Mideast Accord Calculus ; Israel Needs to Countenance 'Land First, Then Peace'

Summary

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The only bank this Rothschild ever owned was the West Bank. Danny Rothschild, an Israeli general and one-time coordinator of all government activities in the occupied territories, is one of 1,200 former intelligence officers in Israel's Council for Peace and Security - and he says the Palestinians should be allowed to have their capital in Arab East Jerusalem. The very thought of allowing Palestinians to set up a government where 200,000 Israeli settlers have moved since the 1967 war, when Israeli forces "liberated" East Jerusalem from Jordanian rule, is sacrilegious. But Gen. Rothschild, speaking at the New America Foundation, was not afraid of geopolitical apostasy.

To Gen. Rothschild, governments, including his own, are suffering from tunnel vision. Everyone sees light at the end of the tunnel, but few seem to realize this could be the search party looking for survivors. Islamization threatens the secular regimes of the Middle East, he says. Extremists are moving into gaps the governments, including Israel's, create by their short-term thinking. Israel's political leaders are more concerned with their next election than in broadening their horizons to the needs of regional peace over the next decade.

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Mideast Accord Calculus ; Israel Needs to Countenance 'Land First, Then Peace'

Egypt, Gen. Rothschild adds, has to find work for 1 million additional people every nine months. By holding the reins of power since the assassination of Anwar Sadat in 1981 and serving as vice president for seven years before...

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