What Will a Palestinian State Mean?
By Chris Mitchell
CBN News Mideast Bureau Chief
January 12, 2007
CBNNews.com - JERUSALEM, Israel - President George Bush will soon depart for his Middle East trip. His first stop will be Israel, which will bring him one more step towards his goal of establishing a Palestinian state. But what will a Palestinian state mean?
Click play to watch CBN News Mideast Bureau Chief Chris Mitchell's report along with Pat Robertson's analysis.
Bush Foreign Policy Goal of 2008
During last month's Annapolis, Md., conference, Bush declared his major foreign policy goal of 2008.
"The U.S. will be actively engaged in the process [of establishing a Palestinian state]. We will use our power to help you as you come up with the necessary decisions to come up with a Palestinian state that will live side by side in peace with Israel," he said.
The President is hoping a Palestinian state will be established by the time he leaves office one year from now. It's an ambitious goal, but some Israelis warn that - given the current situation - a Palestinian state poses a grave danger to Israel.
Opponents argue that if you want to see a future Palestinian state, look no further than Gaza, now a Hamas stronghold.
In August 2005, Israel pulled out of Gaza and the Israeli army evicted more than 8,000 Jews and then destroyed their homes.
Last June, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas's government lost control of Gaza to Hamas in a bloody coup. Many now wonder if this government Bush is depending on to establish a Palestinian state will be taken over by a very popular Hamas in the West Bank.
Uzi Landau, former minister of Israel's internal security, warns that an eager Iran now stands behind Hamas. He says if Hamas took over the West Bank - located just a few miles from major cities like Tel Aviv - it would place most of central Israel in rocket range.
"A Palestinian state will mean the long arm of Iran on top of the mountains of Judea and Samaria that will make it totally possible for Iran to cripple Israel. Eighty percent of our population will be within the range of primitive, simple Katyusha rockets," he said.
Olmert: Israel Won't Be in Harm's Way
But Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's government denies their negotiations will put Israel in harm's way.
"It's very clear that no one is going to pull out of any part of the West Bank and allow that to be a basis for terrorism of terror and allow rockets from the West Bank into Israel," Olmert spokesman Mark Regev said.
But Landau points out that other security guarantees have failed in the past. Isael's northern border is one example.
"We know what happened to us in the last Second Lebanon War when the entire Israel north. A million people were in shelters because of these very Katyusha rockets, this time launched up north by the Hezbollah," Landau said.
Not far from the north, Bush's vision for a future Palestinian state sits on land known as the West Bank, which is Israel's biblical heartland of Judea and Samaria.
Many wonder what will happen to the more than 250,000 Jews who have made this land their home.
"It's clear if we succeed in having an historic compromise with the Palestinians that some of the Jewish communities will be coming down," Regev said. "And I say that with pain because these are people who have built lives and homes [there] and the government is going to ask them to leave."
Sondra Oster Baris lives in Kharnei Shomron, a Jewish community of about 7,000 Jews. It sits on one of the hills of biblical Samaria.
"If the current plan goes forward, if President Bush's vision for a Palestinian state sitting on all of Judea and Samaria, I'm out of a house, I'm out of a community. I've lost everything," she said.
She looks back at the 2005 Gaza pullout and wonders if what happened to the evacuated Jews there will happen to her.
"Before August of 2005, I would have said it's impossible to destroy communities that the government of Israel built. It's very difficult for us to understand why anybody would want to take this land on which we've developed and created such beautiful communities on - and give this to Arabs who have pledged to destroy us," Baris said.
She thinks the President should meet the people who might be asked to leave their homes.
"Meet the people who will be affected by your decisions and then decide. Do we deserve to be thrown out of our homes? Do we deserve to become refugees like the people of Gush Katif who were thrown of their homes, who lost their jobs, who to this very day are living in temporary facilities?" she asked.
Is Bush Sending the Wrong Signal?
Landau fears that under current conditions, a Palestinian state will undermine Bush's own war against terror. He says the President's goal sends the wrong signal in the Middle East.
"That the United States is a country that is prepared to sacrifice its ally and prepared to appease its enemies, that is a very dangerous signal that is coming out of a champion and leader of the free world," Landau said.
Bush hopes his Middle East trip will cement a commitment to a two-state solution. But he runs the risk that the enemies of Israel and the U.S. will be encouraged to eliminate the Jewish state altogether.
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