What if withdrawal doesn’t end it? II
Norman Geras has responded to my recent post wondering about the consequences of a unilateral Israeli pullout from the West Bank and Gaza. I take his point about a withdrawal putting Israel in a stronger moral position (at least among those concerned about morality). And I agree with him about the disastrous decision to build settlements in the territories captured in 1967. But what I fear is that Palestinians would see a withdrawal as a victory of the intifada- as a sign of Israeli weakness to be exploited. (This, after all, is how many of them saw Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon- as necessary as that was.) On top of this add unresolved grievances- like the “right of return”- and potentially you’ve got an even more combustible situation than exists now.
For Israel there’s a depressing lack of good options.