Posted on 05/02/2004 12:36:18 PM PDT by yonif
Or so it would appear. However, this is how a military eye would look at map.
Ideally, of course, the map of Israel would include all of Gaza so that only a short southern border is exposed to the enemy. However, that would be ideal if only Israeli Jews lived in Gaza.
If Israel annexes Gaza, Israel would have to either incorporate over one million deadly enemies as Israeli citizens or cease being a democracy and set up a system where only Jews have citizenship rights and then keep the Gaza Palestinians confined to Gaza ghettos.
The former option would be suicide for Israel. (Israel simply can't afford to give over one million potential suicide bombers citizenship rights to freely move around the country or vote Israel out of existance) The latter option would undermine Israel's moral standing to the point where even the U.S. Government would have a hard time justifying it's support for Israel.
The third opition, a complete ethnic cleansing of Gaza, would be even more objectionble in world public opinion.
So, unless the ethnic cleansing option is exercised, we are left with the fact that Gaza would remain an enemy salient into Israel regardless of whether Israel has sovereignty over it or not. The fact remains that Isreal still has to defend the full length of the Gaza border.
So, you give Gaza back to Egypt or let the Palestinians make a mini-state.........Would an Arab Army use it as a launching site for an attack on Israel?
If I were an Israeli General I would surely hope that they would try.
I have talked about the military vulnerability of salients and Gaza is a classic salient.
Any Arab Army massing in Gaza would be massing in it's own grave as it would be surrounded to the north and east by the Israli Army and the Israeli Navy would control it's western shoreline. An Israeli sweep towards the south would close the neck of the salient and whatever Arab Army was in Gaza would be completely surrounded and without any room to maneuver. It would be annihilated.
Militarily, the Gaza Salient may look as if it were "an increase in the size of Israel's border to defend against the Arab enemy".
In reality, the Gaza Salient would be a giant Roach Motel for any Arab Army foolish enough to venture into it.
So, now you have a totally Palestinian Gaza on one side of the fence and all Israeli Jews on the Israeli side of the fence. Immediately, the "fence" must evolve into a Guantanamo or a Korean DMZ class defensive border.
Clean break. Palestinians on one side, Israelis on the other side. No suicide guest workers going back and forth. Israeli do their own low skill jobs or fly in peaceful Mexicans to do them.
Then everybody leaves everybody else alone.
In theory.
Which, of course, won't happen.
The Palestinians will attack with rockets across the border. However, now this is not merely an attack by people within Israeli occupied territory. It is an attack from a foreign entity and an act of war. At that time, the Israeli Air Force and artillery will have to vigorously respond. Also an act of war.
If the attacks persist, Israel can tell the world, "We are being attacked by a foreign entiy and this war. Not a Police action, but war."
Israel then goes in and complete pulverizes Gaza City's infrastructure from power plants to water treatment plants to every Palestinian Government building of value.
Israel then declares victory and retires again to the Israeli side of the Wall.
The U.N. can clean up and re-build Gaza. It's not Israel's problem anymore what happens to the Palestinians in Gaza.
If attacks resume, the Israelis declares war again and pounds them again.
The Gaza Palestinians will either have to control themselves or learn to live in a pile of rubble without power or water or.......leave Gaza.
2. How does Israel gain by removing Jews from northern "West Bank"?
3. Even if attacks continue after, Israel will not invade Gaza, just like it isn't invading Lebanon as attacks are continuing now that Israel is no longer in southern Lebanon.
4. And also, this plan does not call for separation. Israel continues, for one, to allow Arabs to come into Israel from Gaza.
But yonif, the reason that the Palestenians in Gaza and the West Bank have no political rights is because those lands are not legally "Israel" and it's inhabitants are not Israeli citizens.
It's a Guantanamo situation where the "detainees" have no U.S. legal rights because, legally, they are not on U.S. soil.
If Israel annexes those lands, then that land becomes legally "Israel" and it's inhabitants would legally become entitled to be "Iraeli" citizens.
As Israli citizens, they would have the legal right to travel about Israel as they pleased. Let's forget about them voting Israel out of existence for the moment and imagine a few million suicide bombing fanatics with Israeli citizenship rights.
Simply giving the Palestinians "autonomy" is not an answer. In post-Franco Spain, non-Castilian regions such as Catalonia, Galicia and the Basque region have local "autonomy" which means they run their own affairs without Madrid directly ruling them as it did before. However, a citizan of the autonomous region of Catalonia is pefectly free to vote in national elections or travel anywhere around the country he pleases.
The system you are describing where a people live in a land where a certain state is sovereign but they have no voting rights in that state or freedom to travel about that state is not "local autonomy" as the term is understood in the 21st Century.
It is simply the Old East European Jewish Ghetto system.
In the U.S., even Blacks during Jim Crow days did not have it that bad. Even if a Black was not allow to vote by hook or by crook, a Black still had the freedom to travel to any city in America he pleased without passing a military checkpoint.
In the 21st Century, you simply can't have a system such as that and expect to be able to retain U.S. support let alone support from any other country in the world.
Annexation of the entire west Bank and Gaza legally means Israeli citizenship for Gaza and West Bank Palestinians.
Palestinian citizenship for those fanatics means national suicide for Israel.
Setting up an Old East European Jewish Ghetto system with Palestinians now playing the role of Jews and the Jews playing the role of the Russian Orthodox would devastate Israel's moral standing in the U.S. not to mention the rest of the world.
Moral standing translates into U.S. military aid and that, in turn translates into survival.
