Israel Matzav: Netanyahu will offer 'Palestinians' less land

Netanyahu will offer 'Palestinians' less land

Here's another indication that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu understands that the offers made to the 'Palestinians' by Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert were suicidal and cannot be repeated.

The new settlement of Maskiot and the expansion of farmland are just two tangible signs of tension over the area. When Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad issued a two-year development plan, he said he wanted to place a Palestinian-controlled airport in the Jordan Valley, and he recently said that any state that does not include it would be "Mickey Mouse."

Israeli officials and others close to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu have been saying that the Jordan Valley should remain in Israeli hands, encircling any Palestinian state to the east and controlling the international border with Jordan -- steps needed, they say, to make sure militant groups don't infiltrate.

The Jordan Valley, which makes up about 25 percent of the West Bank, is almost entirely under Israeli control, with an electronic fence running the length of the eastern border facing Jordan.

It is an argument that recalls Israel's initial occupation of the West Bank after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, when the Labor Party government viewed the Jordan Valley as a security buffer against an Arab invasion and began authorizing the first settlements to create what was intended as a permanent Israeli presence.

For the last nine years, the world has tried to convince us that the 'solution' for our region is the 'Clinton parameters' or something similar. Those parameters would see Israel give up nearly all of Judea and Samaria, and 'compensate' the 'Palestinians' for any land retained by carving out parts of the area within the 1949 armistice lines. Prime Minister Netanyahu realizes that's not acceptable. The 1949 border is not acceptable.

Netanyahu also realizes that most Israeli Jews will back him if he insists on retaining the Jordan Valley and a whole lot of other land in Judea and Samaria. While 'survey after survey' has shown that most Israelis will accept a 'Palestinian state,' what neither the 'Palestinians' nor the West have ever understood is that if you go beyond the basic question of the existence of a 'Palestinian state' and get into specifics - Is the Jordan Valley included? Is Hebron included? Is 'east' Jerusalem included - most Israeli Jews will tell you no, we're keeping those because they are our heritage and they are a security necessity. Most Israelis have reached the point where we're not willing to go back to the 1967 lines, certainly not to give them to an enemy that has repeatedly refused generous offers to live in peace with us, and that has come back and continued to randomly slaughter us again and again. Most Israelis have realized that there have to be some consequences to starting wars against us again and again.

Most Israelis now recognize what the West cannot or will not: That when you say that you want a Jewish state of Israel within secure boundaries, and you want an independent 'Palestinian' state that's both viable and contiguous, you're stating a contradiction in terms. If the 'Palestinian' state is contiguous - particularly between the 'West Bank' and Gaza - Israel will not be. And if Israel is not contiguous, it will never be secure.

Israel won the 1967 war - a war that it did not start. Israel should not be penalized or threatened again by the results of 'peace.'

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Israel Matzav: Netanyahu will offer 'Palestinians' less land