Subscribe to our daily e-mail newsletter

E-mail:

Israel News Feed Or subscribe to our RSS feed | What is RSS?
Israel News from Jerusalem Newswire
Peace Process

Shock announcement: Olmert still determined to 'realign'


By Stan Goodenough
November 12, 2006

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, en route this week for a meeting with US President George W. Bush in Washington DC, announced Friday his intention to, after all, implement the ?re-alignment plan? that will facilitate the creation of a State of Palestine on ancient Jewish lands.

News outlets in Israel all carried the story Sunday: Although he had earlier let it be known that he was no longer able to implement the platform on which he was elected to the premiership at the head of his Kadima Party last March, Olmert has now revealed that he is in fact still determined to try and carry it out.

?Realignment? calls for the uprooting of as many as 100,000 Jews from their homes in Samaria and Judea ? the biblical heart of the Jewish homeland ? and the surrender for all time of that territory to the rabidly antisemitic Palestinian Arabs.

It is not known whether the reason for Olmert?s return to his plan is at least partially because of the hammering the Republicans received at the hands of the American electorate last week.

The results of those mid-term elections have, according to many pundits, signaled Israel that the USA will from now on expect more concessions from Israel, and a greater willingness for the Jewish state to take ?risks for peace.?

Whatever the motivation, Olmert?s announced intention to move ahead with his plan comes despite the painful facts:

  • That Israel?s withdrawals from southern Lebanon led directly to the painful war Israel fought in July, when the Lebanese Hizb?allah kidnapped Israeli soldiers and poured rocket fire down on northern Israel for weeks on end.

  • That Israel?s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in August 2005 led directly to the establishment of the un-police-able terrorist mini-state whose killers kidnapped an Israeli soldier and from which multiple rockets are launched daily at Jewish civilian targets in the south of the country.

  • That popular support has swung strongly away from the realignment plan and from the Kadima Party, with polls showing consistently that by far most Israelis have woken up to the folly of pursuing disengagements from the Arabs.

  • That relinquishing Samaria and Judea would cede to the Arabs the high-ground overlooking Israel?s densely-populated coastal plain, in easy rocket-range from the Palestinian state that would be established

  • That Iran is a mushrooming threat with its Hitler-like leadership which is already sponsoring proxy forces north and south of Israel, and whose regional Islamic interests will be further served by Palestine

And, most significantly:

  • That the land Olmert believes he has the right to barter away is Israel?s national cradle. It was the hope of return to these very areas ? Shechem, Shiloh, Bethel, Bethlehem, Hebron, and the Old City in Jerusalem with its Temple Mount, the holiest site for the Jews ? that kept Jewish identity, hope and faith alive during their centuries in exile.

Olmert?s plan imperils Israel on every front.

  • It will play straight into the hands of the Arabs, multiplying and accelerating the militarily threat against the Jews

  • It will tear even more deeply at the national divide, driving those Jews who can see the existential threat it poses to acts of desperation to resist it

  • It will sever Israel from its national roots.

For Israel, realignment spells national suicide.

This is the offering Olmert is preparing to present at the White House Monday.

Like the article?
Help spread the word:
Jnewswire updates
Never miss another story
  • Inbox already too full?
    Subscribe to our
    RSS feed instead!