Jerusalem – A freshman member of the Israeli Knesset Parliament and a close associate of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Prof. Shlomo Breznitz of the Kadima Party, 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 of 2005.

Breznitz, 70, a professor of psychology who specializes in situations of stress, couches his plan in 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 there.

Breznitz is considered a close associate of the prime minister.

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 yesterday at the Herzliya Conference on security matters that is 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 U.S., 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 Of The European Task Force

On Dec. 1, 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. 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 40 years. This relocation was done by force.

It will be instructive to determine if MK Breznitz knows that the European Task Force may not be an entity that is friendly to Israel.

©The Bulletin 2007

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David Bedein
David Bedein is an MSW community organizer and an investigative journalist.   In 1987, Bedein established the Israel Resource News Agency at Beit Agron to accompany foreign journalists in their coverage of Israel, to balance the media lobbies established by the PLO and their allies.   Mr. Bedein has reported for news outlets such as CNN Radio, Makor Rishon, Philadelphia Inquirer, Los Angeles Times, BBC and The Jerusalem Post, For four years, Mr. Bedein acted as the Middle East correspondent for The Philadelphia Bulletin, writing 1,062 articles until the newspaper ceased operation in 2010. Bedein has covered breaking Middle East negotiations in Oslo, Ottawa, Shepherdstown, The Wye Plantation, Annapolis, Geneva, Nicosia, Washington, D.C., London, Bonn, and Vienna. Bedein has overseen investigative studies of the Palestinian Authority, the Expulsion Process from Gush Katif and Samaria, The Peres Center for Peace, Peace Now, The International Center for Economic Cooperation of Yossi Beilin, the ISM, Adalah, and the New Israel Fund.   Since 2005, Bedein has also served as Director of the Center for Near East Policy Research.   A focus of the center's investigations is The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). In that context, Bedein authored Roadblock to Peace: How the UN Perpetuates the Arab-Israeli Conflict - UNRWA Policies Reconsidered, which caps Bedein's 28 years of investigations of UNRWA. The Center for Near East Policy Research has been instrumental in reaching elected officials, decision makers and journalists, commissioning studies, reports, news stories and films. In 2009, the center began decided to produce short movies, in addition to monographs, to film every aspect of UNRWA education in a clear and cogent fashion.   The center has so far produced seven short documentary pieces n UNRWA which have received international acclaim and recognition, showing how which UNRWA promotes anti-Semitism and incitement to violence in their education'   In sum, Bedein has pioneered The UNRWA Reform Initiative, a strategy which calls for donor nations to insist on reasonable reforms of UNRWA. Bedein and his team of experts provide timely briefings to members to legislative bodies world wide, bringing the results of his investigations to donor nations, while demanding reforms based on transparency, refugee resettlement and the demand that terrorists be removed from the UNRWA schools and UNRWA payroll.   Bedein's work can be found at: www.IsraelBehindTheNews.com and www.cfnepr.com. A new site,unrwa-monitor.com, will be launched very soon.