Posted on 07/22/2002 8:44:08 AM PDT by carton253
My solution would be twofold. To Israel, I would say that Shimon Peres needs to be retired. After all that has happened, he still believes that you can have peace with Arafat. He has too much power and affects policy. His policy is faulty and has been proven to not work. Yet, he stays with it.
Second, Israel needs to decide if the West Bank is Eretz Israel (Samaria and Judea). If not, and they plan to trade land for peace, then stop building on it. We don't let Canadians build Canadian cities in North Dakota. And the Southwest situation is one that is about to bite us on the butt.
Then, I would wade through the rubble in Ramallah and tell Arafat that this destruction is his own making. The West will no longer restrain Israel. The USA will support Israel in whatever she has to do to bring peace inside her borders. Even if it means taking on the whole Muslim world... because I truly believe that is where we are heading.
Someone on one of these threads said... "it is time we stopped cringing in the corner, wringing our hands, hoping they won't hurt us, and go and fight the war that is coming anyway.
I don't go to war easily... but, you can't make peace with someone who doesn't want peace. Appeasement only makes the violence grow. Talks of peace only makes the violence grow. So, it's time to make those who make violence...pay with their lives if that is the only thing they understand.
We understood you can't make peace with Bin Laden... why do we force Israel to make peace with Arafat. Because Arafat does the necessary lip-service. Enough!
Once Israel had fostered the impression that its concessions could bring peace to the Middle East, Europeans could blame Israel on the pretext that it had not made enough concessions.
Couldn't help it... I love using the words "cringing" and "wringing" in the same sentence."
I agree with your comments above, although I think you go too easy on Shimon Peres. Arafat wasn't the only old adversary with whom Rabin made the mistake of dealing in the Oslo Process. Peres has been a self-congratulating, back-stabbing careerist who never missed an opportunity to betray Rabin since the 1940s.
Peres is the Midas of the pyrite touch, a harbinger of folly.
Actually, Peres (as a protege of Ben-Gurion) still holds to the hope that the first and second aylia had... that they can live peacefully with their Arab neighbors.
I don't know what it will take for Peres to realize he is riding a losing horse. Is it pride? Is it firm belief? Is it senility? Is not seeing the forest for the trees?
The lack of his own demise and the subsequent answering of all questions.
Peres is like Carter, Clinton, and every other washed-up, never-was, socialist Klingon. Their learning curves flatlined long ago.
That's a strange date. Otherwise, thanks for posting the article.
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