At The Bargaining Table
What a prospect. Two bitterly embattled populations attempting to find an avenue which might lead them toward a future of hope, sans ongoing battles to attain entitlements, one at the expense of the other. Do they bargain from a position of strength, each camp?Not likely. Israel's prime minister is distrusted and his country's population has little faith in his abilities, either to govern the country adequately, let alone to defend it reasonably well. Or to sue for a peaceful accord without ceding all that makes the state uniquely Jewish.
The Palestinian Authority relies upon its president, Mahmoud Abbas, scarcely in control of his PA-affiliated militias, barely able to represent his West Bank population for fear of Fatah-hating Hamas wreaking fresh havoc between Gaza and the West Bank, de-stabilizing Fatah for good.
Israel sits in a position of conquest gained from the repulsion of an invading combined army of its Arab neighbours. Her historical presence as a people in the region has done them no good in terms of aspiring to live in harmony with other ancient neighbours among whom wars and instability have expressed a traditional tribal-inspired way of life.
The Palestinians live in a geography nominally considered to be an emerging state, but which has historically, traditionally, been governed by other neighbouring countries, neither of which ever came close to consenting sovereignty for Palestinians, both of which always jostled for hegemony over the population.
Might it not be sufficient for Israel to draw back to earlier borders, to agree to pulling back her settlements in the West Bank, to offer peaceful co-existence between herself and the nascent State? Not so, it would appear, as the Palestinian Authority feels itself entitled to demand whatever it feels its population cannot live in honour without.
That these demands would have the unfortunate result of gutting the purpose of the foundation of the State of Israel appears irrelevant; this is none of their concern. To establish a condition of peace and co-existence between the warring solitudes requires that Israel relent entirely and give up to the Palestinians all that they demand.
To do otherwise is to risk the insult of being considered intransigent and disinterested in solving the dilemma. What will it take to ensure the survival of Israel as a Jewish State, absent complete submission to the demands of the Palestinians? Well, actually, nothing, since to agree to these demands is to agree to dissolve itself as a Jewish State.
Rather a clever ploy on the part of the Arab populations who would, when all is said and done, still relish the beauty of being rid of a Jewish population from among Arab countries.
War was unable to achieve the dislodgement of the State of Israel, but diplomacy, or civil demands, apparently, can be used to achieve the same end by diluting the Jewish population irremediably, converting Israel by dint of a burgeoning Arab population into yet another Arab state with an incidental Jewish demographic.
So, says the PA, we definitely must have an undivided Jerusalem as our capital. And the 'right of return' must be assured. But, avers Israel, that cannot be; Jerusalem is and always has been the sacred heart of Israel. And to accept the generations-swollen numbers of Palestinians who fled the area in 1948 is to consign ourselves to oblivion.
Yes, says the PA. Most definitely so.
Labels: Justice, Middle East, Political Realities
posted by Pieface @ Monday, October 08, 2007
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