Olmert Associate: Offer to European task force to run Judea and Samaria

A freshman member of the Israeli Knesset Parliament, Prof. Shlomo Breznitz of the Kadima Party, a close associate of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, has offered a plan that would hand over the administration of Judea, Samaria and Gaza to a European task force until the establishment of a Palestinian state. The plan would involve destroying most of the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, as Jewish communities were destroyed in the Katif sector of Gaza and in the Northern Samarian area of Samaria in a matter of less than two weeks during August, 2005.

MK Breznitz, 70, a professor of psychology who specializes in situations of stress, couches his plan in terms of friendly terms such as “realignment” and “settler relocation” in the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria that will not be demolished, even though there is a freeze on all new housing in all Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria.

The Olmert couple often spends their vacations with the Breznitzes, and the prime minister often consults him.

“The only way to get out of the impasse is to transfer the territories, for a limited time, to an international mandate, that will run them until the establishment of a Palestinian state,” said Breznitz, whose plan was presented Wednesday at the Herzliya Conference on security matters held each year in Israel.

Breznitz’s proposal refers to international involvement like that which led to stability being restored in Bosnia-Herzegovina, where the European task force is in place.

According to Breznitz’s proposal, this step, which he calls an “international greenhouse,” would be led by the European community, not the US, which because of its involvement in Iraq, “has lost its status as an honest broker in the view of the Palestinians and the Arab states.”

He proposes that Israel gradually leave most areas of Judea and Samaria, and that most of the settlements be evacuated based on the format that was proposed on the eve of elections in the realignment plan, and some of which would be relocated to settlement blocs. The Israeli army would be replaced by a European task force and would number tens of thousands of soldiers.

The proposal calls for the presence of a European task force in the territories that is not limited in time, and it would end its role only after its goals were met. He stressed that this is not a solution that would be forced on the Palestinians and that its implementation would be dependent on their consent, and noted, “I have reason to believe, and I don’t want to expand on this, that the Palestinians will support the proposal. Ambassadors and diplomatic representatives from European countries who were shown the proposal also believe that without international help it will not be possible to resolve the conflict.”

Background: The European task force On December 1st, 2003, this reporter interviewed European Parliamentarian MP Graham Watson, who made a presentation concerning the future role of the European Task Force in the Middle East at the Geneva Initiative Conference in Geneva. This was a gathering that was organized by Israeli opposition leader Yossi Beilin, the former Israeli Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs who also conceptualized Israel’s unilateral surrender of territories during the Oslo process between 1993 and 1995, and in Israel’s withdrawal in the year 2000 from Southern Lebanon.

MP Watson presented the concept of the European Task Force, relying on the Bosnian model. MP Watson explained that the European Task Force saw its role as the exclusive protector of the Palestinian Arab entity, and that any and all Israeli presence beyond the 1967 lines would be viewed by the European Task Force as illegal and criminal in nature. MP Watson was adamant that no Israeli incursion into Palestinian areas patrolled by the European Task Force would be tolerated, and a European Task Force would play an active role in the dismantlement of Jewish communities established by Israel since 1967 — including Jerusalem. MP Watson mentioned the Bosnian experience, where troops of the European Task Force had dismantled and relocated people who had been living in homes and communities for more than forty years. This relocation was done by force.