Are We Next?

I suppose this is a good a time as any to reveal the fact that I live the Gush Etzion area. That's right, I am a settler, an evil war criminal who derives pleasure from beating and killing Palestinians and uprooting olive trees (If you believe this description, there's a bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to sell you, real cheap). The reason I reveal this is because I believe that I should be expecting an eviction notice soon as well.

With the disengagement going into full swing, I can not shake the feeling that we are going to retreat all the way to the Green Line, no exceptions, just as the Europeans desire. This includes, for the uninitiated - the entire Old City, Ramat Eshkol, the Mt. Scopus part of Hebrew University, part of road no. 1 and so forth. This also means that "concensus" settlments such as Gush Etzion, Ma'aleh Edumim, will be on the chopping block as well. This Jewish population living across the Green Line is circa 400,000. Kicking them out will create a human disaster that will make the disengagement look like a cake walk.

I recently expressed this fear with an acquaintance, who told me that Gush Etzion was part of the "concensus" and thus won't be removed. To this I replied that it used to be a concensus that Jerusalem should be undivided - now it's up for grabs. Apparently, the "demographic demon" means that we must forfeit even unpopulated areas like Latrun, or areas that contain archaeological remains of supreme national importance, like Silwan/City of David.

To be sure, I lay some of the blame at our own feet - i.e. the settler community and leadership. There were many territorial compromise plans that would have allowed us to hold on to at least some of the territory gained in the Six-Day War. Then, of course the Green Line did not have the sacred value it has today, nor were people so obsessed with the Nakba narrative of the poor Palestinians. We rejected every one, insisting on holding every inch permanently, ignoring the demographics and fantasising about "millions of Jews" who will come.

Sharon may not really intend to hold the "concensus" Blocs, but we never considerd this to be an option. Recently Dan Diker has tried to argue for a return to the "defensible borders" concept in Azure (free registration required). To this I reply - too little, too late.

Nevertheless, the fact that so much of the intelligentsia and the public probably equates eveything across the Green Line as equally illegitamite - even when this is not so, as I have tried to explain - depresses me to no end. It would seem that even Jerusalem has ceased to be of much importance, and so the "Israeli" has beaten the "Jew". Ben-Gurion must be rolling around in his grave, although I'm sure many are now dancing on our grave.

Was this why we fought, was this why over 20,000 people died in the various wars? So that we could assimilate differently, if as "Israeli" or "Jew-Arab" or "Yiddisher"? Was this why we stayed alive for 2,000 years in exile, so that we could do to ourselves what even the worst of our enemies couldn't do - i.e. make the Jews de fatco disappear?

Deeply depreesed, but still hoping,

AIWAC