Friday, May 15, 2009

The Future of "Peace" in the MidEast


The Fatal Glitch with "Land for Peace" -George Jonas

[T]he peace-for-land concept has been a historic failure, not because Israel wouldn't dole out land for peace - it has, to all comers, sometimes unasked - but because the Arab/Muslim side won't dole out peace for land.
(National Post-Canada)


Next Round of Peace Talks, Let Palestinians Go First
-Marvin Hier & Abraham Cooper

Like clockwork, just as a new U.S. president hit the 100-day milestone, comes another push to "jump-start" the Middle East peace process. As in past administrations, concessions from "both sides" means: Israel, you go first.

But perhaps the time has come for peacemakers to try a fresh approach: Ask the Palestinians to make the first move. Israelis have been making difficult concessions at least since 1993, repeatedly trading land for promises of peace. When they turned over the major West Bank cities and Gaza to Yasser Arafat, all they got in return was broken promises.

To start the ball rolling toward real peace, Mahmoud Abbas should begin now to carry through on his repeated promises to end "anti-Israel incitement" in state-controlled Palestinian mosques and media that remain as vicious today as ever in preaching hatred of the Jewish state and Jews everywhere.
(New York Daily News)


The Jordanian Option Is Back -Michael Bar-Zohar

The West Bank is less than half the size of Los Angeles County. The Judean Desert comprises one-third of the area. Does anybody believe that this tiny slice of territory, sandwiched between Israel and Jordan, will provide enough living space for the local 2.4 million Palestinians, for millions of Palestinian refugees, and for Palestinians from overcrowded Gaza? It appears that the supporters of the two-state solution are determined to give the Palestinians a state that would not be able to sustain itself economically.

There is a solution, but it must be a regional one that includes at least Jordan or, even better, Jordan and Egypt. It is based on the idea of a Palestinian-Jordanian federation. Jordan is a largely uninhabited country that possesses huge tracts of land where the excess population of the West Bank, Gaza and the returning refugees can establish new towns and villages and find a little breathing space.

Most of Jordan's citizens are Palestinians.
(Jerusalem Post)
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