Olmert’s Lament

Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is proof of the perils of reining in settlements. He's also proof of why Washington should try.

By Kevin Peraino | NEWSWEEK
Published Jun 13, 2009
From the magazine issue dated Jun 22, 2009

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  • Posted By: jibsail @ 07/26/2009 11:00:26 AM

    " One of Olmert's top aides, insisted that anyone who demands a total settlement freeze "doesn't know what they're talking about. They're making an issue out of something the government of Israel can't control. They won't be able to enforce it, so what's the use?" The Americans, he concluded, "will look like fools." Well if the Israeli jackboots can feel uninhibited to do a full scale massacre invasion in Gaza the last December can´t see what should stop them doing the same against their illegal intruder. Failing that the Americans can send in their Marines to create havoc and AAF could bomb some 300 settlements into smitten.

  • Posted By: enewsreference @ 06/19/2009 2:26:01 PM

    We appreciate Obama starting the peace process early in his administraton and even taking the heat on bringing up the settlement question, but it will be a long haul... http://www.enewsreference.com

  • Posted By: Robzview @ 06/19/2009 1:36:45 PM

    "settlements were the purest expression of the Zionist ethos" there you go NOW do you understand what Zionism is all about?These fanatical,murdering,land stealing scum will only stop colonisng Palestine when they are FORCED to and sadly,bearing in mind the woeful track record as the "honest broker", it is the US with it's economic,military and diplomatic aid to this rogue state that the world looks to for the necessary application of force.Stop ALL financial aid and loan guarantees,stop all military and intelligence assistance, stop blocking UN resolutions condemning Israel's murderous treatment of Palestinians;start an escalating process of sanctions until Israel acknowledges international law in relation to occupied territory and the human rights of the native people of Palestine.Finally, stop calling on Palestinians to "renounce violence"when the whole world can see who is the major perpetrator of now 100 years of violence-rape,mass murder,expulsion,ethnic cleansing[check out how many Arabs live in the illegally annexed Golan,source of 15% of Israel's water] and now the brutal and deliberate slow starvation of Gaza with tens of thousands of people unable to rebuild after the latest Israeli outrage.Let me just point out that the UN recognises the LEGITIMATE RIGHT OF AN OCCUPIED PEOPLE TO RESIST THAT OCCUPATION BY ANY MEANS, when a country invades another NONE of it's citizens are civilians,this applies to all of the 500,000 illegal colonists in the occupied West Bank.

  • Posted By: Cleverman @ 06/15/2009 2:37:25 PM

    Amazing ignorance of history displayed in these comments. Israel is not an apartheid country. Those of you who label it that do not know what you are talking about. There has been a Jewish presence in Israel for over 3,000 years. The Jewish residents are not "stealing" anybody's land that was not stolen from Jews long ago. Obama's Cairo speech seemed to imply it was the events of 1930-45 that caused the "displacement" of Palestinians. There was Jewish people living in that area for many scores of years before that. Arab countries who will not step up and help resettle those who fled the land in 1948 are just as much responsible for their plight. As far as settlements go, Israel must have defensible borders. It is a very small land with an 8 mile width in the center of the country. If rockets and missiles are fired by Arab terrorists from deep inside the West Bank no part of Israel will be free from attacks. That is the reality. I do not know what the administration and state department are smoking, but to completely and totally end all settlement activity and move 300,000 residents is not possible, as well as a zero groth policy, just not possible. It shows the naivity of this foreign policy team.

    • Posted By: froy1100 @ 06/16/2009 3:23:18 AM

      It is you who seem to ignore the history about this territory, or maybe you just try to mislead less informed readers.

      the land we call Historic Palestine, in it's different historical forms, has been populated by an overwhelming majority of Arabs (90%+, Muslim and Christian) since its conquest by the Islamic forces back in the 7th century (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine#Demographics_in_the_late_Ottoman_and_British_Mandate_periods). Since then, Jewish population has been totally negligible, and mainly concentrated in the city of Jerusalem. It wasn't until the end of the 19th century that European Jews with little more claim than a sentimental and religious attachment to that land, began to arrive en masse. During the colonial period of the Mandate, the demographical configuration of Palestine was further allowed to be artificially altered by the British. Palestinians are the current aboriginal inhabitants of the land West of the Jordan river, and as such, their rights must be recognized.

