re: #290 Kosh’s Shadow

Bill Richardson is continuing to put the onus on Israel, claiming that the Arab states have all said that they’d be ready to recognize Israel as soon as the Israelis make peace with the Palestinians. (That would apparently exclude Iran, which would rather see Israel turned into a flaming ruin)

Delusional thinking is rampant, particularly when you want to ignore that the Arab countries have repeatedly funded the very terrorists operating in West Bank and Gaza to continue the war against Israel because it’s an outlet for those Arab regimes to rid themselves of internal pressures from the jihadis and Islamists that would love to overturn the monarchs, strongmen, despots and dictators that run those countries.

The Palestinian leadership (fractured as it is) have little impetus to make peace with Israel because they’d be lynched by their supporters who have been conditioned for generations on the need to eliminate Israel from the map. Hamas will never accept Israel, and Fatah has yet to rid itself of that notion either. Fatah may agree to an “arrangement” with Israel that allows them additional civil administrative control, but that’s what they’ve had since 1993 and Oslo. The Palestinians have repeatedly turned down Israeli peace deals without even the courtesy of a counter proposal, because it would mean accepting Israel’s very existence as a Jewish state.

Israel still lacks a partner for peace in the Palestinians, and the rest of the ME knows this. This way, those despots and dictators can continue ginning up old hatreds to remain in power and keep the focus off their own odious actions. After all, the world shrugs its collective shoulders when Arab regimes slaughter fellow Arabs, but when Israel does anything to protect itself, the world goes into a tizzy.