by the League of Nations in its Mandate for Palestine. That was one among many mandates created after World War I, several of which led to the creation of Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq -- that is, three of the now-22 members of the Arab League. Other mandates were intended to make provision for some of the many other non-Arab or non-Muslim peoples -- but the Kurdish state and the Armenian state as originally envisioned were still-born, and the Jews received not all of historic Palestine, but only Western Palestine, while again the Arabs took the lion's share for themselves.
It is not the "settlements" that are at stake, but whether or not Israel will control the small sliver of territory, the "West Bank," without which the Jordan Valley, and the historic invasion route from the east, cannot be controlled. For if Jewish settlements are stopped, if the decision is taken out of Israel's hands, and if its claims are de-legitimized, it is just part of a deliberate, unending, and most cunning attempt by Muslim Arabs to push Israel back, so as to whittle away at it, and step by step to weaken Israel and demoralize its population. This has been written about and spoken about so much in the Arab media that it is inexcusable for those who make policy to continue to have failed to notice it.
This would be done in stages. Mahmoud Abbas is the leading proponent, at present, of this Two-Stage Solution. That is what he means when he says "we choose peace as a strategic option." Not "peace" tout court, but "peace as a strategic option." First, by opposing the Jewish claim to have any natural expansion in what are so wrongly called "settlements," this would condemn Jews, but not Arabs, to keeping their population from increasing in the "West Bank." That would inevitably lead to their shriveling. It would start the process of forcing Israel to yield, to give up those Jewish villages and towns, to give up their rightful claim that was already shrunken by 77% when Great Britain created, back in 1922, the Emirate of Transjordan out of Eastern Palestine. Eastern Palestine was originally intended for inclusion in the Mandate for Palestine.
If Israel cannot allow even for natural growth in its "settlements" -- meaning apparently no babies are to be born beyond the replacement level, while the Arabs in the "West Bank" and in pre-1967 borders of Israel, like the Muslims living everywhere, are permitted to have eight and ten and twelve children per family, we know the result. And if Israel's settlements are paralyzed, and painted even in the Untied States -- never mind the U.N. -- as illegitimate, the pressure on Israel, which is already immense, would likely force the Israelis, despite their own need to survive, to give up the "West Bank" that offers them the only strategic depth they possess. Israel without the "West Bank" is nine miles wide, from Kalkilya to the sea. It can be cut in two with ease by the fabulously well-armed, and overwhelmingly more numerous Arabs. Unless Israel is prepared at once to use nuclear weapons, it can be overrun. And not only must Israel continue to control the Jordan Valley and the historic invasion routes from the East, but it must also control the aquifers under the "West Bank" that are so vital.
>>> Hugh Fitzerland | Tuesday, June 02, 2009
