U.S. funds for a controversial settlement pullback could help advance a peace agreement.
By Gershom Gorenberg
GERSHOM GORENBERG is the author of "The Accidental Empire: Israel and the Birth of the Settlements, 1967-1977."
May 22, 2006
A VISIT BY A newly installed Israeli prime minister to the White House is nearly ritual, like a vassal king arriving for confirmation of his coronation. But when Prime Minister Ehud Olmert arrives in Washington this week, he also has some specific business to transact. After a long and not terribly passionate career in politics, he has arrived at a grand belief, and he wants American support — including American cash — to carry it out.
Olmert's belief is that to remain a Jewish state, Israel cannot continue ruling over the Palestinians of the occupied West Bank. This is an old idea, but Olmert, a lifetime hard-liner, is a new and eager convert; he wants to act quickly. He would have Israel pull out of most of the West Bank, evacuating a third of the 250,000 settlers there. A dramatic move, to be sure, and one that will stir up plenty of controversy at home.
His conversion, though, goes just so far. He plans to keep the remaining settlements, which are close to Israel's pre-1967 border, and to annex the parts of the West Bank where they stand. Some of the evacuated Israelis could be given new homes in the remaining settlements.
Because even moderate Palestinians are certain to reject this (and moderates are not in charge now anyway), Olmert expects to act unilaterally. Peace and Palestinian independence can wait; his priority is to reshape Israel's borders. To help relocate settlers — an operation that could cost from $10 billion to $50 billion, according to media guesstimates — Olmert says he will ask the U.S. for funds.
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