It’s All Falling Apart -  Israeli Gen. Yitshak (‘Haka’) Chofi retired, former member of the Palmach, former Head of the Mossad intelligence agency, former commander of the northern sector, can fairly be described as one of those who built Israel with their own hands. A member of the ‘Third Way’ party, he can hardly be called a leftist. In an interview in Ma’ariv this past Friday, he blasted the Netanyahu government:

“How long can Bibi Netanyahu fool everyone and say everything is fine? Nobody believes him. Not even the people who work with him... He is not stopping our internal disintegration. He could, but he only makes it worse...The country is coming apart in our hands.”

It is no longer a question of left and right. To those who call for national unity, we are with you. To those who say ‘The Land of Israel is in Danger,’ Amen. Let us all unite to save Israel from Bibi Netanyahu.

After the Redeployment - The Israeli second redeployment of 13% (actually it is the first, because the ‘first redeployment’ was a non-event) may not happen. One likely scenario is that Bibi will say “OK, we agree, but...” The ‘but’ will consist of a list of reasonable conditions - such as handing over terrorists and reaffirming the change in the Palestinian charter, designed to make the PNA look bad. It will also contain one or two impossible conditions, such as building restrictions in an ‘Area D’ that Bibi has invented.

Never mind that. Let’s just suppose the redeployment does happen. Israel withdraws from 13% of Palestinian territory, giving the PNA a few hundred square miles completely under their jurisdiction free and clear, plus additional territory in Area B, in which Israel has responsibility for security. It should be clear to everyone that this is only an interim situation.

The map prepared by Defense Minister Mordechai and his staff creates a Swiss cheese of Israeli-controlled territory in the West Bank. From the point of view of the Israelis, it creates a difficult security situation, in which settlements are vulnerable to attacks and road closings, as retiring Chief of Staff Amnon Lipkin-Shachak warned in the Knesset. From the point of view of the Palestinians, it adds to the complex webwork of checkpoints and opportunities for harassment. Of course, it is too small an area for an autonomy, and certainly for a state. Anyone who looks at the map can see that as a long-term solution it would clearly be a recipe for disaster. It must be a step on the way to a final agreement, in which Israel cedes most or all of the West Bank to Palestinian jurisdiction.

What should be clear to everyone may not be clear to the Israeli government, and perhaps not even to the United States Department of State. The recent FMEP Settlement Report by Geoffrey Aronson quotes Israeli government personnel as saying that the 13% redeployment represents the outer limits of what Israel could (that is, is willing) to cede without jeopardizing ‘national Interests.’ The national interests turn out to be settlements, and an aquifer. The settlements are needed to guard the aquifer. The aquifer is needed to provide water for the settlements, which consume about as much water as the entire Palestinian population of the West Bank, with a tenth of the inhabitants.

As strange as it seems, there are people who think that the interim situation created by the second redeployment can be continued in perpetuity, that the Palestinians will be satisfied to live in a sardine-can, and that the IDF will be able to maintain security along a huge and unprotected border created by the various enclaves.

Before the last elections, cartoonists lampooned Shimon Peres’s virtual reality view of the Middle East, in which he supposedly saw peace and prosperity through special VR eyeglasses, while bombs exploded all around him. If the government really thinks that the second redeployment can be the last, they must be beyond virtual reality. Possibly, Bibi has been ‘shaping’ the truth for so long, he can no longer remember what is real and what he invented.

If the second redeployment is really carried out, it will still be necessary to bring the Israeli government back to earth. No Palestinian leadership could ever accept the borders of the second redeployment map as the basis of a final settlement, nor will anyone else in the world except perhaps Micronesia. After all, they have a land area of 271 square miles, so Palestine may look big to them. If the U.S. takes the side of Israel, it will find itself totally isolated too, and backing a non-starter.

Such a final settlement would be ‘Bad for the Jews’ too. No Peace, No Security. Israel will not be able to police these borders either. With the best of intentions, the PNA could not prevent Hamas terrorists from infiltrating though these borders over the long term.

“How long can Bibi Netanyahu fool everyone?” as Yitshak Hofi said. Either Bibi is fooling us by saying he is going to implement the redeployment without meaning it, or he is fooling his right wing supporters by saying it is the last withdrawal, or he is fooling himself. But he cannot play make-believe forever.

Ami Isseroff