What Peace Process?

    Albert Einstein defined insanity as “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”. 

   The ongoing attempts over the past 65 years to establish a two-states-for-two-nations resolution in what was formerly the Western part of British Mandatory Palestine (The Eastern part is today’s Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan), can be seen as the poster-child for Einstein’s definition.
   On November 29, 1947, the UN general assembly voted to partition the area into two separate states – a Jewish state, yet to be named, and an Arab state, yet to be named.
   The Jewish population accepted the partition and on May 14, 1948, David Ben Gurion declared the establishment of the Jewish State of Israel.
   The Arabs, both within the partitioned area and throughout the Middle East, rejected the partition vote almost unanimously. They launched an all-out war against the fledgling Jewish state with the declared goal of “throwing the Jews into the sea”. They were unsuccessful, but vowed to continue trying to remove the “Zionist Entity” from their midst.
   This is why the “Arab State” mentioned in the Partition Resolution was never declared or established.
   In 1964, frustrated by the lack of support of the Arab leaders, a number of terrorist  groups banded together to form the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), declaring: "... the right of the Palestinian Arab people to its sacred homeland Palestine and affirming the inevitability of the battle to liberate the usurped part from it, and its determination to bring out its effective revolutionary entity and the mobilization of the capabilities and potentialities and its material, military and spiritual forces".  For the PLO, then and today, “Palestine” includes all of Israel.
   The Palestinian nation was born, and the PLO is recognized worldwide, to this day, as its sole representative.  Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) is the fourth Chairman of the PLO. 
   During the 1967 Six Day War Israel captured parts of Syria (the Golan Heights), Jordan (The West Bank) and Egypt (The Gaza Strip). Two weeks later the Israeli government offered to return everything, with minor border adjustments, to Egypt, Syria and Jordan. Israel’s only condition was a peace treaty that says “end of conflict.”
   When the PLO heads got wind if the Israeli offer they went ballistic, threatening the leaders of Egypt, Syria and Jordan that they will pay dearly for reneging on their promises of 1949 to destroy Israel.        
   Nevertheless, King Hussein of Jordan accepted the Israeli offer, but refused to receive back the West Bank. In 1970 a secret peace treaty was signed with Jordan, though the West Bank remained under Israeli control.
   Since 1967, there have been numerous diplomatic attempts to try to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian issue. They all failed. And for one simple reason: Since the PLO is the sole representative of the Palestinians, all negotiations, from the Oslo Accords in 1993 up to the current talks led by John Kerry, are with the PLO – not the Palestinian Authority. And the PLO cannot, according to its own charter, ever accept a Jewish State of Israel on what it calls the “sacred land of Palestine”. 
   More than that, the PLO charter specifically states that: "The claims of historic and spiritual ties between Jews and Palestine are not in agreement with the facts of history or with the true basis of sound statehood...the Jews are not one people with an independent personality because they are citizens to their states." (Article 18).
   And let’s not forget that Hamas, which represents at least 50% of the Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank and abroad, is not participating and is on record that even just talking to Israel is a treasonous act – punishable by death.
     George H.W. Bush tried with Yitzhak Shamir and Bibi Netanyahu; Bill Clinton tried at Camp David with Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat. George W. Bush tried with Arik Sharon, Abu Mazen, Ehud Olmert, Tzippi Livni and the Roadmap. Hillary gave it a shot and now John Kerry is back for his 11th visit since taking office with “new and improved” proposals that are sure to displease both sides.
   So will there ever be a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians? I believe that there will be eventually, because there has to be.
   But it will take strong leaders on both sides able to “sell” the necessary compromises to their constituents in a way that will generate resounding positive votes in the inevitable respective national referendums.
   In the meantime it looks more and more that John Kerry, like his well-meaning predecessors, is just, as Einstein put it: “doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result…”
    Agree or disagree, that’s my opinion.