Bruce Thornton- the impossible peace

"Since Muslim hatred of Israel is the dynamic behind the crisis, the desperate calls for pie-in-the-sky solutions like an “international trusteeship over the Palestinian territories” (Avishai Margalit) or still another toothless U.N. resolution (Chibli Mallet) are useless, mere stop-gaps even if they could be implemented. But of course they won’t be, because for these solutions to work someone would have to destroy Hamas and Hezbollah, and it simply isn’t in anybody’s interest other than Israel ’s to do so –– particularly given how messy a job it is to root out terrorists who have callously embedded themselves among non-combatants. Once again, Israel is compelled to be the Dirty Harry of the Middle East , the one nation with the nerve and skills to do the nasty work everybody else knows must be done but do not have stomach to do themselves.

The calls for “diplomacy” chanted like a mantra by the rest of the Times editorials are even more delusional. Judith Kipper, from the Council of Foreign Relations, must live in some alternative universe to write that the U.S. needs to engage in “meaningful diplomacy” that includes murderers like Hamas and Hezbollah. And what would be the goal of such talks? To “revive the detailed peace plan already negotiated by the parties to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” But of course, Hamas, Hezbollah, their state sponsors Iran and Syria, and a significant majority of Palestinians do not endorse any “peace plan” that allows Israel to exist without committing demographic suicide by admitting the mushrooming population of Palestinian “refugees.” Without genuine acceptance of Israel’s existence on the part of Syria, Iran, and the Palestinian Arabs, agreements signed with Egypt, bought off with $2 billion a year in U.S. subsidies, or with Jordan, a pathetically weak state, do very little to solve the root problem."

[Thornton Israel Middle east]