The Arab Summit

The Middle East is a train wreck, with countries like Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Libya all teetering on dissolution and chaos. Islamic terrorism is the only export that seems to have prospered over the past decade. The economies of almost every Arab nation are in the toilet, driven by a precipitous drop in oil prices itself precipitated by more energy production in the United States (thank you, fracking). Business start-ups in the Middle East are weak, poverty is rampant, dictatorship is the norm, basic infrastructure is stressed or crumbling in many countries, armed sects often make their own laws and mete out their own punishment and brutality. In some countries, it looks more like Mad Max than Alladin.

This past week, representatives from all Arab nations got together in Amman, Jordan. And what is the first order of business taken up by this august group? In a keynote speech as reported in The Gulf News, Jordan's King tells us:

In his speech, Jordan's King Abdullah said peace would not be attained in the Middle East without the creation of a Palestinian state under a two-state solution that would be the basis of a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace deal.
King Abdullah said the kingdom's western neighbour Israel was wrecking the chances of peace by accelerating settlement building in occupied Palestinian territory.

"Israel is continuing to expand settlements and wreck chances of peace ... There is no peace or stability in the region without a just and comprehensive solution to the Palestinian cause through a two-state solution," King Abdullah said.

There you go, if only Israel would cease to exist (that's really what the Arabs want), everything would be sweetness and light. All of the problems noted earlier in this post are, according to King Abdullah, driven by the existence of a tiny country that is non-Muslim and therefore, unacceptable to the Arabs. That tiny country is somehow responsible for the train wreck that has occurred throughout the Arab world, and just like magic, the vaunted "two state solution" will put the train back on its tracks.

In the West, Leftists are known for their love of fantasy solutions, so they embrace talk like Abdallah's without reservation. Luckily, we no longer have a leftist in the White House, so Abdallah's speech is nothing more than the same tired words we've heard far too many times by far too many so-called "diplomats."

Maybe it's time for those same diplomats to tell the Arabs to get their house in order before they demand peace negotiations for anyone but themselves. The palestinians did not lose a country in war, they never had a country in the first place. They were never invaded, because the Jews lived in "palestine" for millennia. Those palestinians who live in Israel live far better lives and have many more freedoms than Arabs who live in many countries in the Middle East.

But what about the Jews that live in Arab lands? Oh wait, the Arabs have ensured that through threats, violence, and oppression, there are few Jews left in Arab countries when there were once hundreds of thousands. Come to think of it, maybe that's a small part of the reason why the train wreck exists.

Here's a thought ... the first step in the peace process that Abdallah tells us he wants so badly should focus on repatriating Jews throughout the Middle East, replacing the riches stolen from them, compensating those who have had forebearers murdered, allowing them to practice their religion openly, and protecting them from violence. After that happens, maybe we can talk about a "two state solution."