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As a journalist who has lived in and covered the Jewish communities in Judea, Samaria and Katif for the past 15 years, I can affirm the findings reported by Americans for Peace Now co-chairman Patricia Barr in her article published in the Forward of August 1, 2002, “Let My People Go From the West Bank and Gaza”, in which she quotes the findings of a Peace Now research study which found that “most settlers are more pragmatic, respectful of the democratic process and willing to accept reasonable compensation” if a peace settlement were reached that would require the abandonment of Jewish communities in Judea, Samaria and Gaza.
From the wide range of interviews that I have conducted in almost all of the 144 Jewish communities that were established in Judea, Samaria and Katif I confirm that this pragmatic perspective as prevalent in these communities.
Indeed, the willing abandonment of 16 Jewish settlements in the Sinai in 1982 at the time of the peace treaty with Egypt stands as precedent which quietly influences public opinion at large throughout these Jewish communities.
It may therefore surprise the readership of The Forward to know that the vast majority of those who live in these Areas do indeed ascribe to the “Shem Tov-Yariv” formula from 1974, which postulates that territory acquired after the 1967 war can indeed be exchanged for peace.
However, Barr ignores the fact that the PLO and its Palestinian Authority, has never accepted the idea of a Palestinian Arab state that would be confined to west bank and Gaza, without including Jerusalem and the recognition Of UN resolution #194 that would allow 3.6. million Palestinian Arabs to exercise their “inalienable right of Return” to the villages that the Arabs lost in 1948.
Barr also ignores the fact that the PLO and the PA Definition of “illegal settlements” as those Jewish communities That were established in place of Arab villages. That settlement definition applies to 531 Israeli settlements that replaced Arab villages after 1948, not to the 144 Israeli settlements established after 1967, not one replaced even one Arab village,
Most importantly, Barr ignores the fact the PLO and PA are not ready to offering any peace treaty or peace settlement, which would be The only prerequisite by which any Israeli Jew would agree to leave Or abandon any Jewish community.
Instead, what Barr and her colleagues in Peace Now have been Suggesting is that Jews simply leave their homes and communities in Judea, Samaria and Katif without any peace settlement.
Barr and Peace Now therefore abrogate the Shem Tov Yariv formula of “territories for peace”.
Shortly before his death, retired General Aharon Yariv, the co-author of Shem Tov Yariv formula, criticized those on the Israeli left who invoke his formula to endorse unilateral relinquishment of territory.
As Yariv told me,”We favor territories for peace, not territories before peace”.
In other words, what the Peace Now survey shows is that the Jews who live in the settlements beyond the Green Line now ascribe to the Peace Now philosophy of “territories for peace” while Peace Now has abandoned its own ideology in favor of launching a worldwide campaign to expel Jews from 144 Jewish communities, without any premise of peace.
