Entries Tagged as 'Withdrawal'
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s claim to have a clear mandate from the people to implement his “convergence” plan is very debatable.
But let’s say for the sake of argument that his intention to surrender almost all of Israel’s biblical heartland does enjoy majority support.
Does that necessarily make it a good idea?
There is not one shred of evidence suggesting that after Israel withdraws from over 90 percent of Judea and Samaria, the world will not continue to back Arab demands to surrender the rest, including the eastern half of Jerusalem.
In fact, recent comments from Washington, from where Olmert is hoping to gain recognition for Israel’s new borders, suggest the exact opposite.
You see, while the American people in general may be Israel’s unconditional friend, the powers that be in Washington will not risk further ruffling Europe’s or the Arab world’s feathers in order to back what its allies in Jerusalem say is best for the Jewish state.
Washington will, however, support the division of this land. Not because Olmert says such a move is necessary, but because Europe and the Arabs demand it.
And that is where US government support for Olmert’s policies will stop - where they cease to coincide with the demands of Israel’s enemies.
It could not be any more plain that the end result of Olmert’s “convergence” will be that Israel divests itself of its most valuable bargaining chips before final status negotiations even begin.
And when the day comes - 5, 10, 15 years from now - when the world forces Israel to again sit down with the “Palestinians” and hammer out a final peace deal, what will Israel have left with which to negotiate? Pretty much nothing, and the Arabs have consistently proven they will not offer “peace” in return for nothing.
A glimpse into the depths of delusion:
“Suicide” bomber slaughters nine and wounds more than 60 others in Tel Aviv.
Hamas-led Palestinian Authority unsurprisingly endorses said bombing.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert declares that said endorsement of said bombing is evidence that the PA is no peace partner.
Israel will respond by surrendering in return for nothing the lands that the PA had hoped to gain through negotiations, says Olmert.
Is this failing to make sense to anyone else?
Does anyone, outside of Israel’s own delusional leaders, believe this will NOT encourage Hamas and their fellow terrorists to mass murder more Jews?
Or is Jewish blood really less valuable than the very temporary international acceptance and accolades Olmert & Co. believe they will receive for dividing this land at all costs?
Ehud Olmert has come clean about what will be the true outcome of his “convergence” plan, and it doesn’t look promising for Israel in the long term.
Now remember, all during the election campaign Olmert vowed he would unilaterally set Israel’s FINAL borders by 2010, and that by doing so in the way he intended those borders would be set according to the best interests of the Jewish state.
Like Sharon before him, it seems Olmert was just full of empty promises.
In an interview with Time Magazine this week, the fill-in leader appeared to be creating a political escape hatch before even trying to implement his stated policies or fulfill his promises.
The borders Olmert draws “will be very very close to what may be the final borderlines… the lines I want to draw are very close to the lines that I
believe will become the political borders.
A far cry from his previous emphatic statements that Israel would, through him, take its destiny in its own hands and do what is best for its citizens.
Anyone with any amount of sense knows that not one single nation involved in the “peace” process is going to endorse Olmert’s borders if the “Palestinians” don’t first. And no one with any sense expects that they will.
The only borders the US and Europe - the major power brokers behind negotiations - would even think about backing even without Arab consent would be the pre-1967 borders. A full Israeli withdrawal from all Judea, Samaria and eastern Jerusalem.
All Olmert’s plan is going to accomplish is to divest Israel of any leverage it currently possesses before final negotiations even begin, and, more dangerously, signal a clear lack of conviction in the Jews’ biblical, historical and legal rights to any of this land.
Andrew Jaffee comments at IsraPundit on a Jerusalem Post story regarding Europe’s suggestion that Jerusalem “lease the settlement blocs from the Palestinian Authority rather than annex them outright.”
According to the article:
…the EU’s hope would be that Israel would ‘be generous’ and give the PA ‘more than the minimum.’
An incredulous Jaffee responds:
Israel makes up 1/6 of one percent of the territory of the Middle East, and the Jewish state should “be generous” and give the PA “more than the minimum?” There’s an old expression: ‘One half of nothing is still nothing.’ Israel has already been generous, giving up Gaza and now planning to give up the West Bank. We’re back to square one, where the Arabs, and their EU supporters, seem bent on demanding that all of little Israel be given up.
