An Expanded Approach to Peace

Submitted by AR, Dec 19, 2016 at 16:12

Your suggested changes in policy reflect the realities of the current Israeli-Palestinian dilemma. Peace as it has been conceived of during the last generation is a ghost. It will not be achieved by any configuration of parties at a negotiating table until the Palestinians understand their leadership has manufactured their current aspirations. It will also not be obtained by collective punishment of the Palestinians -- history has demonstrated the futility of this approach. The consistent application of your suggestions will modify behaviors by tying the causes of violence against, and political rejection of, the legitimacy the Jewish State to highly specific responses. These actions, however, will not materially impact the non-Palestinian Islamic world and its attitude toward Israel.

The only real lever available to motivate external parties to the conflict is a unprecedented and truly dramatic expansion of settlements irrespective of specific policy initiatives. It must be made clear that the potential land area available for any form of stable sustainable Palestinian political entity is evaporating literally every day and that such settlements will never be removed. In a post-Sadat Arab world, war is no longer an efficient tool to achieve political solutions. Under a Trump Administration terrorism against Israel and the West will only reinforce policy positions less friendly to those that reject the legitimacy of Israel. The pressure of watching "Palestine" literally shrink in front of their eyes will animate what has been a generation of empty negotiation into realistic decision making.

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