Obama: Destroying the Peace Process

Submitted by Edward Halper (United States), Jul 22, 2009 at 12:59

One side has endorsed a two state solution. The other side refuses to recognize the right of Jewish national self-determination. What sense does it make to pressure the side that is flexible rather than the side that remain intransigent?

If there is any hope of real process, it can only lie in getting Palestinians and other Arabs to accept that Jews have civil and human rights. To pressure Israel to stop building housing is to endorse the Palestinian misapprehension of the morality of their cause and to sanction Palestinian violence.

Moreover, it is to accept the Palestinian claim that the settlements pose an obstacle to peace. Any Palestinian state that comes into existence should accept the right to Jews and other minorities to live in it, just as it should accept the right of Jewish state to exist and the rights of Palestinians to live with rights within it.

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