NEOCONFUSION

Shades of Oslo (Charles Krauthammer, June 6, 2003, The Washington Post)

President Bush held two Middle East summits this week. The first, with the Arab states, was an abject failure. The second, with the prime ministers of Israel and the Palestinian Authority, was merely a troubling echo of another abject failure, the Oslo handshake of 1993. [...]

In 1993, it bought supposed recognition, a supposed end to violence and a supposed end to incitement by recognizing the PLO, bringing Arafat and his terrorists out of Tunis, planting them in the heart of Palestine, giving them control of all the major Palestinian cities, outfitting his army with Israeli rifles, etc.

In 2003 the rug was sold again, this time fetching Israeli acceptance of a Palestinian state with contiguous borders in which Israeli settlements are uprooted. This might be the outline of the final settlement. But these were concessions given away before the negotiations even began.

The unilateral surrender of Israel continues.

Now, forcing the unilateral surrender of Israel might be a policy, if it promised peace.

If someone on the Left were promising that a mere negotiation--of whatever kind, between whatever parties--promised to deliver peace, Mr. Krauthammer would rightly scoff. That is not the promise of the Peace Process. Peace is a potential, but not a necessary, outcome. What is promised instead is that: there will be two separate states, side-by-side;one predominantly Jewish;the other predominantly Palestinian; in which the peoples will have the opportunity to govern themselves, without one people dominating the other; and, if they so choose, to live in peace with one another.

Now, the history of mankind is rotten with neighbors who found it impossible to seize such opportunities. A promise that this time and this place will be different would be completely nonsensical. So a far different question--than whether peace will certainly dawn--confronts Israelis, Jews, and those who care about both: will a deal that provides this opportunity, and which relieves Israel of its current moral burden of oppressing the Palestinians, be a good thing for Israel? On that question reasonable people can differ, but it is inarguable that the current round of summitry has gotten us closer to that deal. Posted by Orrin Judd at June 6, 2003 01:16 PM