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After Gaza, Peace Is Further Out of Reach

[San Francisco Chronicle] Joel Brinkley - After 22 days of attacks and bombardments intended to pacify Hamas and remove its ability to terrorize Israel with missiles, nothing has changed. The missiles continue to this day. What happens if Israel removes its West Bank settlements, withdraws its forces and grants the Palestinians an independent state, as the U.S. and the rest of the international community demand? What would keep Palestinians in this new state from firing missiles into Israel from the West Bank, just as they are now doing from Gaza? I, for one, would like to see Israel and the Palestinians separate themselves into two independent states. But the logic of this moment says that simply cannot happen. The minute Washington begins pressuring the new Israeli government to begin peace talks, I can predict what Netanyahu will say. From Gaza, he will note, Hamas has fired missiles able to strike the outskirts of Ashkelon, about 15 miles away. Fired from the West Bank, those very same missiles would be able to strike Israel's international airport. The writer is a professor of journalism at Stanford University and a former foreign policy correspondent for the New York Times.
2009-04-02 06:00:00
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