‘Convergence’ In Doubt On West Bank

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

TEL AVIV, Israel — Among the many casualties of Israel’s war with Hezbollah is the prime minister’s vision to draw the country’s final borders and withdraw Jewish settlements from the West Bank of the Jordan River.

Even leading members of Prime Minister Olmert’s Kadima Party are saying withdrawal plans are impossible after the rockets and missiles from Israel’s enemies this summer were launched from the territory its army evacuated.

Making matters worse, a recent internal government assessment leaked this week to the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz found a withdrawal would expose Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and the Ben Gurion Airport as targets for rocket attacks if the prime minister’s plan proceeded as initially planned next year.

Yesterday, a member of Kadima and key member of the panel that helped develop the strategy known here as “convergence” and “realignment,” Otniel Shneller, told The New York Sun he would not support an exit from the West Bank until the government could at least guarantee the long-term safety of the residents of Israel’s northern towns and cities. Most northern Israelis are returning to their homes this week after spending more than a month taking refuge from Hezbollah’s Katyusha rocket attacks in other parts of Israel.

“We have to wait,” Mr. Shneller said. “Right now we need to find a solution in the north of Israel. Until then, we cannot withdraw from the West Bank. We need to be sure first that Hezbollah will never fire a rocket against our citizens again.”

Mr. Shneller also said Israel and the West ultimately would have to defeat Islamic terrorism if his country is to return to discussions about withdrawing from the West Bank.

“We will get out of part of Samaria and we will find it is another front in another war,” he said. “Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, the airport, all the country will live under terror. We have to be sure we stop all the terror. Then we will negotiate about the land and the peace agreement.”

Those words mean a great deal here. Mr. Shneller is a settler himself, and a religious Jew who lives in Ma’aleh Michmash, in the part of the West Bank known as Samaria. In the 1980s he was the head of a council of settlers and represented their views in Jerusalem.

But like Prime Minister Sharon, the founder of the Kadima Party and author of the withdrawal from Gaza, Mr. Shneller came to the view that a unilateral disengagement from the West Bank would ultimately bring the Jewish state security and international legitimacy. He was a powerful symbol for a government that sought to ease the tensions of his fellow settlers that they were not being abandoned.

With the central plank of Mr. Olmert’s policy, disengagement, now looking a political impossibility, the prime minister now appears a lame duck leader of a deeply divided government.

In the wake of the U.N. cease-fire resolution that went into effect Monday morning, the prime minister’s Cabinet has become beset with scandals and recriminations.

This week, reports emerged that the chief of staff of the Israel Defense Force, Lieutenant General Dan Halutz, sold off a parcel of stocks soon after two of his soldiers were kidnapped by Hezbollah on July 12, the act that set into motion the war that just stopped.

Meanwhile, the Kadima chairman of the Knesset’s foreign affairs and defense committee, Tzachi Hanegbi, is set to be indicted this week on charges of bribery.

Mr. Olmert’s transportation minister, Shaul Mofaz, was stopped in his car by police last week for reckless driving. And on Tuesday, Israel’s attorney general began a process that will likely lead to charges against the country’s justice minister for sexual harassment.

A senior reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Gil Hoffman, said yesterday that the scandal surrounding General Halutz “is the best news Olmert could get. Before that, people were talking about Olmert. The polls showed how far he fell. This distraction is wonderful.”

But he cautioned that, as the scandal passes, Mr. Olmert will have to start answering some profound questions about where the country is now heading.

Yesterday, the Knesset formally announced an inquiry into the handling of the war effort, which, according to recent polling, only 30% of Israelis believe their country won.


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