SOME ISRAELIS AND SOME U.S. JEWS are upset because at least one Oval Office candidate had the nerve to suggest a hands off approach to the Israel-PA "problem."
In the past, the White House has mouthed a pro-Israel stance, but acted to the PA's benefit.
The State Department ALWAYS has been not just "pro-PA", but anti-Israel and anti-Jewish. This is nothing new.
OVER THE YEARS, this official two-facedness has done nothing, nada to ensure tranquility between Israel and the PA.
True, Rabin and the then PA boss were more or less - mostly "more" - pushed to the agreement by then-President Wm. Clinton, Hillary's spouse.
Everyone knows how the Oslo Accord worked out.
Rabin, Peres, and the then-leader of the PA got Nobel Peace Prizes for their signatures.
One-time President Jimmy Carter provided the meeting place for the Begin-Sadat discussions that led to The Camp David Accord that in turn led, again "so far," to a lasting peace between Israel and Egypt. Since then Carter has become a leader in the "Blame everything on Israel" crowd
Carter may deserve more recognition than he got; he also was behind an initiative called "A Framework for Peace in the Middle East" that dealt with the Palestinian territories; he wisely forgot to invite the PA. Based on post-Oslo, had the PA signed an agreement it would be worth less than the paper on which it was printed.
Interestingly, neither Clinton nor Carter got a Nobel for their efforts; Obama, however, was given a Nobel after only 12 days in office "for his "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between people."
Does the term "Arab Spring" conjure up thoughts on Obama's efforts to "strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between people"?
The U.S. is just one of many letting their good intentions pave the road to hell.
A headline in the Jul 20, 2015 issue of the Wall Street Journal reads: EU Exploring Broad Coalition to Push for Renewed Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations.
The article starts off
- BRUSSELS—The European Union, which played a key role in securing the Iran nuclear deal, on Monday said it was now turning its attention to reviving peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians.
The effort comes after U.S.-led negotiations collapsed in spring 2014 amid squabbles over Israeli settlements and Palestinian demands for prisoner releases.
There has been growing frustration within the EU and elsewhere that the Middle East Quartet—a grouping of the EU, the U.S., Russia and the United Nations—has been unable to relaunch serious negotiations, fearing tensions in the region were intensifying.
If nothing else, trying to pressure either Israel or the PA into an agreement is a waste of energy. Likewise, being pro-either party - either blatantly or secretly - has proved equally worthless; once an "honest broker" is unmasked, any progress comes to an immediate halt.
Even "shuttle diplomacy" has proven of no value, possibly due to the shuttling diplomat's known sympathies with one party or the other.
Israel HAS in-place formal peace agreements with Egypt and with Jordan. It has "under-the-table" relations with a number of Muslim countries in the region, none of which was "brokered" by anyone from outside the region. These agreements primarily are trade vs. acceptance of Israeli passports.
Let the Israelis and the PA Arabs find their own grounds to lead to a true, mutually beneficial peace. I suspect such a peace will be based on both populations' non-political requirements - health care, food, housing, jobs with decent compensation.
After all these years and all these heavy-handed attempts to force a true - unlike Oslo - peace agreement between Israel and the PA, maybe the "hands off" approach suggested by one candidate is really the best answer.
'Course the knee jerking jerks on both sides of the political fence will rail against the candidate and claim he is anti-this or pro-that.
More on Obama's Nobel