Legally, if 7,000 citizens of Sovereign A settle in the land of Soverein B, then they come under the legal jurisdiction of Sovereign B unless there is a treaty such as Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), (which the U.S. has with the countries it stations troops in) which defines the legal rights of the citizens of Sovereign A when they live in the territory of Sovereign B.
Otherwise, under international law, when you move into the territory of Sovereign B, you live under the law and under the police power of Sovereign B.
That's legally.
Militarilly, I have already discussed the advisibility of totally separating the two populations.
2. How does Israel gain by removing Jews from northern "West Bank"?
If that area is vital to Isrrael's defensible borders, I have said that Israel should consider annexing what land it needs........as long as Israel can achieve the goal of having Israelis on one side of the Wall and the Palestinians on the opposite side of the Wall.
A "Dalmation Map" would be a source of never-ending conflict and should be avoided.
3. Even if attacks continue after, Israel will not invade Gaza, just like it isn't invading Lebanon as attacks are continuing now that Israel is no longer in southern Lebanon.
If invaded, Lebanon would be a tar baby because of it's large size. It would also be an Israeli salient and it's conquest is therefore not militarily desirable.
Gaza, however, as I pointed out before, is an Arab salient, and a very small one at that. Militarily, Gaza can be whipped like a red-headed stepchild relatively easily.
If Israel won't invade Gaza, then maybe Israel should reconsider that position.
4. And also, this plan does not call for separation. Israel continues, for one, to allow Arabs to come into Israel from Gaza.
Yes, but the Polybius Plan does.
So, when I run for Israeli Prime Minister I hope I can count on your vote. ;-)
Legally, that won't fly under international law.
That is simply a description of the South African system of Apartheid where the Blacks were confined to their small enclaves called "homelands" which the South African Government declared to be "independent states".
It would be analogous to annexing Hawaii and then declaring that the native Hawaiians were actually citizens of Polynesia who could stay in guarded communities but were not American citizens, could not vote and could not travel outside of their communities to "American" areas of Hawaii.
In the 1800's, such a system would have been acceptable and such a system was, in fact, instituted in the American West where the American Indians were locked up in Reservartion and told to stay in them When Indians tribes would leave the Reservation, the U.S. Army would hunt them down and either secure their return to the Reservation or engage them in battle.
You just can't do that in the 21st Century.
Israel would literally become an international parriah without even the U.S. by it's side.
The current status quo is possible precisely because Israel is legally an "Occupying Power" rather than a "Soivereign Power".
Yes, we can.
The key to peace in Israel will be the physical separation of the two populations. That means no Gaza workers going back and forth into Israel and no Israelis living in Gaza.
Sharon is getting the Israelis back on the Israeli side but he still needs to address the issue of keeing the Palestinians on the Palestinian side.
Good fences makes good neighbors......or at least they make it harder for neighbors who hate each other to kill each other.
The key to that plan is co-operation with Jordan.
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"4. Israeli sovereignty will be asserted over Judea, Samaria and Gaza (the West Bank). The Arab residents of these areas will become citizens of the Palestinian state in Jordan. The status of these citizens, their connection to the two states and the manner of administration of their communal lives will be decided in an agreement between the governments of Israel and Jordan (Palestine)."
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The questions I see include:
Has Jordan agreed to accept the Palestinians as citizens? (Nobody wants the Palestinians as citizens.)
Would Jordan allow a situation where it accepts individuals as Jordanians citizens and then agree to lay no claim to the land where those citizens were born? (Loss of face issue.)
Would Jordan agree to keep it's own citizens within certain settlements in Israel or would it insist that it's citizens have as much freedom as a Jordanian tourist in the U.S.A. (Again, loss of face issue for Jordan. Crazy Palestinians roaming Israel problem for Israel.)
If you note, the following clause.....
"The status of these citizens, their connection to the two states and the manner of administration of their communal lives will be decided in an agreement between the governments of Israel and Jordan (Palestine)"
..........would be the civilian equavalent of the military SOFA Treaties I mentioned before.
As long as you have a status agreement with Jordan, it will fly under internastional law.......with one caveat.
In regards to military SOFA Treaties the American troops and their families covered by those treaties are not waging war to claim sovereignty over German land or Japanese land. The Palestinians, however, are waging war to claim sovereingty over the West Bank and Gaza and all of Israel for that matter.
They have been raised in that ideology since 1948.
The last question would therefore be, "Would the Palestinians agree to be Jordanian citizens and give up their dream of sovereignty over the West Bank, Gaza or even Israel?" (If not, the Palestinians will simply wage war against both Israel and Jordan and the rest of the Arab world would side with them along with Europe and the Third World.)
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2. Israel will uproot the Palestinian terror infrastructure. All arms will be collected, incitement will be stopped and all the refugee camps, which serve as incubators for terror, will be dismantled. Terrorists and their direct supporters will be deported.
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That's a pretty tall order.
It could be done if Jordan is a player.
So, the bottom line is: What has Jordan said about the Elon Peace Plan?
Without Jordan's approval, the Elon Peace Plan is still-born.
Who gets removed from their homes would depend where the Wall is built.
If Israel annexes some areas of the West Bank to make the border more defensible, an Arab would then be removed from his home to be put on the east side of the Wall.
Again, my goal would be Israelis on one side of the Wall and Palestinians on the opposite side.
If your home is on the wrong side, you move.
In diplomacy, most of the work is done behind the scenes before anyone ever hears about it. By the time things are announced, the plan has pretty much been ironed out and then the Big Shots show up for the "Summit" to get their pictures taken signing what had already been decided.
This plan, if it is a serious plan, needs to be discussed by back-door channels directly with Jordan. If Jordan is interested, it has a chance. If Jordan is not interested, ten years of debate about it in the Knesset will serve no purpose.
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