What’s really wrong with the ‘peace process’

Fresnozionism.org
12 October '10

I hate to write about the ‘peace process’, because even to write about it is to suggest that it’s a process that under the right conditions might lead to peace. As has been clearly demonstrated in the past few days, there is an unbridgeable gap between the parties — and it isn’t construction in settlements.

At this point both sides are trying to explain why it is the other side which is intransigent, when really the problem is that there is no intersection between their objectives:

-Israel: live at peace in the Mideast

-Arabs: get rid of the Jewish state

Netanyahu has insisted that the Palestinian Authority (PA) recognize Israel as a Jewish state as a condition for extending the construction freeze. And predictably, the PA has refused. They say that such recognition would result in the expulsion of Arabs who are now citizens of Israel, and that it would contradict the “right of return” for the descendants of the Arab refugees from the 1948 war.

The first objection is absurd — Israel has always defined itself as a Jewish state and has not kicked out its Arab citizens, even when mightily provoked as in 2000 when ‘Israeli Arabs’ rioted — perhaps ‘engaged in rebellion’ would be better — killing Jews and destroying their property. So why should PA recognition have this effect now?

The second objection is correct. But Israel does not agree that the so-called refugees have any such right, and practically speaking understands that a ‘return’ would be the end of Israel. So the refusal of recognition amounts to a demand that there shall be no obstacle to the destruction of the state.

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