The Exit That Isn't on Bush's 'Road Map'
By JAMES BENNET
J ERUSALEM The Bush administration argues that the defeat of Saddam
Hussein has provided a chance to end the conflict between Israelis and
Palestinians, and that only the eventual creation of a Palestinian
state can accomplish that.
Benyamin Elon, a minister in the Israeli government of Ariel Sharon,
agrees. But, reviving a vision long cherished by Israel's religious
and secular hawks, he argues that the new Palestinian state must be
Jordan.
This is the "window of opportunity," he says, for Israel to annex at
last the occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. If the
Bush administration has the courage to abandon "clichés" about land
for peace, he argues, it can now achieve a "long-term, spiritual
earthquake" in the Middle East.
Mr. Elon's vision has new punch because of the strengthening alliance
between those Jews who favor a Greater Israel and conservative
Christians in the United States who are moved by the same ancient
dream, based on what evangelicals call the "Abrahamic covenant."
And Israeli politicians, including Prime Minister Sharon, are well
aware of that alliance as they consider their response to President
Bush's new drive for peace. In fact, the religious nationalism that
Mr. Elon embraces so tightly appears to be gaining adherents faster in
the United States than in Israel.
Full: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/18/weekinreview/18BENN.html