Expansionist Zionism finally coming to an end?: "A quarter of West Bank settlers living east of the security fence are willing to leave their homes immediately if they are compensated, according to a poll conducted by the TNS Teleseker company for the One Home (Bait Ehad) movement published Saturday.

"According to the poll, 74 percent of the general public supports a new 'evacuation-compensation' bill that would enable settlers to leave their settlements and move within the Green Line border in return for alternative housing, and 35 percent of the settlers living east of the fence support this bill. The poll also shows that 70 percent of the general public believes that additional West Bank settlements will be evacuated."

"According to Vilan, following the disengagement from the Gaza Strip and four West Bank settlements this summer, "settlers are aware that they are next in line to be evacuated. The separation fence, which has left tens of thousands of families outside of Israel's future area, who are exposed to Palestinian terror and are unable to sell their homes for a price that will enable them to buy another home, has deepened their misery."

"Alon Pinkas, one of the movement's leaders, said that "it is clear that there will be a second disengagement in Judea and Samaria, it is clear that it will take place before a permanent agreement, and it is clear that it will include the 80,000 settlers living outside of the fence. Therefore, the government must stop using settlers as bargaining chips and hostages and enable them to voluntary leave right now.""

Meanwhile Ariel Sharon, the Likud Prime Minister, has announced he is resigning from Likud to form a new 'centrist' party with Shimon Peres to contest the next elections. Sharon's move suggests that aggressive, expansionist, colonialist, lebensraum, not-one-step-backwards Zionism, for so long the bi-partisan mainstream policy of Israel, has finally been relegated to the right, and is about to be abandoned in the face of reality.

Its possible also that Sharon can see the writing on the wall: the huge strategic failure of the Iraq invasion; the inevitability of Iranian regional hegemony; the futility of endless fighting against the Palestinians, who will neither die nor abandon their remaining lands. Perhaps Sharon can visualise the end state of the Zionist project, the final borders, and it is somewhat less than the 'Nile to Euphrates' delusions of extremists.

These events can also be interpreted to mean that Palestinian resistance, with virtually no aid from the rest of the world and facing the combined might of the US/Israel, has ground the expansionist Zionist project to a standstill. The 'apartheid wall', not the Green line, is looking more and more like the final boundaries of the Jewish state.

Expansionist Zionism finally coming to an end?: "A quarter of West Bank settlers living east of the security fence are willing to leave their homes immediately if they are compensated, according to a poll conducted by the TNS Teleseker company for the One Home (Bait Ehad) movement published Saturday.

"According to the poll, 74 percent of the general public supports a new 'evacuation-compensation' bill that would enable settlers to leave their settlements and move within the Green Line border in return for alternative housing, and 35 percent of the settlers living east of the fence support this bill. The poll also shows that 70 percent of the general public believes that additional West Bank settlements will be evacuated."

"According to Vilan, following the disengagement from the Gaza Strip and four West Bank settlements this summer, "settlers are aware that they are next in line to be evacuated. The separation fence, which has left tens of thousands of families outside of Israel's future area, who are exposed to Palestinian terror and are unable to sell their homes for a price that will enable them to buy another home, has deepened their misery."

"Alon Pinkas, one of the movement's leaders, said that "it is clear that there will be a second disengagement in Judea and Samaria, it is clear that it will take place before a permanent agreement, and it is clear that it will include the 80,000 settlers living outside of the fence. Therefore, the government must stop using settlers as bargaining chips and hostages and enable them to voluntary leave right now.""

Meanwhile Ariel Sharon, the Likud Prime Minister, has announced he is resigning from Likud to form a new 'centrist' party with Shimon Peres to contest the next elections. Sharon's move suggests that aggressive, expansionist, colonialist, lebensraum, not-one-step-backwards Zionism, for so long the bi-partisan mainstream policy of Israel, has finally been relegated to the right, and is about to be abandoned in the face of reality.

Its possible also that Sharon can see the writing on the wall: the huge strategic failure of the Iraq invasion; the inevitability of Iranian regional hegemony; the futility of endless fighting against the Palestinians, who will neither die nor abandon their remaining lands. Perhaps Sharon can visualise the end state of the Zionist project, the final borders, and it is somewhat less than the 'Nile to Euphrates' delusions of extremists.

These events can also be interpreted to mean that Palestinian resistance, with virtually no aid from the rest of the world and facing the combined might of the US/Israel, has ground the expansionist Zionist project to a standstill. The 'apartheid wall', not the Green line, is looking more and more like the final boundaries of the Jewish state.