In the Name of Peace

For eight years, the previous administration tried to force Israel into a suicidal "peace agreement." It made no demands on the palestinians, avoiding even the suggestion that they stop their eliminationist rhetoric toward Jews and Israel, not to mention their regular terror attacks, corruption, internal violence and a whole list of other sins. Using techniques and policies that had proven ineffective and/or counter-productive, the past administration, along with their crew of incompetent diplomats (think: Clinton and Kerry) tried its best to coerce Israel into national suicide. Thankfully, their best efforts didn't succeed.

Now, Donald Trump has decided to take a fresh approach, abandoning the previous president's overt hostility toward Israel and its prime minister and replacing it with understanding, support, and friendship.

Benny Avni comments:

While [Prime Minister] Bibi [Netanyahu] was routinely called upon to take political risks for the sake of peace, no similar demand was made to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, whose political weakness made officials nervous about pushing him too far. He couldn’t possibly make bold moves like recognizing Israel as a Jewish state or giving up on the demand to flood it with more than 5 million Arab descendants of refugees.

While not shutting the door on the two-state solution, Netanyahu sidestepped it.

“Rather than labels, I want to look at substance,” he said, adding a question about the proposed Palestinian state: “Will it be Costa Rica, or will it be Iran?”

Trump didn’t force Netanyahu to swear allegiance to the “solution.” Instead, he hinted, “We are going to make a deal that might be even a bigger and better deal than people in this room understand.”

Rather than leaving it at that, Netanyahu spelled out the new strategy — a regional approach that involves, he said, “our newfound Arab partners in the pursuit of a broader peace, and peace with the Palestinians.”

It's pretty obvious that a "palestinian state" will not be Costa Rica and might very well become a mini-me of Iran. The palestinians have taught generations of children to be anti-Semites, corruption will strangle any attempt at an effective economy, the culture of victimization encouraged by the international Left will make any palestinian state a permanent welfare state supported by the international community.

Although the Democrats and their trained hamsters in the media would never, ever give Trump any credit, his "whatever" approach for the Israeli-palestinian conflict just might offer some possibilities. Avni writes:

Trump insisted that this so-called outside-in strategy — making peace between Israel and existing Arab states before creating a new Arab state — “hasn’t been discussed before.” But in 1991, Bush 41 gathered leaders of Arab states in Madrid, Spain, for a conference that tried just that.

It didn’t succeed then. Can it now?

Leaders from the Maghreb to Arabia — including most prominently Saudi Arabia and the Gulfies, Egypt, Morocco and Jordan — have tightened cooperation with Israel recently. They’ve realized that Israel threatens them much less than ISIS or Iran.

Hence, as Trump said, “We have some pretty good cooperation from people that in the past would never have even thought about it.” But while those leaders cooperate with Israel on arms, intel and other ways to fight common enemies, they only do so — so far, at least — behind the scenes.

A "solution" will only evolve out of regional action—no one, not the United States or the EU or Russia or anyone outside the region—can impose a settlement to this issue. Although it's a long shot, "Saudi Arabia and the Gulfies, Egypt, Morocco and Jordan" along with the Israelis are the only parties that can get this done. And the Palestinians? Maybe they're the party that should be asked to make serious compromises—all in the name of peace, of course.