With the Israeli move to isolate the Jordan valley and ban 2 Million West Bank Palestinians from entering one third of the total area of the West bank, the Israeli plan for the final solution is taking a much more clear shape than ever.
If this step is combined with the new Israeli officials’ statements on the need for the new Knesset, which will be elected on march, to define the final borders of Israel, one can’t but conclude that Israeli officials are convinced that establishing an apartheid system confined inside Israel to isolate Palestinians and keep them under Israeli control is the solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
On January 6, in an article titled "Sharon; the myth and the truth" published by IMEMC, I wrote:
"Sharon is the Israeli leader who managed to bury the U.S. president’s vision of a two state solution and replace it, with the consent of the later, with a ghettoized entity contained inside the state of Israel."
With the above mentioned steps taken, this conclusion concerning Israeli strategic plans are proven to be more close to reality.
Not only Israel is speeding up steps to create the required realities on ground to enforce its plan, but also has a strong interest to block any move towards the resumption of talks with Palestinians. The diplomatic boycott of the Palestinian Authority was in effect way before Hamas arrived to power.
The U.S. Administration encouraged Israel to move along this path through providing Sharon with the "letter of assurances", which eliminated the reference to international legitimacy and allowed Israel to believe that it will enjoy international acceptance and backing to its unilateral steps.
Providing Israel with an official document, which clearly replace "the inadmissibility of taking over land by force" with "the marking of final borders needs to take into consideration new demographic realities" and the elimination of UN resolution 194 by stating that refugees could only return to future Palestinian Authority areas has ended any Israeli interest in negotiations and triggered unilateralism.
The diplomatic process is not blocked due to security, but more due to providing Israel with an alternative "unilateralism", which allows it to avoid negotiating the core issues of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and due to leading Israel to believe that unilateral steps in harmony with its "national interests" that fully ignores "Palestinian national interests" is likely to be recognized and legitimized by the international community.
Palestinians kept hearing about a peace process but only seeing war, obstruction and destruction. They kept seeing their landscape slipping away and hearing about Bush’s vision of a Palestinian viable state.
A friend of mine went looking for a doctor who specializes in eye and ear deceases but was told that you can only find a specialist in either. He insisted on his demand explaining that his problem can be summarized by the following:
"I don’t see what I hear, and I don’t hear what I see"
This is exactly why Palestinians voted to treat both their ears and eyes, they voted for Dr. Hamas.
