Barak: Israel Should Pull Out of Some Settlements
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak proposed in a newspaper interview that Israel unilaterally withdraw from outlying West Bank settlements and outposts.
Under the plan that Barak outlined in a pre-Yom Kippur interview with Israel Hayom, any Jewish settlers who want to remain in their West Bank homes after the withdrawal could do so under Palestinian rule.
The interview will be published in its entirety on Tuesday, in the newspaper’s Yom Kippur eve issue.
Israel Hayom reported on the interview Monday, saying that under Barak’s plan, the settlement blocs of Gush Etzion, Maaleh Adumim and Ariel, representing 90 percent of the Jews living in the West Bank, would remain under Israeli control and protected by the Israeli military.
Dozens of small Jewish communities would have to be evacuated under the plan, according to Israel Hayom.
The newspaper reported that Barak proposes several options for the Jewish settlers that would be evacuated under the plan: to provide them with compensation; to move the entire community to another community in one of the settlement blocs or inside the 1967 borders; and to allow them to remain in their homes under Palestinian rule for a five-year trial period.
He said the government must maintain a dialogue with the settlers who are to be evicted.
“It would be best to reach an agreement with the Palestinians but, barring that, practical steps must be taken to begin the separation,” Barak told Israel Hayom. “It is time to look Israeli society straight in the eye and say ‘we succeeded in keeping in Israel some 80 percent to 90 percent of the Jewish population that have come there over the years with the encouragement of the Israeli government.’ That is a huge accomplishment, if we manage to bring them inside Israel’s permanent borders.
“It would help us not only with the Palestinians but with all the countries in the region, with the Europeans and with the American administration, and of course it would be beneficial to us.”
Barak said he has been proposing the same plan for the past 12 years.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
