Response to Dr Pipes

Submitted by Anon (United States), Dec 9, 2012 at 18:31

Dr Pipes said:

"If the Palestinians are truly so upset about expanding Jewish habitations in the West Bank, they would pronto make a full and sincere peace with Israel. In the interim, I see these towns as useful pressure on them to settle."

Thanks for the reply Dr Pipes. I can see your point but in my view an even better option is for Israel to lay all this out on the table. Israel is not an insecure country and it needs to speak with a louder voice about its intentions at least for the sake of broader public opinion in Western countries even if it will have negligible impact on Palestinians or other Arabs in the region.

As an outsider in this conflict but having visited Israel a few times I do feel sorry for Palestinians who end up suffering perhaps in many cases due to no fault of Israel. This conflict is all about humiliation and given the passage of time should have nothing to do with occupation or tyranny. The unfortunate thing is that there seem to be no adults who will explain this to the Arabs. Perhaps Israel should move in this direction instead of settlement expansion. Tell the Arabs that it is sad about what has happened to the Palestinians over the last 65 yrs and apologize for whatever wrongs Israel may have done during the creation of Israel BUT also make it clear that the current generation of people living in Israel cannot be made to pay a price for the past. Even if this message resonates with a small percentage of Arabs/Muslims - it will still benefit Israel in many ways. For instance, it might become that much harder to recruit a young kid in Pakistan to go and kill Jews in Mumbai.

Israel has so much strength militarily that it can safely show a softer side without any repercussions. And it does do this in some cases - like distributing leaflets before bombing raids to warn Palestinian civilians to stay away. This strategy should be expanded greatly to cover the overall conflict.

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