Yet J Street has not only embraced the ridiculous notion that the large settlement blocs – and that has to include Ariel in the North – will be annexed to Israel, it has dishonestly interpreted this to be consonant with Pres. Obama's policy.
How so? I received an email from J Street praising a poster of the Nationalist Left movement (above and available through J Street in English here) in Israel that says, "We get the settlement blocs; they get a state." Now, no United States administration has said that in a future peace accord with the Palestinians, the settlement blocs would stay in Israel's possession, EVEN ASSUMING LAND SWAPS. By all accounts, the City of Ariel in the North is a large settlement bloc. Gush Etzion is certainly a large settlement bloc, and the Geneva Iniative's map of borders, left Efrat – part of Gush Etzion – outside of Israel. It's true that the Nationalist Left movement claims to support the Obama formulation of 67 borders with land swaps against Bibi's naysaying. It is also true that the National Left's idea of settlement blocs no doubt differs from that of Bibi. But let's make this perfectly clear – one either can annex the major settlement blocs OR have a viable Palestinian state; one cannot do both. And not surprisingly, the Nationalist Left's formulation is claimed to be valid whether there is a peace agreement or not. In other words, that movement holds that Israel can withdraw from the West Bank and annex the settlment blocs, even without a deal. Where J Street should be pushing the idea that the settlement blocs are the major obstancle to peace, precisely because they are illegal blocs of settlements, they have allied themselves with the Nationalist Left, which is not in the camp of the Obama administration, and which wants to purify the loathsome settlements as if it is not big deal – just "demographic realities", to use the Nationalist Left's term.
They've been 'bloc'ed.
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