The Root of the Conflict and
Why it Matters
If the advantages of peace are so evident, we must ask ourselves why peace remains so remote, even as our hand remains outstretched to peace. Why has this conflict continued for more than sixty years? In order to bring an end to the conflict, we must give an honest and forthright answer to the question: What is the root of the conflict?
Prime Minister Netanyahu exposed the Emperor(s). President Obama's vision of two states living side by side in peace and security is no different from President Clinton's vision, which was also President Bush's vision.
President Clinton tried the incremental approach and feted the Palestinian leadership even as Arafat talked and conducted terrorism against Israel at the same time. President Bush was the first president to declare support for a Palestinian State and provided arms and training for a Palestinian security force, but refused to meet Arafat and kept Abu Mazen at arms length as the Palestinians talked and conducted terrorism against Israel at the same time. President Obama immediately squeezed Israel for concessions and went back to feting Abu Mazen - of whom, Washington Post columnist Jackson Diehl wrote:
Abbas rejects the notion that he should make any comparable concession - such as recognizing Israel as a Jewish state... Instead, he says, he will remain passive. 'I will wait for Hamas to accept international commitments. I will wait for Israel to freeze settlements...Until then, in the West Bank we have a good reality . . . the people are living a normal life.' In the Obama administration, so far, it's easy being Palestinian.
So Abu Mazen is in no hurry. Why? Because even if the state includes Gaza, even if it is allowed to make treaties and even if it is allowed to arm itself (none of which is likely or prudent) it should occur to someone, somewhere that a divided rump state wedged in between Jordan and Israel simply does not meet Palestinian aspirations. Palestinian aspirations as currently expressed by both Fatah and Hamas include all of the territory that is Israel and all of the territory that is Jordan as well.
An Israeli-Palestinian-only negotiation is doomed, as Netanyahu explained,
The simple truth is that the root of the conflict was, and remains, the refusal to recognize the right of the Jewish people to a state of their own, in their historic homeland. In 1947, when the United Nations proposed the partition plan of a Jewish state and an Arab state, the entire Arab world rejected the resolution. The Jewish community, by contrast, welcomed it by dancing and rejoicing. The Arabs rejected any Jewish state, in any borders.
The Arab states (minus Egypt and Jordan) have remained stuck in 1947, encouraging the Palestinians to do likewise - miring them in poverty, radicalism and despair and making them easy prey for the vultures who feed on them while they kill Jews. It is time for the Arab world (led by Egypt and Jordan) to enter the 21st Century - or at least the last half of the 20th - and accept Israel as the legitimate expression of Jewish nationalism.
When the Palestinians can't hide behind recalcitrant but uninvolved Arab states, they will at last find themselves under pressure to accept the legitimacy of Israel as well. Only then will it be possible to end the conflict - which is why it matters.
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