Peace Emissaries
It seems so truly comforting, that two Arab states, Egypt and Jordan, both of whom have signed peace agreements with Israel, have sent their highly-placed peace emissaries to assure Israel that the Arab world is prepared to extend "a hand of peace" to the country in exchange for Israel's acceptance of the 22-member Arab League's plan setting out the conditions for peace between Israel and the Palestinians.The Saudi-backed proposal that promises normalizing relations between Israel and its Arab neighbours also holds provisions which the Arab League expects Israel to accept before full diplomatic relations can be brought into existence. Those key provisions - of abandoning all land that Israel occupied post 1967, including part of Jerusalem, and the acceptance of the Right of Return for Palestinian refugees within Israeli borders are sticking points.
Dicey proposition that: an offer for long-lasting peace (presumably long-lasting...) in exchange for a well-defined methodology for populating the State of Israel out of existence. It's relatively easy to offer peace to a state that no longer exists. What the proposal in essence represents is a return to the status quo; that situation that existed before the creation of the State of Israel, when Jews were permitted to inhabit parts of the Middle East as quasi-citizens, dependent on the grudging approval of their Islamic masters.
What an offer; one to die for. And die the State most certainly would, should all these conditions be accepted. So then, a plan for survival might conceivably include rejecting at least a part of these 'insignificantly political' demands. Since giving up that portion of Jerusalem which holds the most revered and sacred sites in Judaism, those very sites to which Jews were traditionally denied access, would certainly not serve Israel well - scratch it.
Since to permit the entry of generations-swollen population of Palestinian refugees now numbering ten times their original number would be sufficient to drown Israel in a belligerent and self-serving tide of returnees having no intention whatever of becoming biddable and supportive citizens of the State of Israel, we've got another non-starter.
Give up all lands formerly in the possession of hostile Arab states who sought, time after time, to expunge the Jewish state from existence? It could certainly be done. What guarantees might be offered to ensure that Syria, for example, that wellspring of good-natured Arabs who hold Jews in such high esteem, would not once again attack Israel from the ramparts of the Golan Heights?
And were Israel to remove the hundreds of thousands of Israeli Jews from parts of the West Bank they currently occupy, what on earth would become of them? Where would the country accommodate them? The one hundred thousand Jewish settlers who were removed from Gaza in Israel's unilateral withdrawal are still living in temporary shelters, their lives rent asunder.
This is, of course, Israel's problem, one for Israel to solve, and of no concern to her would-be Arab friends and neighbours, who have their own limitless problems. But wait, there are other potential problems that raise their black and ugly heads; with unification between Gaza and the West Bank seemingly unlikely in the very near future, a settlement with Fatah and the West Bank would solve only one dimension of this irresolvable dilemma.
And wait again: Fatah-affiliated militants will do as they are wont to do, and continue attacking the Jewish State. Is official, political Fatah, the Fatah that is now the sole inheritor of the Palestinian Authority, we are to believe, poised to rein in its terror-contingent? Fact is, many demands are being made of Israel; what demands are being placed on the PA? That they take solid steps to ensure that their paramilitaries toe the line?
That they now pull all the anti-Semitic tracts so beloved of Fatah from public view, and with them the Jew-hating, enemy designation they have taught their impressionable primary-grade children, on through higher education levels to ensure those same children will become fodder for future armed resistance? What happens with the culture of hatred so carefully and determinedly encouraged within Palestinian society?
The Fatah terrorists whom Israel pardoned just last week upon their agreeing to renounce terrorism consider their handing over of weapons a charade, a "big joke". Consider this: a 2007 Pew Global Attitudes survey recently released showing data representative of responses from 47 countries indicates a growing rejection of Islamist militant tactics among Muslims, with a concomitant waning confidence in al-Qaeda.
"The marked decline in the acceptance of suicide bombing is one of several findings that suggest a possible broader rejection of extremist tactics among many in the Muslim world", states the report, comfortingly. Oops, what's this? Oh dear, while the Pew report discovered dwindling support for suicide bombings in seven of eight Muslim countries since 2002, support for suicide attacks remained at a high 70% among Palestinians.
I guess the good news in all of this is a whopping 30% of Palestinians don't think suicide bombing to murder as many Israelis as possible in an effort to persuade them that Palestinians are mad and they aren't going to take it any more, is reasonable comfort for heralding a future Palestinian State, side by side with neighbour, Israel.
Labels: Justice, Middle East, Political Realities
posted by Pieface @ Thursday, July 26, 2007
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