Can Israel be saved from itself? I am still trying to figure out the election. But this? Jerusalem? Is nothing sacred to the Israeli leftists? Liberalism, as the US and most countries of the world, bespoils everything it touches.
Israel's new government has outlined the clearest picture yet of how it plans to divide the holy city of Jerusalem and abandon much of the West Bank in its move to separate from the Palestinians.
The Jews are victims of their own "enlightenment." This road to hell may very well be paved with good intentions but leftist Jews are suicidal. The following proposal is TERRIBLE. I strongly urge my readers to campaign vigorously against dividing Jerusalem here. Woe is me.
Israel Offers Outline to Divide Jerusalem
JERUSALEM - Israel's new government has outlined the clearest picture yet of how it plans to divide the holy city of Jerusalem and abandon much of the West Bank in its move to separate from the Palestinians.
Otniel Schneller _ an architect of the plan _ said in interviews this week with The Associated Press that his blueprint would give most of Jerusalem's Arab neighborhoods to the Palestinians while keeping the predominantly Jewish areas for Israel.
"Those same neighborhoods will, in my assessment, be central to the makeup of the Palestinian capital ... al-Quds," Schneller said, calling Jerusalem by its Arabic name. "We will not divide Jerusalem, we will share it." hat tip Michael
Up his meds.
UPDATE: American Thinker has more on this land for foolish self delusion here;
Caroline Glick, columnist for the Jerusalem Post, has written a serious paper exposing the risks inherent in Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s “Convergence “ plan for the West Bank. That plan calls for an Israeli withdrawal from most (90% or more) of the West Bank (all but the areas encompassed by the new security barrier), with some continued IDF presence in the Jordan Valley (at least in the short term).
Less clear is what Olmert plans to do in Jerusalem.
Glick argues in her paper published by the Center for Security Policy in Washington D.C., that the Gaza withdrawal has been a security disaster for Israel, and for its ostensibly pro-American neighbors (Egypt and Jordan, in particular). A terrorist final four of Al Qaeda, Hizbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad are now all operating freely in Gaza, and more advanced weaponry is pouring across the Egyptian/Gaza border crossing in Rafah. The same scenario would almost certainly play out after an Israeli withdrawal from most of the West Bank, putting major Israeli population centers and its international airport within range of enhanced Palestinian rocket capability.
Glick argues that this second Israeli disengagement, from an area almost 20 times the size of Gaza, would be viewed and broadcast by the jihadist forces as a huge victory over both Israel and the United States. It would also serve as a major recruiting tool for their efforts to destroy Israel, overthrow Arab governments in the Middle East, drive the US from Iraq, and undermine Western nations in Europe, and other continents.
The Gaza withdrawal was carried out in August 2005 by Prime Minister Sharon when the Palestinian Authority was led by Mahmoud Abbas, the hoped for Palestinian moderate who was hailed as the Israeli peace partner that Yassar Arafat never was. Abbas, while still around, is more of a figurehead today in the Hamas-run Palestinian Authority regime, who can be trotted out to Western nation donors as evidence that the PA is still functional, and deserves new money. Sharon is in an irreversible coma, with Ehud Olmert having replaced him, and now heading a coalition government largely dependent on other parties, (Kadimah won fewer than a quarter of the seats in the recent Knesset election).
Unlike the removal of 8,000 settlers from Gaza, Olmert’s plan for a West Bank disengagement would require the destruction of dozens of settlements and the transfer of as many as 65,000 settlers to the area within the Israeli security barrier.
Read it all. It ain't good. But MarcH is, thanks for the tip. And Glick is a national treasure.