Israel cannot take the blame for the arab fractioning

Submitted by sara (United States), Mar 11, 2012 at 19:14

Lars,

I agree with some of your points. I try to remain realistic and practical rather than ideology driven.

You say: "The israeli interest is, that the palestinians cease to be a menace to Israel. Israel is therefore very anxious to agree to the creation of a palestinian state, before the palestinians have recognized the existence of Israel and given up their claim, that palestinian refugees and their descendants should have a right to return to places inside Israel."

Resolution does not mean 'peace' as I believe that is not possible, and it appears that you agree in your last sentence. Stability is much more important than peace and historically, what promotes stability is deterrence. Israel cannot and will not accept these 'refugee returns' as no country in creation has done so in the past, and the line of legitimacy gets blurrier with every stake. Not only this, but an influx of a large mass of Palestiians/Jordanians/Kuwaitis/Egyptians/Lebanese etc. is a laughably thinly veiled attempt to eradicate the Jewish state. They know it and we know it and the world knows it.

"The US interest is to dominate the Middle East. It has no specific interest in solving the palestinian problem, as long as the arabs do not care. And the arabs have never shown much interest in solving the palestinian problem. But if the arabs should join forces against Israel, the US would have to choose. Either a war against the arabs or to abandon Israel."

Well of course the premise makes the answer impossible, since we both know that the arabs will never manage to unite against Israel. In fact the likelihood of Hamas and the PA uniting is might mighty slim, and that in itself puts a stop to all negotiation. Of course, the leftist Israelis are forever making excuses for them and taking the blame for their lack of unification. Yossi Alper just wrote a beautiful piece in which he already blames Israel for the inevitable Intifada that will erupt on a moment's notice. His contention is that Israel needs to DO something to calm the waters between Hamas and PA and make them best buddies. Why is it Israel's responsibility? He thinks that if Israel does not do this (and you and I hopefully agree that this happening is highly unlikely), then Israel must accept the consequences of the frustration building among the palestinians and their wrath will be unleashed in another scapegoating move. Blame Israel for the fact that they are unable to come together politically or socially. That is the height of nerve to me. To be so arrogant as to believe that anything Israel does actually could matter between the arab feuds.

"On the other hand, the US has no interest to abandon Israel now, because this would be seen as a sign of weakness. Therefore, the US has adopted a policy, where it orally supports peace between israelis and palestinians without doing anything, which would promote the peace process."

I am not sure where you get your analysis points from. The US will not abandon Israel because it is not in their strategic interest to do so. Having a faithful ally in the ME is too valuable, and as a bonus they get to use the military prowess rather than their own when needed. But I agree that there has been a very long and continuous stand-off where the US is careful not to seem too supportive of any side, regardless of which party was in office at the time.

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