Making Peace With Palestinians?

Have you had the chance to see how prisoners and hostages are treated by those who insist they want to, have a right to, establish a state living side by side with Israel? Can you picture yourself as helpless confronted with the barbarity of Hamas gunmen as happened in southern Israel? Would you like these people as your neighbors? Could they ever be peaceful neighbors when they question the right of any Jews to live on any of the territory they control.  

After seventy-five years as a state, and with a Palestinian Authority established to offer Palestinians a political voice, and establish self-government, has there been any evidence that such an entity could be anything but a failed state. Like regular elections, anybody, like promoting economic opportunity? Rather spend money paying financial incentives for killing Israelis! Many Arabs even question the right of any Jews to exist in the Middle East. Since day one there has been violent opposition on their part to an Israeli presence.

Israeli governments have offered several options to Palestinians leaders to resolve their claims. Some have been very unpopular with Israelis, but have been offered nevertheless. The Oslo Accords creating the P.A. was part of this effort. Nothing was acceptable because it was the Jewish presence that was the essential problem. Many Israelis have lost hope over time and, understandably, have turned more and more toward a less accommodating political stance.

Palestinian leaders have chosen victimhood as an alternative to state-building, living on international charity. And its leaders have exhibited corruption and self-dealing instead of building the elements of a viable state serving its residents. Part of that effort has been the strategy of lies and finger-pointing as they cling to power by any means that presents itself. Educating and poisoning the minds of the Young has been an essential building –block in building an edifice of hopelessness that their condition is someone else’s fault.

Did Israelis do that with their desperate situation in 1948, in 1967, in 1973? Didn’t they just go ahead and do what they had to do to build a life with what they had?

The trouble with the situation is that the Palestinians do not want peace. They have been educated to want, and their leaders want, the Israelis gone, and that is not going to happen. That is why, increasingly, nations are realizing that their interests are more aligned with Israel than they are with those who are bribing them in so many ways to be hostile to the Jewish state in the U.N. The benefits of working with Israel on the problems they may be facing originates from the reality that Israel, as a tiny country with so many odds against it succeeding, has faced,  and found ways to deal with many of the same challenges they themselves are facing.

Where do we go from here? Let me prognosticate! Can we imagine life after a Gaza incursion? Others actors will not join in the fight unless they are directly under the thumb of Iran. Activity from Syria will increase because Iranian forces are already there. Hamas leadership will be decimated and those who can will flee. Can we hope that Egypt may be persuaded to accept a role in a pacified Gaza?

The death toll will rise. Many hostages will not see the light of day. Some murderers in Israeli jails, in a deal for hostages, could  be deported to Qatar. The misery in Gaza will continue. Maybe more Gazans will earn the right to work in Israel than is currently the case. Abbas will be replaced with another loser, but hope springs eternal. The P.A. will continue to be an empty shell. Will international funding dry up? Deals will be made with Arab clan chiefs, in Area A under the Oslo Accords, to extend autonomy in return for peace and compliance to bring crime and terrorism under control in their areas of authority.

Down the road there will be a normalized relationship with the Saudis. The Israel judiciary situation will be modified, but the changes desired by extremists will not be realized and this may break the coalition so there will be a new election in Israel.

We will never forget October 2023. What will we have learned?

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