Push Israel?
Well yes, push Israel - that is what the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States is telling the U.S. The ambassador points out that the esteem in which the U.S. is held within the Middle East is at an all-time low, and that such an initiative undertaken by the United States would encourage a more favourable view of it within the Arab populations. Much could be solved if the United States agreed to push Israel to relinquish all occupied Arab land - including Jerusalem - to the Palestinians. Land which the Arabs lost in yet another of their pre-emptive wars against the Jewish state."We want you to remain friends with Israel," Saudi Ambassador Turki al-Faisal said at a news conference. "But that friendship should be used to push Israel" to give up the land lost in the 19567 Mideast war and provide the Palestinians with a state they have been denied for more than a half-century, the prince said.
"The United States is the only one that can deliver," the ambassador said. "The basic interest of the United States is for peace to reign in our part of the world."Over to you, United States. Go to it. Give Israel the compelling reason that it should give up the occupied land because Saudi Arabia feels this is the only chance for peace in the Middle East. While you're at it, iterate that you will guarantee that this simple measure will indeed guarantee peace in the Middle East. Including, needless to say, amicable intentions with all of Israel's neighbours toward the Jewish State. With the assurance of complete peace why would Israel not agree to such an initiative?
Well, perhaps because it's been tried time and again. Perhaps because time has proven that each and every time Israel offers to give something up for peace it is seen as a sign of weakness, and her enemies become jubilant with the assertion of victory achieved. Perhaps because those who will not tolerate Israel's presence in an other-wise Muslim world will not agree to change and welcome her presence, finally. Perhaps because, when the Palestinians were given a firm and workable solution to their desire for nationhood, they spurned it.
Egypt and Saudi Arabia and Jordan, those countries which have reached an accord of sorts with Israel do want peace in the region; peace and stability, just as Israel does. But those three Arab countries despite all their efforts at diplomacy and clarification, and promises and appeals have been singularly unsuccessful in their own overtures to Syria and to Lebanon, to Iran and to Hezbollah, to Hamas and to the Palestinian Authority in convincing them that compromise and conciliation will lead to the region's peace and prosperity.
When Israel pulled out of Lebanon, that heartened and strengthened Hezbollah who declared it a great victory for Islam and for the eventual extinguishing of the Israeli presence. They have never looked back; they hunger for a final victory over the Jewish state. Does experience tell Israel that giving up the territory under question will inevitably lead to peaceful co-existence? Hardly. Hamas will agree to a hudna, a temporary truce - until some future time when the final jihad against Israel will ensue to culminate in a final victory against Israel.
Is that a compelling reason for Israel to be pushed into a greater state of vulnerability? Cannot we do better than that? If the Saudis are so anxious to contain the fanatic jihadists in the Middle East they too have to exert themselves to achieve a more acceptable solution.
posted by Pieface @ Tuesday, October 31, 2006
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