American politician will dare to utter a word against Israel. The Democrats need the Jewish votes and money. The Republicans also need the votes and the money of the 60 million Christian fundamentalists who support the most extreme elements in Israel.
While we quietly prepare the big operation, we shall continue to flatter President Bush and praise his idiotic Roadmap, without, of course, fulfilling any of our obligations under it. But we shall blame the Palestinians for violating it.
At the same time we shall pretend to seek negotiations with the Palestinians. We shall try to meet with Abu Ala as many times as possible and play the game to the end.61 When we are ready to go, we shall terminate the contacts, declare the Roadmap dead and state sorrowfully that all our efforts to start peace negotiations have failed because of Arafat.
Stage two: By then, the Separation Wall will be ready. The Palestinian territories (Areas A and B under Oslo) will be surrounded on all sides. In practice there will be about a dozen isolated pockets. In order to fulfill our promise about Palestinian "contiguity" we shall connect the enclaves by special roads, bridges and tunnels, which we shall be able to cut at a moment's notice.62
The army will withdraw gradually to the separation barrier and re-deploy in the territories that will be annexed to Israel. These include, inter alia, the settlement blocs of Karney Shomron, Elkana, Ariel, and Kedumim; the Modi'in Road and the territory south of it up to the Green Line; all the Greater Jerusalem area already annexed in 1967; the new neighborhoods around Jerusalem up to Maaleh Adumim and
perhaps further; the Jewish settlement in Hebron and Kiryat Arba and the settlements in the Hebron area; all the Dead Sea shore; all the Jordan valley, including about 15 kilometers of the banks. Altogether, more than half the West Bank.
These areas will not be annexed officially, but we shall annex them as rapidly as possible in practice. We shall fill them with settlements (also using the settlers from the "relocated" settlements), industrial parks, roads, public institutions, and army installations, so that they will become indistinguishable from parts of Israel proper.
At the same time, we shall evacuate the settlements beyond the barrier, including those in the Gaza Strip (with or without the Katif bloc).
In line with the American proposal, we shall call the Palestinian enclaves "a Palestinian state with temporary borders." That will give the Palestinians the illusion that they will be able to negotiate the