Re: Fatah, Hamas hold reconciliation talks ahead of possible peace negotiations with
I hope Fatah becomes the influential party and convinces Hamas to stop attacking Israel. After a year of no attacks, the Israelis will be forced to finally take the peace process seriously. Now, they don't have to because of Hamas' actions.
There is no need to force Israel to take the peace process seriously, they always have. They have wanted to make peace since their independence but the Arabs/Pals outright refused to even negotiate for the longest time. When Egypt decided to persue a peace deal with Israel, Israel saw they were serious and jumped on the chance for peace by making huge concessions . Israel dismantled the Sinai settlements and left the Sinai giving up a territory larger than it was , of huge strategic value as well as full of oil and other natural resources in order to make peace with Egypt. Israel was willing to take the risks in its its security that were needed to make peace with Egypt because Egypt was serious and werent talking peace while preparing to make war. Peace with Egypt may be a cold peace but it was a peace none the less and Israel did not need to be forced to make it. The same with Jordan.
The Pals on the other hand never showed they were serious about making a real peace. They talked peace to Israel and the West with one face but talked war to their own people with another face. They refused or ignored every peace proposal increasing terror attacks as a negotiating tactic. They never stopped engaging in terror even during peace negotiations. Even the so called moderates Fatah had its own terror factions it controlled and used to launch many attacks on Israel. Even if there was a significant portion of the Pals who sincerely want peace there is also a huge portion who dont. If the portion who does want peace cant control those who do not want peace then any deal with Israel is really a non starter until they have such control. Wanting peace and committing suicide are two different things. Israel may want peace but they are not going to committ suicide and or open themselves up to be attacked easier just for the sake of making a peace deal, nobody would.
As I posted in another thread
http://www.debatepolitics.com/middl...spute-solutions-thread-28.html#post1058478200
The Pals need to capitulate
Generally Israel nor any other country in the world is going to do something against their self interest and security if they dont have to, especially when it involves current hostilities . All countries will use the power they have to minimize threats against them. Until there is some sort of paradigm shift that makes doing something in their interest and security it will not happen because they have the power to whats best for themselves .
The history of Arab/Pal rhetoric, wars, agression and terror against Israel that continues to this day makes the status quo a better safer more secure option than giving into what the Pals want which would make attacks against Israel easier and put all its major population centers at much greater threat. The reality is the status quo while far from perfect gives Israel more security and minimizes threats better than a peace deal under current conditions. Israels borders are not surounded by countries like Canada or like Western European borders, it is surrounded by despotic even genocidal regimes as well attacked from terrorist infested/controlled areas and whom all share a hatred for Israel . Even the countries who have a cold peace with Israel are just a coup away from a regime that wants to destroy Israel. No country in Israels situation would risk their security as Israel is expected to do as if its like N America or W Europe. Most countries in fact would react far more forcefully than Israel has.
The Pals have done this to themselves with the years of rhetoric,attacks, inaction stopping attacks and sqaundering every confidence building opportunity like the Gaza pullout. The second intifada was a complete disaster that the Pals brought onto themselves. In 2000, peace was on the horizon, Israeli confidence was high that it could be achieved and they were willing to take a chance on it despite the security threats. The paradigm shifted over the years making it more attractive to take that chance. There was a level of guarded trust that had been built up. There was cooperation on various matters especially in the growing economic and business ties. Almost overnight the violence of the second intifada wiped out everything and shifted the paradigm radically away from a peace deal. The Gaza pullout was a chance for the Pals to reverse some of the damage and build Israeli confidence as well as their own prosperity but they used the opportunity to launch more attacks. After Gaza no country would take any more chances let alone put all their major population centers in range unless there was a major shift in the Palestinian attitudes and actions.
Since Israel is more powerfull and can continue the status quo a lot longer than the Pals and under much less misery, the harsh reality is the Pals will need to capatulate. It is up to them to stop the rhetoric and attacks and try to build Israeli confidence. The Pals need to take the steps to shift the current paradigm. The longer the Pals wait the more they will suffer and the worse deal they will get. They can capitulate and realize they are not going to get everything they want or they can continue to fight, live in misery and lose. Right or wrong its the reality of how the world works and has always worked.
