Israel's clear-cut policy

The Israeli government has met Hamas's election win with confusion but its policy toward the
Palestinians is clear, writes Graham Usher

2 - 8 March 2006

Last weekend two surprising events happened in Israel. The first was the release of the latest batch of opinion polls on the Israeli elections on 28 March. Like their predecessors, they showed Ariel Sharon's Kadima Party winning about 40 seats in the 120-member parliament, with Amir Peretz's Labour Party taking around 20 and Binyamin Netanyahu's Likud Party even less. The second was that Israel's prime minister, Ariel Sharon, spent his 78th birthday comatose in a West Jerusalem hospital, "his condition unchanged", said doctors. Israel's acting Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, wished him a full recovery at the weekly cabinet meeting.

The surprise was both events passed with barely a murmur in the Israeli media. Nearly two months since Sharon was stricken by a stroke Israelis are already well into the post- Sharon era. And one month before the polls most Israelis see the result as a foregone conclusion. Rarely has an Israeli election campaign been quite so dull. Israeli politics rather is still in the thrall of Hamas's victory in the Palestinian elections and what impact it will have, not so much on the campaign (which so far has been minimal), than in what will be Israel's policy toward the Islamist government thereafter.

>snip

But the confusion is only apparent. In fact Israel has a well honed strategy for the future. It was being implemented long before Hamas came to office and will continue regardless of whether it stays there, falls or even submits to the "three conditions". It was authored by Sharon and propounded by Olmert. They called it "separation" but it boils down to Israel's final, unilateral determination of its borders.

There are three planks. The first is to complete construction of the West Bank wall, which -- if the current route is adhered to -- will incorporate 10 per cent of the West Bank, including "Greater Jerusalem", into Israel. The second is to ethnically cleanse the Jordan Valley of its Palestinian residents so that it, too, will become "effectively annexed" to Israel. The third is the effect a permanent severance between the West Bank and Gaza, with the latter becoming the de facto Palestinian "state" with the life support courtesy of its crossing into Egypt. All three of these policies are well advanced, and were so before the 25 January Palestinian Authority elections.

More at;
Al-Ahram

except the Bush administration and our own Congressional politicians. Do they really not know, or are they just turning a blind eye?

Of course, they prefer not to spend much time thinking about it, or - heaven forfend - having to talk about it.