Dora McPhee (VIC) responds to George Greenberg (Australian Letters, 2/7) PUBLISHED July 2, 2009
[Letter published]
Nothing could be further from the truth than George Greenberg’s assertion
that “Israel has frozen all settlement expansion since 2003”. As I write,
East Jerusalem is being redrawn by settlement expansion and new roads, the
Wall and Palestinian home demolitions are being used to change the
demographics and isolate Palestinians from what was the centre of their
life. Contractors were already planning the expansion of settlements in the
Jordan Valley as Netanyahu was in Washington with Obama, which was reported
as “a slap in the face” to Obama. The natural growth is anything but natural
when Jewish immigrants to Israel are enticed to the illegal settlements with
lower house prices and rentals to bolster the population there. The fact
that the population growth of these illegal settlements (and ALL of them are
illegal) is three times the population growth inside Israel shows the
subterfuge of Greenberg’s argument.
George Greenberg’s letter “Peace not possible until Palestinians play their part” in The Australian, 2/7/09
IF Bill Mathew (Letters, 29/6) thinks a freeze on Israeli settlements will bring peace, he is kidding himself. Israel has frozen all settlement expansion since 2003, and now only allows natural growth inside settlement boundaries, and that doesn’t seem to have made the Palestinians any more eager to accept its right to exist in peace as a Jewish state.
Israel didn’t just freeze its Gaza settlements in 2005. It evacuated the lot, and totally withdrew from the territory, and all it got in return was intensified terrorism. The UN resolutions Mathew selectively cite call for Israel to withdraw to negotiated borders and for the Palestinians to give it peace in return. Our government fully understands that, regardless of what Israel does, there can be no peace until the Palestinians play their part.
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