Cartoon: Clay Bennett for the Christian Science Monitor.
Reprising my periodic role as the miserable Cassandra of the peace process, I thought I would dump some cold water on the peace-is-just-around-the-corner-euphoria by mentioning that:
1. Since withdrawing from Gaza, Israel has actually seized more land in the West Bank than the size of the entire Gaza Strip.2. Even though the Gaza settlements are gone, there are actually today thousands more settlers in the Occupied Territories than there were when the Gaza settlements still stood.
3. Construction of the Wall is proceeding particularly quickly around al-Ram, and settlement expansion is particularly frenetic in the Maale Adumim bloc, as Israel attempts to cut off occupied East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank.
4. This is to preempt the possibility of East Jerusalem ever becoming the capital of Palestine, despite the fact that without a shared Jerusalem there will never be a solution to the conflict.5. The most recent plans to expand Maale Adumim settlement, involving the construction of 350 more homes for Israelis to settle illegally in the Occupied Territories, have the approval of none other than the Left’s Great White Hope, Amir Peretz.
6. Simply daring to point out that Israel is implementing a de facto annexation of Arab East Jerusalem, and that this is illegal, contrary to the Road Map, and will radicalize both East Jerusalemites and Muslims further afield, makes you “one-sided” and “unrelentingly pro-Palestinian”.
Optimism's important. I'm enjoying as much as anybody the sight of the political realignment in Israel and the drawing in of Hamas to the Palestinian Parliamentary process, and speculating where it might all end. But optimism stops being a plus if you can only keep it up by closing your eyes to what's happening on the ground, and pretending that what you want to see happening really is.
