Israel Matzav

Why Israel is wasting its time in Washington

Now here’s the thought experiment part. I’m assuming most of the readers here — in this case I’d wager 99% of you — have been in negotiations themselves. When you got 98% or even 88% of what you wanted, did you walk away and start a war… okay, just walk away? And if you did, why did you do that … when you were so close to making a deal? You could obviously hang around in negotiations and get most, if not all, of what you wanted.

Well, the answer is — no fair peeking — because you never wanted the deal in the first place.

First one in with that response wins the used iPod. Sorry, it’s last year’s model because the answer is so obvious. Well, obvious to everybody but the Walt/Mearsheimer crowd (who seem to think that Israel is the rough equivalent of Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge) and the Peter Beinart set (who keep advising Israel to make concessions “for their own good,” whatever that is).

Indeed, most of us realize what is even more obvious. If the Palestinians had really wanted a state of their own beside Israel, a two-state solution, they could have had one thirty years ago — or more. They don’t want a two-state solution. They want a one-state solution.

I wish I could say otherwise, but that is the sad truth. It’s not only the religious psychopaths at Hamas who want to torpedo peace; in the end it’s a fair percentage of the Palestinian population as well. And nothing has been done by their own leaders — Fatah and certainly not Hamas — to persuade them otherwise. (Hamas? Isn’t that the organization the Ground Zero mosque Imam Rauf is unwilling to condemn?-ed. I already gave away the used iPod.)

So all that being the case, what in the Sam Hill is Benjamin Netanyahu doing in Washington?

Well, he has no other choice. Barack Obama still is the American president, even if he may be the earliest lame duck in the history of our country. For now he controls all-important military aid.

But there’s a bigger reason. Again, no fair peeking, but I’ll give you a hint. It’s a four letter word that begins with an “I” and ends with an “N.”

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:49 PM