PM to Give Palestinians 6-9 Months to Negotiate
Commentary;
Differing, conflicting signals of mis-information, dis-information are issued on this issue by the day! MB
Only ’20-30 Settlements’ to be Removed
Excerpts;
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s plans for the division of the West Bank involve the dismantling and relocation of 20 to 30 settlements, and not the previously assumed evacuation of the vast majority of the settlements on the far side of the security barrier, the prime minister’s adviser for settlements, Uzi Keren, has told The Jerusalem Post.
Keren, who stressed that he has been given “neither formal nor informal” specifics on the scope of the planned withdrawal, said that the aim was to create and bolster major settlement blocs …
Commentary;
Without specifics, Keren is assuredly on a dis-information mission for Ehud Olmert. Apparently, the The Center for Security Policy Think Tank Report written by Caroline Glick and cited in blogosphere seems to be having it’s impact on the upcoming Olmert/Bush talks. MB
Our World: Saying No to Olmert, by Caroline Glick
Excerpts;
Voices from inside of the Bush Administration claim that Olmert’s planned withdrawal is “a done deal.” The relevant administration officials argue there it would be futile for the US to register any objection to Olmert’s plan because Olmert and his government are wholly committed to carrying it out.
But the “plan” is anything but a done deal. The mass expulsion of Israelis from their homes in Judea and Samaria has not begun. The security fence whose completion is supposed to precede the enactment of the mass expulsions is far from complete. Indeed its route has yet to be finalized. The IDF has made no plans of any kind for defending Israel from the indefensible 1949 armistice lines. Top level Jordanian government officials have voiced serious concern to US lawmakers, Israeli officials and the media about the ramifications of Olmert’s plan for the survivability of the Hashemite regime. It is simply disingenuous to say that it is too late for the US to consider opposing Olmert’s plan.
ASIDE FROM that, over the past 58 years, the US has never considered anything that Israel has done to be “a done deal” if it hasn’t agreed that it should be a done deal. In 1956 for instance, Israel conquered the Sinai Peninsula. Then prime minister David Ben-Gurion got on the radio and announced joyously that Israel would never leave the Sinai. Washington had other ideas. Several days later, after some overtly hostile strong arming from then president Dwight D. Eisenhower and his advisors, Ben-Gurion got on the radio and announced that Israel would be withdrawing from the Sinai forthwith.
In 1999, Israel finalized an agreement to sell three Phalcon spy planes to China. The Chinese started making their payments. Then president Bill Clinton summoned then prime minister Ehud Barak to the White House for urgent consultations the day before a planned visit to Jerusalem from China’s leader, and Barak cancelled the deal. So there is no credibility to the claim that the US cannot stop an Israeli government from doing what it has its heart set on doing.
THE QUESTION is not whether the US can weigh in on the issue. The question is whether the US should intervene. To determine the answer to this question it is important to keep certain truths in mind. First, Olmert maintains that the election results that propelled him to the Prime Minister’s Office were proof that he has public support for his planned withdrawal. Yet, as Hillel Halkin pointed out this month in Commentary, the elections were anything but a referendum regarding Olmert’s plan. The election results, which gave Olmert’s Kadima faction less than a quarter of the seats in the Knesset, were a sign that Israel’s body politic is unraveling. The electorate’s fragmentation was made clear both by record low voter turnout and by the dismemberment of the major parties like Likud and Labor and even Kadima to the benefit of sectoral parties like Shas, Yisrael Beitenu and the Pensioners Party. During the campaign Kadima registered its greatest losses of support after Olmert began discussing his plan to withdraw from Judea and Samaria.
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Our World: Saying No to Olmert