While there is not much new in Sundays declaration by the Israeli prime minister that his country will retain read annex parts of the West Bank, what is striking is the categorical tone that was adopted. With Americas special envoy George Mitchell in Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu said words that deserve to be quoted for their hubris: Our message is clear. We are planting here, we will stay here, we will build here. This place will be an inseparable part of the State of Israel till eternity. By here he meant two of the many illegal settlements which Israel has built on Palestinian territory.
The first indication that Israel would never quit parts of the West Bank or perhaps the whole of it came in 2003 when Ariel Sharon, then prime minister, visited the White House and told George Bush in categorical terms what he wanted. Within minutes Mr Bush was telling a press conference that Israel would retain some parts of the West Bank. The American president had no qualms of conscience about accepting the Israeli violations of the road map for peace, which he himself had unveiled after it had been prepared and approved by the Quartet America, Russia, the EU and UN.
Today, 78 per cent of what in 1917-48 was Palestine under mandate is under Israels control, and Israel has no intention of quitting the remaining 22 per cent. In August 1993, stunned by the success of the first Intifada, Israel signed the Declaration of Principles and agreed to a timetable that visualised a final settlement by April 1999. Following the murder of Yitzhak Rabin, who had signed the DoP along with Yasser Arafat, successive Israeli prime ministers Benjamin Netanyahu, Ehud Barak and Ariel Sharon sabotaged the Oslo treaties and virtually had them renegotiated. Super hawk Sharon even reoccupied the areas which Israel had vacated under the DoP and placed Yasser Arafat under house arrest. What is shocking, however, is the American administrations surrender to the powerful Israel lobby in America, notwithstanding President Barack Obamas declaration in his June 4 speech to the Muslim world that settlement activity must come to a halt.
The first indication that Israel would never quit parts of the West Bank or perhaps the whole of it came in 2003 when Ariel Sharon, then prime minister, visited the White House and told George Bush in categorical terms what he wanted. Within minutes Mr Bush was telling a press conference that Israel would retain some parts of the West Bank. The American president had no qualms of conscience about accepting the Israeli violations of the road map for peace, which he himself had unveiled after it had been prepared and approved by the Quartet America, Russia, the EU and UN.
Today, 78 per cent of what in 1917-48 was Palestine under mandate is under Israels control, and Israel has no intention of quitting the remaining 22 per cent. In August 1993, stunned by the success of the first Intifada, Israel signed the Declaration of Principles and agreed to a timetable that visualised a final settlement by April 1999. Following the murder of Yitzhak Rabin, who had signed the DoP along with Yasser Arafat, successive Israeli prime ministers Benjamin Netanyahu, Ehud Barak and Ariel Sharon sabotaged the Oslo treaties and virtually had them renegotiated. Super hawk Sharon even reoccupied the areas which Israel had vacated under the DoP and placed Yasser Arafat under house arrest. What is shocking, however, is the American administrations surrender to the powerful Israel lobby in America, notwithstanding President Barack Obamas declaration in his June 4 speech to the Muslim world that settlement activity must come to a halt.
