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PalmBeachPost.com

Pick security over settlements: New effort to consider issue from new perspective

By THE PALM BEACH POST

Posted: 6:53 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 9, 2010

As another attempt to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks failed this week, some Israelis were in this area with the goal of changing public opinion here and in Israel about that nation's priorities.

The Council for Peace and Security includes retired military and intelligence officers and academicians, among others. Their pitch is simple: Most Israeli politicians mislead Israelis by contending that security is about West Bank settlements and the borders of a Palestinian state. In fact, security is about a new "eastern front" of Islamic fundamentalism well beyond the West Bank, with Iran as the driving force and primary threat.

"We want to open the minds of people to listen to something else," said retired Maj. Gen. Natan Sharony during a meeting Tuesday with The Palm Beach Post Editorial Board. Blunting that primary threat from Shia Islam, Gen. Sharony believes, requires help from the mostly Sunni Islam countries of the Arab League. "And for that," Gen. Sharony says, "we have to resolve the Palestinian issue."

The council believes that a Palestinian state should be demilitarized, with early warning stations, and monitoring by an international force. Israel should control the airspace. As to the tricky issue of Palestinian leadership - one faction controls the West Bank, and another controls Gaza - Gen. Sharony says the Palestinians themselves must work that out.

But the council's main point is that West Bank settlements are more about politics than security. They use maps to show how Israel could keep 85 percent of the settlers within the country's borders by keeping just 6.5 percent of the West Bank. Keeping just 2 percent would include 75 percent of the settlers. During unsuccessful negotiations at Camp David and Taba, Egypt, a decade ago, the understanding was that Israel would keep small sections of the West Bank in exchange for equal sections of Israeli territory. The council supports that approach.

In Israel's four major wars, the country faced national armies. Peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan have removed that threat. Gen. Sharony and former Army paratrooper commander Shaul Arieli, another council member, support negotiations with neighboring Syria - also mostly Sunni - as another means of countering Iran.

In addition to meeting with The Post, Gen. Sharony and Cmdr. Arieli met Tuesday with almost two dozen community leaders at a luncheon in West Palm Beach hosted by the Jewish Federation of Palm Beach County. That evening, they spoke to about 200 people at Temple Torah west of Boynton Beach. They came because this area has so many residents who have very strong feelings about Israel's security. With luck, some of them may start to think very differently about how best to achieve that security.

- Randy Schultz,

for The Palm Beach Post Editorial Board