Israeli settlers vow: 'We will never leave'

Leaders of the 226,000 Jewish settlers of the West Bank and Gaza Strip vowed yesterday to thwart evacuation of their homes, which would end their dream of a biblical state from the Jordan to the sea.

For Elyakim Haetzni, a vitriolic pioneer settler in Hebron, Sunday's Israeli cabinet vote in favour of the road-map for peace in the Middle East was an act of "national treason".
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Bush's Choice

Sharon would not dream of really dismantling outposts, freezing settlements, agreeing to borders even remotely resembling the pre-1967 Green Line. As long as he is requested to produce only words, all is well. When actions are expected, both Bush and Sharon will face a hard choice.

Sharon's choice: to quarrel with Bush (and that would be a disaster, from his point of view) or to give up his historic mission (a much greater disaster, from his point of view.)

Bush's choice: to fail again and go into the elections as a president who has failed in everything, or to quarrel with Sharon and the entire pro-Israeli lobby, Jewish and Evangelical Christian - which is political poison.

But beyond all this, there is the fact that the most right-wing government Israel has ever had has officially accepted the establishment of a Palestinian state. Even if this is only a tactic, even if the real purpose is to sabotage it, this is a point of no return.

The circle is now complete: the whole world has adopted the two-state vision, including the United States, the Arab world, the Palestinian people and the government of Israel.

This, I must admit, gives me some private satisfaction. 50 years ago, only a handful of us believed in this solution. The whole world was against it. Now this is a world-wide vision. With or without Bush, with or without Sharon, it is on its way.
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Partition is Not the Answer

Today, in the middle of the occupied West Bank, miles to the east of Israel’s pre-1967 frontier, the Israeli Offense Force is busy erecting an encircling monstrosity of concrete, barbed wire, and guard towers. Completely, utterly illegal by anyone’s definition, it is rarely even mentioned in the Western press – except, occasionally, in Orwellian new-speak, as Israel’s new “security fence”. Like some gargantuan gray boa constrictor, it slithers though the West Bank – engulfing thousands of acres of fertile farmland, alienating tens of thousands of Palestinians from land their families have tilled for centuries, and strangling every last drop of vitality out of what was once the lovely land of Palestine.
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