Jewish leaders, who live in Chicago and New York and behind the gates of Boca Raton country clubs, loathe the idea that Mr. Olmert, or a prime minister yet elected, might one day cede the Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem to the latent state of Palestine. These are neighborhoods—places like Sur Baher, Beit Hanina and Abu Dis—that the Conference of Presidents could not find with a forked stick...And yet many Jewish leaders believe that an Israeli compromise on the boundaries of greater Jerusalem—or on nearly any other point of disagreement—is an axiomatic invitation to catastrophe.”
When he spoke with Olmert several days later, Goldberg continued, the Israeli prime minister “said that certain American Jews he would not name have been ‘investing a lot of money trying to overthrow the government of Israel.’ But he was expansive and persuasive on the Zionist need for a Palestinian state. Without a Palestine—a viable, territorially contiguous Palestine—Arabs under Israeli control will, in the not distant future, outnumber the country’s Jews. ‘We now have the Palestinians running an Algeria-style campaign against Israel, but what I fear is that they will try to run a South Africa-type campaign against us,’ he said. If this happens, and worldwide sanctions are imposed as they were against the white-minority government, ‘the state of Israel is finished.’”
