Posted by
ApolloSpeaks on Thursday, May 21, 2009 9:04:06 AM
It is now being reported that the meeting with Obama and Netanyahu at the White House on Tuesday went badly. That the two leaders were at loggerheads over the issue of Palestinian statehood with Netanyahu resisting Obama's plea that Israel freeze settlement building on the West Bank and restarting the peace process pursue a two state solution to end the conflict.
This is what many of us feared: Israel and the US are now on a collision course with the president living in a fantasy world believing that peace is now possible; that the Palestinians deep down want what he wants; that he represents their true interests, yearnings and values; that they too want a two state solution because it's the only reasonable answer; and that somewhere along the negotiating path the dawn will break on Hamas and Abbas, that he will charm them into seeing the wisdom of accepting Israel's existence as a Jewish state. That is what Obama is audaciously hoping; hoping that an Anwar Sadat will emerge from these talks and risking life and limb take the bold steps necessary for peace. Nothing ventured nothing gained is Obama's message to a rightly intransigent Netanahyu and a disillusioned Israeli public who with one voice are shouting "Never Again!" Never again will Israel cede land to the Palestinians until they first have a radical change of heart; until they wake up to the reality that the Jewish state is here to stay as if by divine decree; that she has existed for 61 years against staggering odds surviving wars, terrorist attacks and universal hostility as if a supernatural power were guiding her fate. In short, until the Palestinians realize that defeating Israel is beyond their capabilities and lose hope of victory anytime in the future there will be no peace.
Netanyahu won't join Obama in putting the cart before the horse. If Obama wants peace he's got to work for it. He has to unilaterally engage the Palestinians as he is planning to do with Iran and trying to talk sense into them make them realize the futility and hopelessness of their cause. As Obama claimed in Tuesday's press conference that he has "an argument that will pursuade Tehran to give up its nuclear ambitions" let him turn his skills on the Palistinians; let him frame an
unanswerable argument to pursuade them to abandon their jihad against Israel. Israel needs no persuading, from its founding moment it wanted peace begging its Arab neighbors to accept the two state solution ratified by non-Moslem nations at the UN. Time and time again Israel has proved its earnest desire for a resolution to its conflict with the Arabs: the return of Sinai to Egypt (90% of its captured territory from the Six Days War), and granting Palestinians autonomy by ending the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, is proof enough. Israel has carried the burden of peace to the limit, it has nothing more to give. Now it's time for the Palestinians to prove themselves, to overcome their racism, cultural imperialism and religious intolerance; to transcend the sins that poison them with hate, that keeps them at war with Israel, a war that has been their undoing, that has been their curse and ruin.
Mr. President, at this time in history there is no two state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli
conflict, no one state solution, no three state solution with Hamas governing Gaza and the PA the West Bank as some propose. Unless you help the Palestinians to radically alter their state of mind, transforming them from barbarians into civilized human beings prepared to live in freedom and peace, the dream of peace will remain unrealized and war will continue long into the future with more bloodshed and suffering to come.