Sweep Those Lands Swaps Away

Dani Dayan has an op-ed in today's Haaretz.


Take land swaps off the table


The lead-in:

The territorial exchanges Israel once offered the Palestinians in return for peace were never obligatory and are no longer practical.

Extracts:

A few words uttered in English by an Arab prime minister excited – perhaps even electrified – the few who still believe the conflict in the Middle East can be resolved with the establishment of a Palestinian state west of the Jordan River..."comparable and mutual agreed minor swaps of the land." 

...The Palestinian Liberation Organization’s position on the issue known as “territorial exchanges” has been that the Palestinian state must encompass 6,205 square kilometers. The Qatari statement on this principle, which includes six conditional words and a thirteen-word sentence, may come close to the Palestinian position, but stops some distance from it. So what’s the great accomplishment here...

At any rate, there is an important lesson for us to learn from the Qatari proposal: Any Israeli concession quickly becomes a fait accompli for the Arabs, which Israel is expected to honor indefinitely.
 
...I can only imagine what Rabin's sarcastic response would have been if someone had told him Israel had to “compensate” the Palestinians for the Western Wall Plaza and the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem.

...If it is not too late to do so, this is a good opportunity for Israel to take the concept of “territorial exchange” off the table. The repeated attempts to destroy Israel will be reflected in the permanent borders, if any are ever agreed on. The war of annihilation the Arabs began against the nascent State of Israel in 1947 forever wiped out the borders of the UN Partition Plan for Palestine, and the repeated attempts to destroy Israel in 1967 forever wiped out the Green Line, or Israel's borders prior to that year. The demand for territorial compensation for a failed attempt to destroy Israel is absurd and immoral.

It is also impractical. Since the Six Day War, Judea and Samaria have been filled with thriving Jewish communities that constitute an irreversible fact...

And I add what I just previously posted.

Swaps are a non-starter with the Pals.

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