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Settlements, Palestinian Rocket Fire, and the Search for Peace

[National Post-Canada] Editorial - Opinions about the status of Israeli settlements in the West Bank under international law are more varied than the pro-Palestinian segment of the press would lead you to believe. There has, of course, been no final settlement of borders between Israel and the future Palestinian state; the Palestinian parties have always found a way to sabotage any such deal. The essential precondition for firming up a set of mutually tenable borders is for Palestinians to settle their civil war and choose a government that is permanently committed to renouncing terror. They have, essentially, been paid hundreds of millions of dollars by the West to help this part of the process along; so far, the money has accomplished little. In 2005, Israel demonstrated in the Gaza Strip, to what ought to be anyone's satisfaction, that it is willing to dismantle Jewish settlements in disputed territories to achieve peace. In Gush Katif, it evacuated a particularly successful community in a place that has had Jewish demographic representation since antiquity, and turned a cutting-edge economic infrastructure over to Palestinian authority - only to see that infrastructure demolished in triumphalist rioting, and to be rewarded with rocket fire on nearby Israeli towns. Why, when every step Israel takes toward peace is met with increasing pressure from Palestinian elements who hope to annihilate it, should it be stricter about suppressing overly adventurous Jewish settlers than Palestine has ever been about respecting Israeli sovereignty over Israel? When rocket attacks and cross-border raids are answered by the quiet, stubborn construction of houses and farms, it won't do for third parties to forget the rockets and denounce the farms as "illegal."
2009-05-27 06:00:00
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