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

Kadima's expulsion plan unmasked

Olmert says Road Map dead, Israel must retreat


By Ryan Jones
March 05, 2006

Israeli acting-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert sees Hamas' recent take over of the Palestinian Authority as the final nail in the coffin of the United States-backed Road Map peace plan, and believes as a result Israel must run for the hills (or in its case, for the indefensible coastal plain).

If, as current polls predict, Olmert is installed as Israel's official leader following this month's general election, he will immediately seek international (American) backing for a sweeping unilateral withdrawal from Judea and Samaria that will dwarf the one carried out by his predecessor, Ariel Sharon, in northern Samaria and the Gaza Strip.

As detailed by top Kadima candidate Avi Dichter to an Israeli audience Saturday evening, Olmert's "disengagement" will see 90 percent of all Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria reduced to rubble and their populations - numbering somewhere in the neighborhood of 90,000 persons - relocated to "Israel proper."

A large portion of the 5,000 Jews expelled from Gaza and northern Samaria last year continue to live devoid of permanent housing and steady employment. With that disengagement now a distant memory, the refugees' plight has been largely forgotten by the majority of their countrymen.

But the resulting trauma to a few uprooted "settlers" is as unlikely to deter Washington as it has Olmert and his circle.

According to top US political commentators, the Bush Administration is altering its thinking regarding the Israeli-Arab conflict, and is expected to put its full weight behind a large-scale Israeli withdrawal as a means of somehow correcting the mistake of backing unrestricted elections in the PA - which opened the door for Hamas' landslide victory.

In return for the pullout, senior political sources told Ha'aretz Jerusalem will ask Washington to officially recognize the retreat lines as Israel's new permanent borders, irreversibly severing key areas of the Jews' biblical homeland from the modern State of Israel.

Some of the more recognizable communities slated for removal include:

  • Shiloh - home to the Ark of the Covenant for over 400 years and de facto capital of Israel during the time of the Judges (Judges 18; I Samuel 4)

  • Elon Moreh - site where God met with Abraham to show him the land his descendents would inherit (Genesis 12:6-7)

  • Tekoa - home to the Prophet Amos (Amos 1:1)

  • Maon - home of David's wife Abigail (I Samuel 25)

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