      • Posted By: Lzr000 @ 06/17/2009 5:06:20 PM

        The land you call Palestine is actually Judea and Samaria where Jewish Kingdom existed long before Arabs came to that land. The fact that Jews were forcefully exiled does not change the fact that it is their land. Those Arabs who settled there while real owners were in exile are actual thieves and those who defend the Palestinians rights to this land are actually accomplices of the thieves

        • Posted By: froy1100 @ 06/18/2009 12:50:21 AM

          Religious nutjobs that base their claims on 2000-year-old mythical narratives make it even easier to argue against Israel's fanatic positions

    • Posted By: froy1100 @ 06/16/2009 3:42:40 AM

      About the settlers, they live on territory that does not belong to Israel, so they don't have a right to live there. International Law explicitly forbids occupying powers to settle the occupied territory with their own civilians. Sorry, but they live on stolen land, so they have to go, and restore it to their rightful owners. East Jerusalem and the other settled areas in the WB are just too vital for the future Palestinian state's viability to just give them away, even in exchange for other territories.

  • Posted By: Lzr000 @ 06/17/2009 4:28:23 PM

    There are no Jewish settlements. There are Jews living in the historical Jewish lands, where the Kingdom of Judea existed centures before Arabs came to that area. Palestinian Arabs are actual settlers there.

  • Posted By: blackhawk12 @ 06/14/2009 11:44:57 PM

    The reality is that other Arab and Muslim nations do in fact practice apartheid. In Jordan, no Jew can be a citizen or own land. The same is true in Saudi Arabia, which has separate roads for Muslims and non-Muslims. Even in the Palestinian authority, the increasing influence of Hamas threatens to create Islamic hegemony over non-Muslims. Arab Christians are leaving in droves.

    • Posted By: froy1100 @ 06/15/2009 12:40:25 AM

      You won't find a Palestinian Christian that will support your absurd argument. They all convene that their enemy is solely Israel, and occupation the reason for their leaving.

      Palestinians have a right to live in Israel because they have been inhabiting that land for generations, unlike the Jewish settlers, arrived from every corner of the world to steal the land of the Palestinians. You can decide who you allow to immigrate in your country, but you can't expel those who already live there. That's called ethnic cleansing. A very ugly thing.

      • Posted By: brydges @ 06/15/2009 11:39:05 AM

        Wrong both groups have been there for centuries. Many Jews came from other parts of the world but many of the Palastinians are also from other areas of the mideast. Isreal is seen as imperialistic even in it's right to defend itself. This is mostly due to one sided negative press from the left wing media that can not bring itself to ever side with anyone other then the minority. You know what i'm talking about the same mindless propoganda that elected Obama.

        • Posted By: froy1100 @ 06/16/2009 2:50:58 AM

          Check your figures. Since the 7th century or so, the overwhelming majority of Palestine was Arab (Muslim and Christian) with merely anecdotical Jewish population (well below 10,000 souls, concentrated mainly in Jerusalem). It was only with the first wave of European Jewish immigrants at the end of the 19th century that the Jewish population became sizable. We have to acknowledge the Palestinians' right to Historic Palestine (now Israel and the Occupied Territories) as the indigenous people of that land. Pretending to recognize Israel as the national home of the Jewish people without at the same time recognizing the right of the Palestinian Arabs to that very same territory is a blatant injustice.

