According to global common knowledge, or conventional wisdom, Jewish ‘settlements’ in Judea and Samaria — the West Bank and Gaza — will have to be abandoned, and Jews transferred, voluntarily or forcibly, back to the new borders of the State of Israel.
The simple question, however, is Why?
Ethnic cleansing was condemned throughout the 1990’s. Bosnia’s power sharing government is a case in point. After the breakup of Yugoslavia and the war that followed, the EU, NATO and the U.S. did not help establish an exclusively Muslim state in Bosnia, but a state where Croats and Serbs were included. The 4th Geneva Convention, meant to protect residents from forced expulsion, was adopted after World War II with the Holocaust in mind. How could the U.S. or the Europeans even think of making parts of the historic Jewish homeland Judenrein?
If the Palestinian state-in-the-making is to claim the mantle of democracy, there would be no better test of its tolerance of minorities than asking that it grant citizenship to those Jews who would choose to remain in their towns, villages, and homes in Judea and Samaria.
Unless it pronounces itself ready to extend full and equal rights and privileges to Jews in Palestine — which would include the possibility of Jews being elected to parliament and serving in the Palestinian government (rights enjoyed by the Arab citizens of Israel) — democracy and peace are just empty expressions in the mouths of Abu Mazen and his cohorts.
So what will be?
Will we stop hearing calls for the closing down of Jewish ‘settlements’ — in reality thriving Jewish cities, towns and villages — as detailed in the road map?
Will we stop hearing demands for the expulsion of several hundred thousand Jews from their homes?
Or will we have confirmation of what so many of us strongly suspect? Namely, that when it comes to the Middle East, ‘regime change’ and ‘democracy’ are just empty slogans, bereft of any and all meaning.
