Kadima's big plans for Israel

By Martin Asser
BBC News website

Kadima was founded on the premise that Israel's long-term survival depends on safeguarding its Jewish majority and preventing Palestinian Arabs becoming the majority at any time in the future.

Demography was the motivation for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's withdrawal of troops and settlers from the Gaza Strip last year and Kadima's election pledge to make future "territorial compromises" in the West Bank.

The idea is rejected by the former ruling party, Likud, which Mr Sharon was forced to split from to set up Kadima in November 2005.

But when Mr Sharon was incapacitated by a stroke in January he had not fully spelled out Kadima's intentions, so this job has fallen to his close advisers and his deputy, Ehud Olmert.

"In the coming period we will move to set the final borders of the state of Israel, a Jewish state with a Jewish majority," Mr Olmert told Kadima supporters in a televised speech on election night.

More at;
BBC News

Instead of getting the Arabs to leave or submit, the result was a demographic crisis; not enough Jewish immigrants and not enough Jewish children to balance the high reproductive rate of the Arabs. And his policies were and are horribly expensive both in financial an societal terms. The Kadima policy is defensive, trying to carve out and hold onto as much as possible, to construct a stable and secure base, in contrast with the aggressive and invasive policies of the past. How successful the change of emphasis will be remains to be seen, but it would be utter folly at this point not to make peace with the Palestinians in the most expeditious way.

My 2c.