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By Ted Belman
October 9, 2005
Discussions are taking place now regarding a land link between Gaza and the West bank.
No where in the political or journalistic discourse is there any discussion of whether Israel should provide such a link.
No country in the world has granted such a right of passage to any other country. There is simply no obligation to do so. Were any such country to do so, it would exact a heavy price as compensation.
The expectation for such a link comes from the Roadmap which requires the future state of Palestine to be "contiguous". It is inconceivable why Israel accepted this requirement at all, let alone without compensation. If that wasn't enough, the Roadmap also added that "Palestine," when created, be "viable" -- once again, without compensation to Israel and at the expense of its own security and viability.
In a normal situation, Israel would not have accepted these demands other then in final status negotiations and then only with exacting major concessions in return. Without such concessions by Israel, Palestine would be still born or at least a perpetual basket case.
In my article Making a Silk Purse out of a Sow's Ear I noted that
Israel is ... prevented from arguing that Palestine should not be created because it would not be viable and thus would not be a good or workable solution. Israel is being forced to make it viable at its own expense and peril. This includes sharing water supplies, hiring Palestinian workers, ceding sufficient land so that the state is contiguous and enabling some kind of passageway to Gaza. In addition it includes ceding the Golan, the Jordan Rift and the Philidelphi Corridor. Israel is also being forced to agree that Palestine be fully sovereign, thus allowing it to have control of its borders and airspace.
In my article "Viable state" trumps "secure borders" I wrote that
if you step back and view events since the failure of the Camp David talks, the State Department has been engineering a substitute for the failed offer together with Saudi Arabia and the EU. It accepted the position of the Arabs that the offer was not enough and more had to be offered. First came the Saudi Peace Plan which had America's blessing in advance of its release and the Plan was then enshrined in the Roadmap with the added idea that there must be a settlement freeze. The US continues to value Saudi Arabia as its indispensable ally. Diplomatically Saudi Arabia supported the invasion of Iraq and the demanded that Syria gets out of Lebanon. In exchange, the US has accepted the Saudi Plan and is committed to getting Israel out of Yesha.
Furthermore, even the Roadmap does not require such a land link before the creation of a Palestinian state which itself is conditioned on an end to violence and incitement. Why it is in Israel's interest to even discuss such a link before "final status negotiation" much less provide it, is beyond me.
Obviously it has been ordained by the State Department and imposed on Israel that Palestine be created at the expense of Israel. This is such a huge concession on the part of Israel, that I wonder what threats were made that obtained her compliance.
Friends of Israel should recognize reality here. Israel is merely going through the motions of negotiating and agreeing or disagreeing while the reality is that the outcome has been predetermined and forced on Israel.
Israel has no obligation morally or legally to provide Arabs with work or electricity or land links. To deny these things to the Arabs would be an act of self defense. But as we know, Israel isn't allowed this right either.
Views expressed by the author do not
necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
 
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