A note on economic and business ties. These are some of the best ways to shift such a paradigm to make it in a countries interest to take a greater risk on a peace deal. Because businesses want stability and cooperation not chaos and conflict, economic ties can be very strong and motivational factors since business leaders/groups have power and access to influence govs. One of the sad casualties of the intifada was the destruction of these ties. Once the pals stop the incitement and attacks they should promote business ties as a quick way to build more confidence, promote stability and cooperation and eventually shift the paradigm to make conflict unwanted, unthinkable and against everyones interests. Hopefully to the point of no return. Its a fact that countries with large economic ties and shared interests do not fight each other and will cooperate more effectively even when something might not be in ones interest but will help each other out for the long range greater interest. If the Pals want any deal they need to capitulate and if they want a better deal then this is the kind of thing they need to do. Otherwise they can continue to fight, live in misery and lose
some quotes
"Instead, the elite Westerner talks about “occupied lands” from which Israel has been attacked four times in the last 60 years — in a manner that Germans do not talk about an occupied West they coughed up to France or an occupied East annexed by Poland. Russia lectures about Jenin, but rarely its grab of Japanese islands. Turkey is worried about the West Bank, but not its swallowing much of Cyprus. China weighs in about Palestinian sovereignty but not the entire culture of Tibet; some British aristocrats bemoan Sharon’s supposed land grab, but not Gibraltar. All these foreign territories that were acquired through blood and iron and held on to by reasons of “national security” are somehow different matters when Jews are not involved." -- Victor Davis Hanson
"I wish I could attribute the absence of any conventional Arab offensive in the last 20 years to a change of political climate or a willingness to abide by past accords. But unfortunately it is more likely that the Egyptians or Syrians concluded that the next time their tanks headed to Tel Aviv, there was nothing stopping the counterassaults from ending up in downtown Cairo or Damascus." -- Victor Davis Hanson
"The problem with deterrence — apparently sometimes forgotten by our former presidents — is that it is not static, but a creature of the moment, captive to impression, and nursed on action, not talk. It must be maintained hourly and can erode or be lost with a single act of failed nerve, despite all the braggadocio of threatened measures. And, once gone, the remedies needed for its restoration are always more expensive, deadly — and controversial — than would have been its simple maintenance." -- Victor Davis Hanson
"The Palestinians will, in fact, get their de facto state, though one that may be now cut off entirely from Israeli commerce and cultural intercourse. This is an apparently terrifying thought: Palestinian men can no longer blow up Jews on Monday, seek dialysis from them on Tuesday, get an Israeli paycheck on Wednesday, demonstrate to CNN cameras about the injustice of it all on Thursday — and then go back to tunneling under Gaza and three-hour, all-male, conspiracy-mongering sessions in coffee-houses on Friday. Beware of getting what you bomb for." -- Victor Davis Hanson
"Despite the current vogue of questionable and therapeutic ideas like "zero tolerance" and "moral equivalence" that punish all who use force — whether in kindergarten or in the Middle East — striking first is a morally neutral concept. It takes on its ethical character from the landscape in which it takes place — the Israelis bombing the Iraqi reactor to avoid being blackmailed by a soon-to-be nuclear Saddam Hussein, or the French going into the Ivory Coast last year, despite the fact that that chaotic country posed no immediate danger to Paris. The thing to keep in mind is that the real aggressor, by his past acts, has already invited war and will do so again — should he be allowed to choose his own time and place of assault." -- Victor Davis Hanson
Anyone who clings to the historically untrue - and thoroughly immoral - doctrine 'that violence never settles anything' I would advise to conjure up the ghosts of Napoleon Bonaparte and of the Duke of Wellington and let them debate it. The ghost of Hitler could referee, and the jury might well be the Dodo, the Great Auk and the Passenger Pigeon. Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and freedom. Robert A. Heinlein
"And one should bear in mind that there is nothing more difficult to execute, nor more dubious of success, nor more dangerous to administer than to introduce a new order to things; for he who introduces it has all those who profit from the old order as his enemies; and he has only lukewarm allies in all those who might profit from the new. This lukewarmness partly stems from fear of their adversaries, who have the law on their side, and partly from the skepticism of men, who do not truly believe in new things unless they have personal experience in them." -- Niccolo Machiavelli
"One should never allow chaos to develop in order to avoid going to war, because one does not avoid a war but instead puts it off to his disadvantage." -- Niccolo Machiavelli
