I like this guy Bret Stephens and have posted his views before.
He calls out the clear responsibility of Palestinians for having themselves failed to get a two state solution. Yet the world never stops blaming Israel. And forgiving Palestinians, who are forever the victims.
Palestinians have had many opportunities since 1949 -- over twenty by some counts -- to make peace and have their own country side by side with Israel, but have rejected every one. Because that would mean making Israel -- and Jews -- former enemies. And they don't want that. They want the destruction of Israel and the killing of Jews -- wherever they are. It's forever, this hatred of Jews, codified in Islamic doctrine, since the time of that horrid man Muhammad.
Full article below the fold.
In the history of political clichés, has there ever been one quite so misjudged as the line—some version of which is attributed either to Israel’s martyred Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin or fabled Defense Minister Moshe Dayan —that “you make peace with your enemies, not with your friends”?
He calls out the clear responsibility of Palestinians for having themselves failed to get a two state solution. Yet the world never stops blaming Israel. And forgiving Palestinians, who are forever the victims.
Palestinians have had many opportunities since 1949 -- over twenty by some counts -- to make peace and have their own country side by side with Israel, but have rejected every one. Because that would mean making Israel -- and Jews -- former enemies. And they don't want that. They want the destruction of Israel and the killing of Jews -- wherever they are. It's forever, this hatred of Jews, codified in Islamic doctrine, since the time of that horrid man Muhammad.
Full article below the fold.
In the history of political clichés, has there ever been one quite so misjudged as the line—some version of which is attributed either to Israel’s martyred Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin or fabled Defense Minister Moshe Dayan —that “you make peace with your enemies, not with your friends”?
OK, “give peace a chance” and “nation
building at home” are worse. But the Rabin-Dayan line is an expression of the
higher mindlessness that passes for wisdom among people who think they are
smart. After Monday’s make-nice session between President Obama and Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, it’s time for a reconsideration.
To wit: You do not make peace with
enemies. You make peace with former enemies—either because you have
defeated them, as we defeated the Axis Powers in World War II; or because they
collapse, as the Soviet Union did after the fall of the Berlin Wall; or because
they have defeated you and you’re able to come to terms with the outcome from a
safe distance. Witness Vietnam.
On rare precious occasions, both
sides realize their interests are best served through a negotiated settlement
they’re prepared to honor. That was the miracle of 1977, when Egypt’s Anwar
Sadat flew to Israel to show he sincerely accepted the Jewish state’s right to
exist. He paid for the gesture with his life.
Touro Institute Professor Anne
Bayefsky on today's White House meeting and the prospects for better bilateral
relations. Photo credit: Getty Images.
Enemies, however, do not make peace.
They may desist from open combat, as Pakistan and India have, even as Islamabad
continues to support anti-Indian terrorist proxies. They may arrange a
long-term armistice of the kind South Korea has with the North. But that’s a
peace preserved by 700,000 active-duty South Korean and U.S. troops, plus a
million land mines in the DMZ.
For the past 22 years—ever since
Rabin signed the Oslo Accord with the PLO’s Yasser Arafat —Israel has been
trying to achieve something historically unprecedented: To make peace with an
enemy that shows no interest in becoming an ex-enemy.
Daniel Polisar, an Israeli political
scientist, recently published a fascinating study in Mosaic magazine
of Palestinian public opinion based on 330 polls conducted over many years. It
makes for some bracing reading.
“When asked hypothetically if
Israel’s use of chemical or biological weapons against Palestinians would
constitute terror, 93 percent said yes,” notes Mr. Polisar. “But when the
identical question was posed regarding the use of such weapons of mass
destruction by Palestinians against Israelis, only 25 percent responded
affirmatively.”
Other details: A 2011 poll found that
61% of Palestinians thought it was morally right to name Palestinian streets
after suicide bombers. In December 2014, 78% of Palestinians expressed support
for “attempts to stab or run over Israelis” in the West Bank and Jerusalem.
Only 20% were opposed. Palestinians have also consistently supported terrorist
attacks against Israelis within Israel’s original borders, “often by as much as
six to one.”
Palestinians routinely blame Israel
for problems over which it has no control, such as the bloody 2007 coup through
which Hamas wrested power from Fatah in the Gaza Strip. Ninety-four percent of
Palestinians report a “very unfavorable” opinion of Jews. A majority of
Palestinians believe Israel will “destroy the al-Aqsa and Dome of the Rock
mosques and build a synagogue in their place.”
As for the idea of sharing the land,
only 12% of Palestinians agreed that “both Jews and Palestinians have rights to
the land.” More than 80% felt “this is Palestinian land and Jews have no rights
to it.” Most Palestinians also think Israel won’t be around in 30 or 40 years,
either “because Arab or Muslim resistance will destroy it” or on account of its
“internal contradictions.”
Where is the sense in agreeing to
relinquish through negotiations what is yours by right today and will be yours
in deed tomorrow?
None of this is helped by Palestinian
leaders who, when not inciting violence or alleging Israeli conspiracies, are peddling the
lie that Israel is creating an apartheid state. The only person standing in the
way of Palestinian democracy is Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who hasn’t
held an election in a decade. The only force standing in the way of a
Palestinian state are the Palestinian people, who think they can gain their
rights by stabbing their neighbors.
Which brings us back to Monday’s Oval
Office meeting. Along with the forced bonhomie, the administration has been
sounding the usual two-minutes-to-midnight warnings about the supposed end of
the two-state solution. “For Israel, the more there is settlement construction,
the more it undermines the ability to achieve peace,” says Ben Rhodes, the
deputy national security adviser, in an interview with Haaretz.
How sweet it would be if all Israel
had to do to make peace was dismantle its settlements. How much sweeter if the
American president would find less to fault with an Israeli government’s
housing policies than a Palestinian political culture still so intent on
killing Jews. If Mr. Obama wants to know why he’s so disliked by Israelis,
there’s the reason.
Write bstephens@wsj.com.
