John C. Wohlstetter
The American Spectator
9/9/2011
A week in Israel makes one wonder why Americans obsessed with the Arab-Israeli pseudo-peace process think they know how to “save Israel from itself.” They try incessantly to ram a deal down Israel’s throat in which Israel makes concrete, irrevocable concessions up front, in return for abstract, revocable promises from the Palestinians. The formula produced serial disasters for Israel: it traded land for lies in the 1993 Oslo Accords, when it ceded land and got terror in return — when peace was promised. It vacated southern Lebanon in 2000 and offered the Palestinians 97 percent of the West Bank, all of Gaza and three percent of Israeli land adjacent to Gaza, with a land bridge between Gaza and the West Bank, plus shared sovereignty in Jerusalem, only to see the failure to allow Arabs to flood the Jewish state and extinguish it led to the second Intifada suicide-bombing campaign. It vacated Gaza in 2005, uprooting settlers, only to get 8,000 rockets in return.
After land for lies, land for suicide bombers, and land for rockets, you’d think those trying to push Israel to make even more concessions would try something else. No such luck. President Obama added a settlement freeze, the 1949 ceasefire lines as bargaining baseline, and a Palestinian statehood vote at the UN to the pot. In doing so he cratered any serious chance for peace anytime soon. So perhaps we should learn from Israel instead. Maybe, just maybe, they know things we don’t. A week in Israel confirms that there is much the locals know that America could learn from…
Read the rest at The American Spectator.
