Israel Matzav

The 'fierce moral urgency' for 'peace' between Israelis and 'Palestinians'

Time Magazine tells us that the 'fierce moral urgency' for 'peace' between Israelis and 'Palestinians' is because Israelis are willing to live with the status quo, while 'Palestinians' are not.

Still, grim as the prospects for achieving agreement under the circumstances may be, the Obama Administration is all too aware that time is running out for the two-state solution. Populations on both sides of the divide have lost faith in the concept, but while Israelis are largely content to live with the status quo, Palestinians are not — and they are losing faith in the path of negotiations [a threat of war? CiJ]. The expansion of the Israeli presence in East Jerusalem and the West Bank in recent years has eroded faith in the prospects for a territorially viable Palestinian state; the idea of resolving the conflict on the basis of creating two states — a concept that entered the political mainstream almost two decades ago — may have reached its expiration date.

So the Administration is expected to move to the next phase despite the obvious lack of confidence of either side in the other. That would involve defining some sort of process of talks on a timetable aimed at resolving the key questions of where to draw borders between Israel and a state of Palestine, the terms of Palestinian sovereignty, how to share Jerusalem and the fate of Palestinian refugees. But both sides have been through such a process before and failed to conclude a deal. For many Middle East watchers, the key question will be whether Obama sets a deadline for such talks. And what it plans to do if, as seems quite possible if not probable, the two sides fail to reach agreement.

That's pretty funny, because less than two months ago, 'moderate' 'Palestinian' President Mahmoud Abbas Abu Mazen told the Washington Post's Jackson Diehl that the 'Palestinians' are happy with their status quo, and have all the time in the world.

Abbas and his team fully expect that Netanyahu will never agree to the full settlement freeze -- if he did, his center-right coalition would almost certainly collapse. So they plan to sit back and watch while U.S. pressure slowly squeezes the Israeli prime minister from office. "It will take a couple of years," one official breezily predicted. Abbas rejects the notion that he should make any comparable concession -- such as recognizing Israel as a Jewish state, which would imply renunciation of any large-scale resettlement of refugees.

Instead, he says, he will remain passive. "I will wait for Hamas to accept international commitments. I will wait for Israel to freeze settlements," he said. "Until then, in the West Bank we have a good reality . . . the people are living a normal life." In the Obama administration, so far, it's easy being Palestinian.

The truth is that the 'fierce moral urgency' that Obama attributes to the Middle East has nothing to do with the parties. The 'Palestinians' know they have no chance of winning a war with Israel, and that the Arab states have tired of them and are not likely to help them. They are not about to start a war and are too divided to sustain one (as the Time article quoted above establishes beyond any doubt).

The 'fierce moral urgency' for 'peace' in the Middle East arises from Obama's 'moral code' learned from the likes of the anti-Semitic Jeremiah Wright, Billy Ayers and Rashid Khalidi that calls Israel "an aggressive, Western imperialist power exploiting indigenous people of color who simply wish to be free." But that 'moral code' doesn't allow for Israel's existence at all, so don't look for Israel to play along with it.

Most importantly, the 'fierce moral urgency' for 'peace' in the Middle East derives from the fact that at the urging of his kapos - Rahm Emanuel, David Axelrod, Bob Wexler and Gary Ackerman - the Obama administration has made 'peace' between Israel and the 'Palestinians' the centerpiece of his administration's foreign policy. As is the case with Obamacare on the domestic side, Obama will continue to pursue this centerpiece policy even though it is abundantly clear that 'peace' hasn't been thought out properly, is not in the interests of any of the parties that it is supposed to benefit, and entails costs for generations to come that will far exceed its benefits. Like Obamacare, Obama will try to ram 'peace' down the throats of those it is supposed to benefit, since, after all, only Obama knows what's good for us.

What could go wrong?

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 5:48 PM