      • Posted By: Concerned alian @ 06/15/2009 12:23:02 PM

  • Posted By: jcred @ 06/15/2009 1:26:45 PM

    You can compare the current Isreali-Palestinian issues to apartheid in S. Africa all you want, and both situations EARNED THE CRITICISM, but...
    The industry and domestic production of food and civilian goods and services under apartheid far outproduced anything under the rule of the previous rulers. So it is, too, in Isreal, where Isreali hardwork and investment have created an oasis in what was previously an Arab backwater.
    Do the Palestinians have anything to show for their efforts since 1948? Piles of rubish and bricks? Rows of Dead? A resume of terror and murder? For what?
    If the Jews left Isreal the whole area would revert back to the 19th century. Arabs would no longer care about the Palestinians and the quality of life for the average Palestinian would be basically unchanged.
    BOTH SIDES NEED TO HUMBLE THEIR LEADERS AND ADOPT A STANCE OF FORGIVENESS AND RECONCILIATION IF THEY EVER WANT TO REACH THEIR TRUE POTENTIAL.

    • Posted By: tyler214 @ 06/15/2009 2:02:12 PM

      Palestinians might have accomplished development on a level with Israel if they had received about $85 billion in aid from the US since 1949, as Israel has. Not only that but Israel has repeatedly destroyed anything Palestinians have managed to build

      • Posted By: jcred @ 06/15/2009 3:53:41 PM

        ...or they might have spent it all on explosives, tunnels and AKs, since the folks that have been in control since day 1 were more focused on killing Jews than feeding their own people.

      • Posted By: Iconoblaster @ 06/15/2009 2:36:28 PM

        Exactly! But the territories that the Israeli right-wing is cluthing to their breast are a demographic suicide vest for the Zionist cause. Eventually, if they continue to refuse to give back the territories, the Likudniks will be stuck with them, and with the Arab majorities who live there...and then what will they do?

        The status quo, with the Palestinians held in virtual bondage, ghettoized (and sometimes under siege), cannot endure. The alternatives to replace it are not promising for Netanyahu and Lieberman and their crowd: (1) Abandon apartheid somewhat as South Africa did, with universal citizenship and suffrage for all within the country, regardless of their ethnicity (THAT would mean the sudden end of Israel AS a specifically Jewish state... and it would only begin the kind of long battle with discrimination that followed the demise of Jim Crow in the American south); (2) Israeli forces could attempt to complete the ethnic cleansing campaign begun by their predecessors in 1947, and try to expel as many as possible of all remaining Arabs from the occupied territories...which might well mean a war or wars with surrounding Arab states in which the United States might NOT support Israel, or might even bring on international intervention to stop it.

        Good luck to President Obama, and to a peace initiative now, while there may still be time. If the Israeli hardliners hang on too long, continue to refuse to make a reasonable deal, they may just get what they wish for.

  • Posted By: sieg6529 @ 06/15/2009 2:00:15 PM

    Unless Israel adopts a more moderate policy towards the high-birthrate majority, her people might find themselves severly outnumbed by a huge, hostile, and armed populace, something that cannot be permanently suppressed.

  • Posted By: nonZionistJew @ 06/14/2009 6:21:53 PM

    Folks, I hate to say it, but we're looking at an apartheid state in which very shortly Palestinians will be the majority of the population between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. And there is no Israeli leader that can bring the Israeli public to support what must occur for a Palestinian state to come into existence. Many decades from now, Israeli Jews and Palestinian Christians and Muslims will be living in some kind of confederated entity, whether one wants to call it a state or not. The two state solution is dead and has been for a while, because facts on the ground have overcome whatever desires both the Israeli and Palestinian publics had or have. It's a great tragedy, but it's reality.

    • Posted By: froy1100 @ 06/14/2009 10:09:21 PM

      Then bring on the South African Solution!: a few well placed international sanctions, diplomatic isolation, and perhaps a good old embargo, and Israel might just dismantle its apartheid apparatus and create one great multicultural nation West of the Jordan for Jews and Arabs alike.

