Olmert: I will set borders by 2010
But Israel's boundaries were set 4000 years before he was born
 
 

By Stan Goodenough

March 9th, 2006
 

 
 
Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Wednesday he will oversee the fixing of Israel's final borders within the next four years.

He means during the term in office he is so certain he will win come the general election in 19 day's time.

And indeed, the polls consistently show that Olmert's Kadima Party has no serious competitor to be concerned about. Findings published Thursday show Kadima winning 37 seats, Labor 19 and the Likud just 17.

Confident, then, of victory, Olmert gave an interview to The Jerusalem Post Wednesday in which he crowed that he is "poised to become prime minister."

Once elected, he bragged, he will wait a "reasonable" amount of time to see if Hamas is interested in dropping terrorism, barring which his government will move unilaterally to "get to Israel's permanent borders."

His goal, he said, would be to have these borders in place by 2010.

Mr. Olmert's aim, then - his goal; his ambition; the mark he wants to leave in the history books - is that it was he who, 62 years after Israel became a state, succeeded in defining the country' final and unchangeable borders.

By contrast, Likud Party leader and former Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has as his goal the securing of Israelis against further attacks and the quenching of the ardor of Palestinian terrorism by denying it the fuel it depends on to keep going.

Even if Olmert had vast leadership experience, the best intentions and the greatest statesmanship ability, he could not succeed in his quest.

First of all: Israel's God has already set the country's final and truly permanent borders.

Inside them lie Israel 'proper,' Samaria, Judea, Gaza, parts of Jordan, the Golan Heights along with a whole swathe of the land today occupied by Syria, and a chunk of territory occupied by Lebanon north of Israel's current border with that land.

One day Israel will have possession of all this land.

Secondly, the Arab states and entire Islamic world have never accepted that Israel has the right to set any borders anywhere in the Middle East. The on-dragging Jewish-Arab conflict exists specifically because Jews tried to set up a homeland with borders in what was previously Muslim-controlled land.

The Arabs rejected the borders Israel "set" in 1949. They rejected the borders Israel set in 1967. They rejected all changes to those borders and ceasefire lines since 1967. They rejected (even though they rejoiced over) Israel's unilateral withdrawal from Gaza. They rejected Israel's "security fence" border. They rejected as incomplete Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon. They have already announced their rejection of any further unilateral moves Israel might try to make.

Actually, they have an unbroken rejection record.

Furthermore, Kadima's unilateralist plans works against Israel from the start because they feed the Muslim Arab's belief in his ultimate victory and spur him on to greater and bloodier acts of terrorism.

Thirdly, the Arab states have the world on their side. That world has consistently refused to allow Israel to finalize anything in terms of borders and boundaries. Super-sensitive to oil pressure, the great powers will not put their stamp of approval or recognition on any borders that Olmert tries to set unless the Arabs approve. As we have seen, they can be trusted to do nothing of the kind.

We can rest assured, then, that Olmert will not determine Israel's final borders. He will fail.

We can, and we should, pray that he not even be given the chance to try. For simply by embarking on that course Olmert will only prolong the conflict and further erode Israel's security as he will inflame the rapacious Arab appetite and deepen the rift that Ariel Sharon and others before him have wrought in Israel.