Rabbi Avi Weiss and others have organized small grass roots protests, but even as numerous “antiwar” rallies have been organized, all of which contain shockingly anti-Israel posters and invective, no counter-rally has been planned.
Enough is enough. As the Palestinian terror campaign is about to enter its fifth year and the world’s animus toward Israel becomes more ominous, one wonders how much longer we have to wait before expressing our commitment to Israel and indignation over the European reversion to hatred of Jews and Israel.
It’s time for another mass rally, this time at, and in protest of, the UN. Unfortunately, establishment Jewish leaders apparently are too busy engaging in self-gratifying meetings with political hacks at party conventions.
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The New York Times’s report that President Bush now accepts some growth in the major settlement blocs received significant attention. The Times published an editorial criticizing Bush for “driving American credibility as a Middle East peacemaker to a new low” and “sliding from dangerous passivity to outright obstruction” in the pursuit of Middle East peace. The Jewish Press saw the reported move as part of Bush’s strategy of pressuring Palestinians.
The purported policy shift is mostly hype and of little substance. While the U.S. has always opposed settlement construction, it has generally tolerated it in moderation. Thus, when Prime Ministers Begin and Shamir built new settlements deep in Judea and Samaria, they faced strong condemnation from Presidents Carter and Bush, but there was much less reaction from President Clinton to settlement expansion in the major blocs by Prime Ministers Rabin, Barak, and even Netanyahu. Indeed, the Oslo Accords did not include restrictions on Jewish construction in Judea, Samaria or Gaza.
The current Bush Administration has repeatedly called for a total ban on settlement growth. In Bush’s June 24, 2002 speech, when he stated that Arafat was not a peace partner, he also said “Israeli settlement activity in the occupied territories must stop.”
However, for several years there has been a tacit understanding between the White House and Israel that “natural growth” would be tolerated as long as no new settlements are constructed and new housing units in existing settlements are built within the existing construction line in those towns. In the large majority of settlements, there has been little construction over the last few years and even that construction generally relates to housing tenders issued before Sharon became prime minister.
The settlement blocs in which Bush is now accepting growth collectively comprise only about 5 percent of Judea and Samaria. Indeed, almost all of the new homes approved last week to much international anger are in just three of the largest towns: Betar Illit, Maa’leh Adumim and Ariel. According to Maariv, the construction in Ariel may be objectionable to Bush because it is farther from the Green Line.
When Sharon and Bush met in April, Israel formally agreed not to expand existing settlements to undeveloped areas and that a U.S.-Israeli team will review aerial photographs to jointly define the construction line of each settlement.
Countering the notion that a policy shift favorable to the interests of the Israeli Right has occurred, last week on Israel Radio, longtime Meretz leader Yossi Sarid criticized Israel’s agreement to formally involve the United States in setting settlement policy, arguing that the move is an unprecedented subjugation of Israel’s sovereignty to a foreign country.
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A disproportionate number of religious Israelis volunteer for IDF combat units. While most are national-religious, new data from Israel’s Defense Ministry show a 50 percent rise in the number of haredi draftees in the last year. Maariv reports that the haredi Nachal Battalion now includes several platoons of soldiers carrying out combat missions in Judea and Samaria.