The State of Israel and the West Bank

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This is a map of the West Bank and the West Bank is where the settlements we're talking about tonight are. It's what some people describe as an archipelago or a succession of little bits which don't create easy possibility of contiguous Palestinian state. The whole brown bit on the right is what connects up to the border with Jordan, with the river Jordan, and that is all under Israeli control. Israel has no genuine intention of creating a Palestinian state, but instead intends to take over the whole of theWest Bank," says Danny Synix.

Patriacide. Nationcide. Whatever you want to call it, that is what Israel is doing with its settlement policy: it is killing itself. If ever greater numbers of Jewish settlers are installed on land regarded by Palestinians as the basis for a state of their own, the possibility of a two-state solution grows ever more remote. Yet the single state alternative, involving annexation of the West Bank, would result in a country where Arabs vastly outnumber Jews and then you won’t have a one-state or a two-state solution: you’ll have a no-state solution. For those who love Israel and wish to preserve a democratic Jewish homeland, as much as for those who hate it, the settlements must stop. That’s what many left-wing Israelis and their friends say. But defenders of the settlements see things very differently. The two-state solution has long been a dead letter in their view: why stop building settlements in the name of a peace plan that is frankly unattainable? Whatever the eventual solution – it could even be a...

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