The Peace to End All Peace

Submitted by Ben Gitlow (United States), Dec 23, 2003 at 08:09

I beleive the Palestinians and almost all of the arab world will not negotiate in good faith or accept anything less than the end of Israel as a nataion-state.

Root causes are very deep. The jews from the begining of the Zionist movement bought land from the Ottoman Empire. Palestinian arabs never accepted this juridical arrangement and have resisted with violence from the begining.

The book "The Peace to End All Peace" that describes the Sykes-Picot agreement tells how the English and French divided the middle east after the first world war. The British betrayed their promises to the arabs and the Mandate frustrated the establishment of a jewish homeland (not a sate).

The US State Department was formed during the long tenure of FDR. The Department is a self-replicating entity that has been pro arab since the early thirties. The department opposed Truman's recognition of Israel and has an institutional interest in preserving its connections in the middle east. You could say on the face of it that our middle eastern policy has been a failure (disaster?). US support for Irael has been largely a result of the cold war and to some extent political pressure from american jews - this support has become less important as the democratic party moves further and further to the left. Only a Secretary of State with a well informed world view and forceful ego like Dulles, Atcheson, Rusk or Kissenger can overcome the inertia of the beurocracy; unfortunately Powell has no such view and it appears his policy is to defend the turf of the State Department as the good beurocrat he is.

The support of Arafat by the world has ensured his continuous success and helped make a negotiated settlement impossible. The world community with few exceptions has by its actions rewarded terrorism. ( I think Arafat has a Nobel Peace Prize.)

Israel itself is severely split. A large fraction of the Israelis aare not [re[ared to fight for their surviv al as the did in 1947 and the wars imposed by the arabs culminating in 1967. Many Palestinians with suppport from the rest of the arab worldd are prepared to die to acheive the end of Israel.

The world, including the US, urges retraint on the paft of Israel. Israel is in the forfront of the war on terrorism. Can you imagine the response of the US if the US suffered the proportionate nuber of deeaths imposed on the israelis by terrorist attacks.

It is dark days for the jews. I think the US will be harmed if terrorism is permitted to succeed in the Arab-Israeli struggle.

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