Israel Shaping the Borders

NYT reports They're building away here in Israel's largest settlement, with Palestinian workers laboring on new apartment houses overlooking the red-brown hills of the West Bank. Israel's intentions to keep building next to this suburb about three miles from Jerusalem have set off a small furor with the Bush administration, which is putting pressure on Israel to keep a commitment to freeze settlement growth.

They are moving 9,000 settlers out of the Gaza strip; they need some place to put them.

But the construction and planning at Maale Adumim and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to pull 9,000 Israeli settlers out of the Gaza Strip this summer are only parts of a far larger and more complex transformation of the Israeli-Palestinian landscape, and of Mr. Sharon's policies themselves. In effect, Israel under Mr. Sharon is unilaterally moving to define its future borders with a Palestinian state - with the scheduled withdrawal from Gaza and from four small settlements in the northern West Bank, with the "thickening" of settlements near Jerusalem and the Israeli border, and with a new route for the Israeli separation barrier approved by the cabinet on Feb. 20.

Good for him

Palestinians are furious that Israel is moving without waiting for negotiations.

The Palestinian's first job in the Road Map is to disarm the terrorists. If they would get that job finished, then they could participate in the boundary discussions.

Aaron @LiquidList blogged From this morning's New York Times comes an interesting article about the real story over settlements and pullouts in the West Bank and Gaza. Could it be that to make process, negotiations sometimes aren't the best way to go? But there's more, actually. Because under current plans not being discussed but being acted on, Israel would end up with eight percent of the West Bank, with 74 percent of the settlers. The future Palestinian state would end up with 92 percent of the West Bank (and Gaza) and 99.5 percent of its population would live outside the Israeli barrier. And make no mistake, removing the 26 percent of settlers left in Palestinian territory won't be an easy task, political or otherwise. Sharon has ably set aside political squabbles in Israel over pullouts because of his party affiliation. Negotiation from strength has long been the mantra of those desiring a longterm solution. Labor or a left-leaning coalition couldn't pull it off, but Likud could, and nobody more qualified than the former settlement champion. The real sticking points of negotiations are nominally the borders, currently being unilaterally drawn by Israel, and the right-of-return for Palestinians. Sure, the Palestinians would like a halt to settlement construction, but that's tied-in to the border issue. The Palestinians have long hoped to trade the right-of-return for compensation and an upper hand in border negotiations. Mr. Sharon seems to have settled the matter.

David Gerstman blogged Steven Erlanger presents a reasonably fair look at PM Sharon's plan. This presents Sharon's plan, not in the hysterical terms of the Washington Post. but as a huge change for Israel's Prime Minister.
For visuals see "The New Route." Though the Times won't say so, it also appears to be a victory for terror as the Palestinians, before final status talks, will get almost as much as they'd have gotten 4 1/2 years ago before they launched their popular war against Israel.