      • Posted By: jcred @ 06/15/2009 12:57:12 PM

        Which the arabs would then control politically and use their majority to subjugate the Jews... Isreal MUST retain it's Jewish identity or you might as well kick all the Jews out and go back to calling the area Palestine. And while your at it, let the British rule the area (since you would be turning back the clock 60years anyway)

        • Posted By: warbirder @ 06/15/2009 1:29:31 PM

          And your point is? Isn't that how the movement started by taking power in a British vacuum with world sympathy lead by the U.S. and Truman? Time to move on. Look at Iran right now. religiously dominated and still they are calling for inquiries into the election. give people their freedom.Treat folks with respect and they'll treat you with respect back.

          • Posted By: jcred @ 06/15/2009 1:49:08 PM

            No part of Arab majority equals respect to a Jewish minority.

          • Posted By: jcred @ 06/15/2009 1:45:55 PM

            "Treat people with respect and they'll respect you back"
            Is that how Jews are treated in Arab countries? Or Christians, for that matter... what's it like for a Christian in Iran today? Are the answers really as simple as a smile and a handshake to get past Arab hostility?

      • Posted By: warbirder @ 06/15/2009 12:59:27 PM

        froy, I want what you're smokin!! LOL Some of the highest powers in the world are working behind the scenes to prevent just that, sanctions! Remove the names of these two parties and take a fresh look at this situation and the world would be outraged over the disparity of treatment between the two.

      • Posted By: brydges @ 06/15/2009 11:40:29 AM

        Look how well it worked for South Africa. Whites are still fleeing the country to this day.

        • Posted By: Concerned alian @ 06/15/2009 12:43:12 PM

          Right! Hegemonous! Like Palestinians and maimed Jews. Maybe you should ask the Arabs who live in Israel proper if this is an Apartheid state? Israel''s security concerns which thus require check points etc shouls not be invalidated as concerns. Remember hate is preached in the Palestininian school system. If all would be ideal then, yes, suspicion can fall to the wayside. But under the circumstances I must admit the Israelis are behaving as much as possible as the Lord's chosen people.

  • Posted By: coraltown @ 06/15/2009 12:47:36 PM

    What particulary galls me about those ____ing settlements is that my US tax dollars have been used for decades to build them.

  • Posted By: warbirder @ 06/15/2009 12:47:28 PM

    With 150,000 New Yorkers and New Jerseyians in the settlements, it's easy to see where the money and backing for settlements comes from. As a conservative, i'd have to be a blind, deaf, mute to not see the apartheid in Israel by folks who insist on a religious state. We all know that religious controlled states don't work. That's why even though we have had a religiously based country here in the U.S. we continue to evolve into larger separations of church and state!

  • Posted By: blackhawk12 @ 06/14/2009 11:41:25 PM

    that's great! can Jews live in Saudi Arabia or that's aloud to be an a apartheid state? Why don't we boycott Saudi Arabia?

    • Posted By: froy1100 @ 06/15/2009 12:36:12 AM

      Because the US likes to get cozy with repugnant dictatorship in exchange for oil and political support.

  • Posted By: expatincebu @ 06/14/2009 6:12:03 AM

    Why does the US continue to coddle the dogs of Israel? This fake nation of thugs and murderers has done nothing but show US politicians will support whoever throws money at them.

  • Posted By: froy1100 @ 06/14/2009 5:37:22 AM

    May God (and the American doctors) preserve Olmert's health, so he can live long enough to stand before the International Criminal Court and answer for his war crimes.

    The doctors shouldn't worry about his ability to "function as a man", though. I'm afraid that murdering defenseless children is the only thing that turns him on.

  • Posted By: froy1100 @ 06/14/2009 5:30:51 AM

    "The Holy Basin of Jerusalem would be under no sovereignty at all and administered by a consortium of Saudis, Jordanians, Israelis, Palestinians and Americans."

    Which means that the West Bank lands East of Jerusalem and occupied by Israeli settlements (which account for around 10% of the total surface of Palestine) would remain in the settler's hands. No Palestinian leader would give up the strategically most important 10% of their country, that links Bethlehem and other important WB cities with Jerusalem, and sits on top of Palestine's main aquifer. That condition is a deal breaker, I'm afraid.

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