Founding a binational state

[Classical_Liberal]

........The report about a tacit agreement being reached between Peace Now and Sharon's aides - Peace Now will suspend the "evacuate settlements, choose life" campaign so as not to harm public relations efforts for Sharon's separation plan - illustrates the profoundly confused state of public discourse. As the left sees it, the confinement of one and a half million persons in a huge holding pen fulfills the ideal of putting an end to the occupation, and furnishes some relief about how "we are not responsible."

Similarly, when, in South Africa, a failed attempt was made to solve demographic problems by creating "homelands for the blacks," liberals originally supported the idea, and even a portion of the international community viewed the measure as a step toward "decolonization." But after a short time it became clear that the ploy was designed to confer legitimacy to the expulsion of blacks, and their uprooting. The Bantustans collapsed, demands for civil equality intensified, and the world mobilized for the defeat of Apartheid.

The Bantustan model for Gaza, as depicted in the disengagement plan, is a model that Sharon plans to copy on the West Bank. His announcement that he will not start to disengage before construction on the fence is completed along a route that will include all settlement blocs (in keeping with Benjamin Netanyahu's demand), underscores the continuity of the Bantustan concept. The fence creates three Bantustans on the West Bank: first, Jenin-Nablus; second, Bethlehem-Hebron; and third, Ramallah. This is the real link between the Gaza and West Bank plans - the link is not what those politicians who will provide a "security net" for Sharon in a Knesset no confidence votes call "the precedent of the dismantling of settlements."

And thus, with breathtaking daring, Sharon submits a plan which appears to promise the existence of a "Jewish democratic state" via "separation," "the end of the conquest," the "dismantling of settlements" - and also the imprisonment of some three million Palestinians in Bantustans. This is an "interim plan" which is meant to last forever. The plan will last, however, only as long as the illusion that "separation" is a means to end the dispute is sustained........

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/418166.html