I would add that even before the current “peace” process, “disengagement” and planned “convergence,” the Jews were more than generous with this land.
You see, the Balfour Declaration promised to the Jews not only all the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea to Israel, but also all of what is today the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan - much of which was part of biblical Israel.
In 1920, the Balfour Declaration for all intents and purposes became international law at the League of Nations’ meeting in San Remo.
But when it came time to seek independence, the Jews did not bring up these laws, and settled for whatever scrap of land the UN would agree to recognize Israel on. And that scrap was far smaller than the lands originally promised.
The Jews have already shown more generosity than any other people would even consider in relinquishing their biblical, historic, and legal claims to OVER half the land they are entitled to.
And this is why Ehud Olmert’s “convergence” plan is so dangerous, and should throw up warning signs for all Israelis. If the past century has taught Israel anything, it should be that no amount of land will ever assuage its enemies.
Hamas appears to be the only party seeing things clearly when it says: Peace means the elimination of Israel.
Believe it or not, Ehud Olmert and his Kadima Party are still using the same, tired argument of some kind of demographic threat to justify surrendering to the Arabs’ demand that Judea and Samaria be cleansed of Jews.
Senior Kadima member Haim Ramon was confronted by a prominent leftist journalist this week regarding Olmert’s dangerous “convergence plan” - which will see Israel retreat and hide behind its security barrier.
“I want a division of the land. But I hold that Ehud Olmert’s…unilateral division plan is dangerous. It will lead to the establishment of an armed and hostile Hamas state that will undercut the stability of Israel, Jordan and the Middle East…It will inevitably lead to war,” argued Ha’aretz’s Ari Shavit.
Ramon’s response was to regurgitate the threat of an Arab demographic take over between the Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea if Israel does not sever Judea and Samaria from itself - a threat that has been decisively proven false.
Wake up Israel! There is no more danger of being overwhelmed demographically today than there was 50 years ago.
If you are really worried, then work on convincing your 6-12 million brethren still living abroad to come home. That would eliminate any imagined or real demographic threat once and for all.
Thank God the Jews who took part in Israel’s rebirth did not listen to such nonsense, or the Jewish state may still be just a dream.
It’s all over. Israel has voted in a Knesst that will seek to divest the Jews of their biblical heartland.
The breakdown looks like this:
- Kadima - 28 seats
- Labor - 20 seats
- Shas - 13 seats
- Israel Beiteinu - 12 seats
- Likud - 11 seats
- National Union/National Religious Party - 9 seats
- Pensioner’s Party - 7 seats
- United Torah Judaism - 6 seats
- Meretz - 4 seats
- United Arab List - 4 seats
- Balad - 3 seats
- Hadash - 3 seats
The election outcome was the product of most of the nation’s Jews convincing themselves that the coming surrender is somehow an act of self-strength.
But Kadima leader Ehud Olmert has conveyed anything but strength as he laid out the intended policies of Israel’s next government.
“We are tired of fighting, we are tired of being courageous, we are tired of winning, we are tired of defeating our enemies, we want to be able to live in an entirely different environment of relations with our enemies,” said Olmert in June of last year.
Problem is, Israel may be tired of having to fight for its land, for its rights, for its very life, but the nation’s enemies are not.
“We will never let the Jews rule Palestinian territories,” said Hamas official Shaikh Mohammed Mahmud Al Siyam in Pakistan this week.
Al-Siyam was of course referring to all of “Palestine” - the entire Jewish state.
“The Koran is our constitution, Mohammed is our prophet, jihad [holy war] is our path and dying for the sake of Allah is our biggest wish,” shouted Hamas legislator Hamed Bitawi to thunderous applause as his party’s government was sworn in Tuesday.
The deception leading Israel down its current path of weakness, despite the openly stated intentions of its enemies, is the same deception that caused Jerusalem to get into bed with Yasser Arafat and his PLO more than a decade ago.
That is not to say the LORD is not still in control. For He is. His Will will ultimately be done.
The question is how many more Jews have to suffer en route to the fulfillment of that Will because of the path chosen by their leaders?
Israel could have entered the Promised Land almost immediately after exiting Egypt, but ended up wandering in a desert for 40 years because of their failure to trust the LORD.
What will be the consequence now for rejecting His instruction to resettle and never sell the land, especially for a false peace?
