re: #107 lawhawk

There are some Israelis who feel that the failure of the Gaza disengagement shows that Israel can’t trust the Palestinians (as a group, let alone the PA, Hamas, or Fatah). The problem, and even Netenyahu and many on the right understand, is that aside from the military’s own reluctance to want to reenter Gaza and occupy the territory again that brings a far higher cost to defend the country against attacks, is that the demographics work against Israel.

Did you read the article I posted? It goes quite a bit beyond not being able to trust the Palestinians as a group.

It’s an untenable and impossible outcome, which is why the far right wants to pursue what essentially amounts to ethnic cleansing - pushing Palestinians out of Gaza/West Bank and into Jordan - foisting the problem on Israel’s neighbors. It’s a nonstarter, but the longer that Hamas continues its attacks on Israel with no end in sight (ceasefire or not), more Israelis are going to consider what should be unthinkable - reentering and reoccupying Gaza, a region that no one wants - Egypt didn’t want it back in Camp David, and Israel had struggled to extricate itself from until Sharon unilaterally disengaged in 2005.

You could also reverse that: The longer that Israeli politicians, including Bibi—I’m not sure if you caught me posting yesterday that Netanyahu has also said that Israel cannot accept Palestinian sovereignty in the West Bank—call Palestinian sovereignty impossible, the peace process is stalled.

Netanyahu actually went a bit beyond saying that he couldn’t accept Palestinian sovereignty in the West Bank, and said that Israel couldn’t accept anyone else taking charge of security there, too. So where, exactly, does that leave the peace process?