ALL OR NOTHING ON THE FENCE

So Sharon has finally made up his mind - Ariel (and the far less publicized, but far more problematic Kedumim) are going to be on the Israeli side of the fence. This decision pretty much destroys the remaining shred of credibility to the fiction that the fence route is not the preliminary determination of Israel's permanent borders with a Palestinian (or Palestinian-Jordanian) state. Ariel, the largest settlement outside of the Jeruasalem suburbs was slated to remain part of Israel under any of the realistic final status proposals. To require Israel to cede it at this point would be a perverse reward for Palestinian terror and rejectionism. That, however, was precisely what the State Department, with its plan to link the loan guarentees to the route of the fence was seeking.

Its not the State Department's stated goal in wielding the fiscal threat - preventing the fence from carving out boundaries that prevent a contiguous, viable Palestinian entity - that's the problem. It is the blatant falsehood that any annexation of the West Bank is tantamount to such a result. It is the delusion that all settlements are equal - that Ariel is somehow the same as the hilltop settlements that lie on the roads betwen Nablus and Ramallah, or in the heart of Hebron. And so with their fetishization of the Green Line, the Peace Processors of Foggy Bottom fall into the same All or Nothing mentality of the most radical settlers.
There will be no negotiated solution any time in the near future. The best anyone who hopes for a long-term peace can do is to support a unilateral seperation that makes the most sense. If the Peace Processors feel a need to pressure Israel, they should apply pressure for the dismantling of Netzarim and Elon Moreh.

On a positive note, the Sharon government has altered the route of the fence near Jerusalem so as not to bisect Al Quds university. The decision to correct the bone-headed decision came as a result of pressure applied by non-violent protests by Al Quds students and faculty. Non-violent protest by Palestinians...a truly novel idea.