It was the best of times and the worst of times in the board room where today’s NY Times staff-ed was written. Best of times, because Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is talking about withdrawing from significant areas of the West Bank. And the worst of times, because the Times editors only now seem to realize that the West Bank and Gaza are separate geographic entities:
Anyone who has ever really looked at a map of Israel, the West Bank and Gaza can see how hard it will be to form a Palestinian state. Even a future Palestine that includes all of the West Bank and Gaza is still going to be in two pieces with Israel in the middle, separating Gaza from the West Bank.
To get an idea of this, imagine a map of Manhattan. The West Bank would be, very roughly, East Harlem and the Upper East Side. Gaza would be Battery Park City, far to the southwest. Now imagine trying to create a fully functioning city with its own economy out of those pieces while an entirely independent, antagonistic city remained in between.
Yet that is what the Palestinians will have to do if they even manage to get back to the 1967 borders.
Aren’t we talking about the same borders the Gray Lady has time and again called on Israel to withdraw to?
