Alex Brummer (London Observer): Why Greater Israel vision has perished

[Jack Rabbit]

From the London Observer (Sunday supplement of the Guardian Unlimited)
Dated Sunday January 11

Why Greater Israel vision has perished
The fence that symbolised oppression, now offers hopes of a two-state solution. Visiting Jerusalem last week, a leading Anglo-Jewish commentator found a new realism even among hardened warriors like Ariel Sharon
By Alex Brummer

Ariel Sharon, the gnarled, old war-horse of Israel politics has been regarded, as long as I can remember, as the main obstacle to peace in the Middle East.
While Sharon, a veteran of Israel's bloody 1982 campaign in the Lebanon, an architect of the Jewish state's settlement policy and author of the 'iron fist' deployed against the Palestinian insurgents of the West Bank and Gaza, remains at the helm in Jerusalem, it is widely believed that there can be no peace in the region . . . .
His vision and that of his hard-line Likud predecessors, Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir, has been of a Greater Israel, stretching from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River, taking in the ancient kingdoms of Judea and Samaria. The holy city of Jerusalem, home to the first and second Temples, would remain inalienable Israeli territory.
But in a visit to Israel over the past week (as part of a delegation of the Board of Deputies of British Jews) I have come to realise that the Biblical dream of a recreation of ancient Israel is dying on the vine. Only Likudnik extremists, such as former Defence Minister Moshe Arens, are hanging on to the Greater Israel dream. In conversations with several Cabinet figures and leaders from all parties, it became increasingly clear that three years of relentless terror and retaliation have taken their toll on all policy makers.

Read more.

[Martin Eden]

1. The vision may have dimmed, but it hasn't perished

The steps being taken by Ariel Sharon -- creating a fence and apparently pulling back behind it -- are prudent security measures given the current violence and political situation.

It remains to be seen whether Sharon -- the archirect of settlement expansion -- has forsaken his vision of a Greater Israel. But even if this 75 year old warrior has accepted a two state solution, this doesn't mean that the younger generation of expansionists have abandoned their dream.

We're talking about thousands of years of history: the diaspora, the holocaust, and the promise of a Jewish state encompassing all of the promised land. The people who have this vision are in it for the long haul.

Whether or not the proponents of a greater Israel become a small minority I cannot say, but I sincerely doubt the vision has perished. Geopolitics are always in flux, but some things never change.

Perhaps the most convincing evidence that Israel may be forced to accept the boundaries being delineated by the fence are the projected demographics. The Arab population within the envisioned greater Israel will surpass the Jewish population. The prospect of Jews being a minority within the Jewish state is more than enough to give pause to the annexation of the occupied territories.

But from the perspective of the sweep of history, is the current situation merely a pause, or a something more permanent?

[regnaD kciN]

2. Same old, same old...

Let's just say that when an author begins his article with a complaint about how Sharon has been "demonised in the Western media," I'm not too inclined to believe much of what he says from then on.

But so it goes:

Sharon told us, as he would later tell the Likud party convention (to the sound of boos and hisses from the extremists), that he was prepared to take the unilateral steps designed to preserve Israel's sovereignty as a Jewish state. Sharon's change of tack is a volte-face of potentially historic proportions.

Let's see...is this the 75th "change of tack...of potentially historic proportions" for Sharon over the last 12 months? Or is it the 76th? Strange how, no matter the number of these historic shifts, nothing changes but the progress of the wall and the increase in settlements.

In particular there is frustration that, whereas Palestinian spokesman have managed to get across the idea of 'occupation, occupation and occupation', Israel has shot itself in the foot through poor communication. This is exemplified by the terrible wounding of the British activist, Tom Hurndall, who was shot by an Israeli soldier in Gaza while trying to protect Palestinian children from the line of fire.

"Poor communication"...? (For those who don't remember, Hurndall, an unarmed civilian clearly marked as a peace activist, was left brain-dead after the shooting.) Ah, yes, the old Reaganite strategy of claiming that unpopularity is due, not to what the administration has done, but to the perception of what the administration has done. No doubt, if Sharon's government had only had the right P.R. staff, the killing of Rachel Corrie would have been suitably explained, too, right?

The bottom line: this may be a major step toward peace, as long as the Palestinians are willing to accept whatever land Israel grants them inside the security wall as the only state they are ever going to get, allows the "heavily guarded settlements" within the wall to remain, and abandons any thought of the Arab Old City of Jerusalem or the al-Aqsa compound being anything other than Israeli land. In which case, perhaps they may also want to throw in the bridge that I'd be willing to sell them...

[Gimel]

4. Well, you know

The real Greater Israel dream has included all of Iraq and Iran in its borders. What does the small area to the Jordan River have compared to that? The little moshavim near Jericho and the small settlements sprinkled here an there have rapidly dissolved.

Where are the famous charges that Israel dreams of conquering Amman and Baghdad? I guess that's all forgotten now. Wall at least there is a centimeter or two beyond the Green Line, and maybe the settlement of Ariel and a suburb of Jerusalem or two left of the Greater Israel. Soon it will be pared down to one olive grove that is fought over tooth and nail.

[the_boxer_]

5. A centimeter or two?

[sushi]

3. It's high time

to give up the Greater Israel dream. What is wrong with a peaceful and prosperous little country half the size of Switzerland? And very strong too with all the WMD!