Israel going for one million Jews in the West Bank

[Jefferson23]

Despite his disappointing results at the ballot box, Netanyahu has successfully leveraged his negotiating position to create a right-wing government that is outwardly aggressive and inwardly nationalistic.

By Aluf Benn | Mar.11, 2013 | 3:35 AM



The election campaign season comes to its real conclusion this week with the formation of the government and an unadulterated victory for the right. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recovered from the blow he took at the ballot box and managed to extract the maximum out of the coalition negotiations he conducted with Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid and Habayit Hayehudi head Naftali Bennett. The old fox schooled the political greenhorns.

Netanyahu began the negotiations after a month of futile idling that was meant to weaken his partners' negotiating positions: the highly publicized tiff with Bennett, the crocodile tears over separating from his Haredi former coalition partners, the offer of the Finance Ministry to Labor Party leader Shelly Yacimovich and the promise of renewed talks with the Palestinians to Hatnuah leader Tzipi Livni. When all the political spin had settled, the dice came out in Netanyahu's favor: Foreign and defense policy will remain in the hands of Likud-Yisrael Beiteinu, Lapid has been kicked over to the Finance Ministry and Habayit Hayehudi will be a junior coalition partner.

The coalition negotiations were characterized by an excessive preoccupation with minor distractions like the hatred for Sara Netanyahu, the number of ministers in the new government or the production of a Lapid victory photo without Haredim. Substantive topics like foreign or defense policies were pushed aside in the discussions, except for Netanyahu's weekly warning about the Iranian nuclear threat and the dangerous situation in Syria. Even economic policy was pushed aside to the margins, if it was discussed at all.

snip* Now the game has ended and real life will begin. The third Netanyahu government has one clear goal: enlarging the settlements and achieving the vision of "a million Jews living in Judea and Samaria." This magic number will thwart the division of the land and prevent once and for all the establishment of a Palestinian state. The defense, and housing and construction ministries that are relevant to this issue will be given to Likud MK Moshe Ya'alon and Habayit Hayehudi MK Uri Ariel. They won't be assuming these positions in order to freeze settlement construction, but rather to implement the Levy report which determined that Israel was not legally-speaking an occupying power in the West Bank and the Habayit Hayehudi platform; or in other words, to gradually absorb the West Bank into Israel.

in full: http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/israel-going-for-one-million-jews-in-the-west-bank.premium-1.508510

[oberliner]

1. How many Jews should be allowed to live there?

If there ends up being a secular, democratic one-state solution, presumably a million plus Jews living in the West Bank wouldn't be a problem, right?

I wonder what would happen if it was all one big happy country.

[delrem]

2. Perhaps you should read your own postings re. a "one state solution".

But to answer your question, what would happen if it was all one big happy country, is that it would be all one big happy country.

[Jefferson23]

3. Since Israel's government does not accept international law that the West Bank

settlements are illegal, why do you think they do not pursue this and present their
legal case for it.

[oberliner]

4. Right

But my question is:

If there is a one-state, secular, democratic state, could Jews live in the West Bank in unrestricted numbers?

[Jefferson23]

5. Right, what?

You're putting the cart before the horse, oberliner.

Your hypothetical appears to presume that one state would define itself as justifying all territory
staked out as it is now by settlements. I wouldn't presume that, if I were you.

[delrem]

6. No shit.

Especially since such an imaginary state is counterfactual to the very raison d'etre of oberliner's arguments re. the existence of Israel as a Jewish state --- arguments which deny the possibility of Israel acknowledging Palestinian RoR for demographic reasons, that acknowledging such a right threatens the existence of Israel.

So I dunno wtf oberliner is trying to get at here, but whatever it is, it seems to requires a little bit of self-reflection on the nature of his question.

[Jefferson23]

7. I would think so, you're quite right. n/t