I was surprised to read in JewishPress.com, Yair Shamir’s article, where he states that he opposes a Palestinian state.

I was surprised, because over Shabbat, I read in Makor Rishon an interview with his party’s leader, Avigdor Liberman, where Liberman explicitly stated that he would support the uprooting of settlements that aren’t inside settlement blocs, in exchange for peace, including his own home in Nokdim, Gush Etzion.

Liberman continued on to say that peace isn’t possible under the current conditions, only because Abbas isn’t a partner,.

But that last line is more than a bit disingenuous, because on Sunday, I read that Liberman said that seeking a two-state solution will be an important element of the next government.

Like Shamir, Liberman also said that he is also opposed to a Palestinian state.

But as I understand him, Liberman says he supports the creation of autonomous, demilitarized Palestinian areas, or alternatively two states with population transfers. I’m not sure what the differences between any of these plans are at this point. If it walks like a Palestinian duck…

I’ve also heard rumors that Liberman is angry at Shamir for something he recently said. Perhaps it was about opposing the Palestinian state, without adding on the autonomous area bit? Or perhaps it was for attacking Netanyahu for supporting the two-state solution.

I don’t know.

The bottom line is that Liberman has explicitly stated that he accepts the dismantling of settlements, and he will be actively pushing for a resolution based on a two-state solution in his next term, and he openly accepts that uprooting Jews will or at least may be part of that solution.

And to top it off, now there are reports that Netanyahu has delayed E1, by “hesitating” to approve the projects there, and not filing them. That’s a worrisome development.

I don’t know much about Shamir’s actual positions, and whether or not he stands 100% behind Liberman, but since its Liberman and Netanyahu who are setting policy, and not Shamir, I am honestly concerned that a vote for Likud-Beytenu is a vote to expel Jews from their homes.

It’s unfortunate, because there are so many important issues on the Yisrael Beytenu agenda that they want to deal with, such as reforming the electoral system, Hareidi integration, and so on. But instead, Liberman chose to insert a red line like this into his party’s position.

Yesterday, Naftali Bennett, was attacked for his position on not uprooting Jews. He wisely responded that all the Jewish parties should sign an affidavit that they won’t expel Jews. He received cheers and applause for saying that. And his party is only going up because of it.

Today, Rav Ovadiah’s son said the same thing.

The bottom line is this.

The Israeli people do not want any more Jews uprooted, and the Israeli people do not believe that pulling back to any variation of the ’67 lines will bring peace with the Arabs.

It’s unfortunately quite clear that Netanyahu and Liberman do not see eye to eye anymore with what most of the population wants or believes is good for us, and it’s only because the Likud list is a pretty good list, that Likud-Beytenu hasn’t dropped even further or faster.

Expelling Jews is a red line, and no matter what other benefits Likud-Beytenu may bring, it’s a red line that they’ve told us they may very well cross.

Netanyahu and Liberman need to come out and explicitly state that under no circumstances will Jews be expelled during their term in power.

That’s my red line.

Pressure from residents of Gush Etzion and the settlers’ leadership over the past many months against the construction of a security fence around their territory has yielded results, apparently, as IDF Vice Chief of Staff Yair Naveh has announced this week that the completion of the Gush Etzion area security fence is being frozen, Makir Rishon reports.

In a letter received by local council head Davidi Pearl, General Naveh informs him that “continued work along the Gush Etzion track is being re-evaluated, and the matter is awaiting a decision by the political echelon. Until such a decision is reached, the work will not be renewed.”

The council head also received a personal, verbal confirmation from Central Command chief General Nitzan Alon.

“We realize that the fence is, in fact, a border. Once the fence is up, we’ll be outside the state of Israel,” Pearl said. “There 70,000 Jewish residents in Gush Etzion, and we’ll have next to us another 30,000 Palestinians; they would build here but we won’t be permitted to develop our settlements. We’ll be stuck. We want to see a contiguous flow between Gush Etzion and the state, and if we are included in the consensus, there’s no reason to build a fence to the west of us.”

Gush Etzion residents have let out a sigh of relief at this first gain in their fight against the fence which started several months ago, although, for the moment, this may only be a temporary reprieve.

In recent months, Gush Etzion residents have signed a petition against the fence construction, and council chief Pearl met with Prime Minister Netanyahu to discuss the issue, showed him the blueprints for the fence and asked him to prevent the project. During a tour of the area by Knesset Speraker Reuven Rivlin, he called for a reexamination of the plan to erext a fence in the area.

“We know that the prime minister elected, following his visit to Gush Etzion, to freeze the plan and reexamine it,” Pearl told Makor Rishon, “but we’re clear that the decree has not been removed for good, and that the matter will come up again in discussion. For now, we succeeded in freezing it. When a new government id in place we’ll bring the issue up once more for a discussion and will deal with it again.”

The reason for the objection to the fence on the part of local Jewish residents is that it cuts them off from the population inside the “green line,” which marks the border separating the IDF from the Jordanian Legion at the signing of the armistice agreement in 1949.

Constructed of the security fence started a decade ago, with a decision of the Ariel Sharon government to do all it could to stop entry of suicide bombers into Israel. Out of the planned 500 miles, less than 300 miles have been completed, about 60 percent of the original plan, at the cost so far of $2.7 billion. The work has been stopped some five years ago due to budgetary constraints.

Among the Jews of Judea and Samaria there is a common understanding that the plan of leaders in the Likud and in Labor and the other left of center Zionist parties is to eventually annex the “cluster of settlements” while abandoning everyone living east of the fence. Preventing being stuck on the wrong side of the fence is therefore crucial for the Jews of Gush Etzion.

Gush Etzion (Etzion Bloc) is a cluster of Israeli settlements in the Judaean mountains south of Jerusalem and Bethlehem. The core group includes four villages that were founded in the 1940′s on land purchased in the 1920s ’30s, and destroyed by the Jordanian Legion in 1948. The area was left outside the 1949 armistice “green line.” Today’s Gush Etzion settlements were rebuilt after the 1967 Six-Day War, along with new communities that have expanded beyond the original Bloc.