Can Peace really be negotiated with the local Arabs aka or so-called Palestinians (sic)?
Israeli policy has been based on such a premise for a dangerously long time. I’m not just talking about the past few years. Many Israeli leaders have been dreaming of this since even before the beginning of the State of Israel. Labor Zionists have considered Peace to be something attainable if only we’d…
Never have mainstream Israeli leaders dared accept the unpleasant fact that there is absolutely nothing we can do to make the Arabs accept a viable Jewish state here. They, meaning we though not me and my ilk personally, have tried everything possible to show how nice, friendly and tolerant we can be. Whatever other country would accept enemy wounded into our hospitals as proof of “apology” for shooting back after being attacked? Yep, it does sound pretty dumb.
And in the sixty-six years of Israeli statehood, so many different negotiated plans have been proposed, and they’ve all been failures. And unfortunately most, if not all, have been unilateral concessions by Israel. Each one leaving us smaller and weaker.
The reason that the great 1967 victory of Land, in the Six Days War wasn’t fully embraced by Israeli policy is that the movers and shakers of the time considered that Land to be what the Arabs wanted in exchange for peace. The Israeli leadership was wrong on both counts.
- Jordan, at that time there was no concept or history of an Arab Palestine, was not interested in continued Jordanian occupation of Judea, Samaria and the Jordan Valley.
- Syria only used the Golan Heights as launching pads against northern Israel.
- Egypt only used the Sinai as a useless buffer zone.
- And none of them wanted peace with us, no matter what we bribed them with. That only changed once Sadat took over after Nasser in Egypt.
