Clinging to an idea to the point of insanity
We’ve all thought it, but I think Michael Medved has managed to state it with incredible clarity:
What lapse of logic (or ancient prejudice) can explain the stubborn, utterly unshakable, and nearly universal insistence that Israel must pursue a “peace process” with its terrorist adversaries?
Regarding the United States, not even the most unhinged leftist would dare suggest that negotiations, compromises and a peace agreement would protect us from further depredations by al Qaeda.
How, then, can Americans of good will honestly believe that some elaborate, solemn, UN-approved treaty would make Israel magically safe from continued assault by the murderous gangs of Hamas, Al Aksa Martyrs Brigade (directly affiliated with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas), and Islamic Jihad? Over the last six years, these killers have taken the lives of far more Israelis (as a percentage of population) than all the assaults on American civilians by Bin Laden and his followers. On what sane basis would the Hamas-dominated government in the Palestinian Authority (openly pledged to Israel’s ultimate destruction) represent a more suitable, more trustworthy negotiating partner than the high-command of Al Qaeda, or the fanatics of the Taliban, who are openly committed to the final destruction of the United States?
Recent events in the Middle East demonstrate that the continued Western emphasis on “road maps” and “peace processes” represents a delusional obsession, not a policy preference. What possible value might a negotiated settlement hold when the Palestinian leaders who make such an agreement remain utterly unable (or unwilling) to enforce its terms? Both Palestinian President Abbas and his rivals in Hamas insist that they already disapprove of the daily rocket attacks on their Israeli neighbors—as well they should, given the inevitable, punishing responses from the Jewish state to this outrageous provocation. But the Palestinians can’t stop those attacks now, so how would a signed agreement pledging them to halt the violence suddenly confer upon them some new, altogether unprecedented ability to do so? Either the PA authorities remain totally impotent to curb the anarchic and deadly behavior of the terrorist thugs in their midst, in which case they can’t be trusted to do so in the future—or else they cynically choose to do nothing to curb that behavior, in which case they also can’t be trusted to do so in the future. In either case, an agreement with such people (indisputably characterized as impotent, dishonest, or both) remains a meaningless gesture.
