The last time a hopeful world got transfixed by this roundelay (although this time it might not be paying much attention anyway) was back at the tail end of the Clinton presidency when Bill was trying to untie this Gordian knot and win himself a Nobel Peace Prize. Those discussions began at Camp David in 2000 and dribbled on to Taba in early 2001 when it all went south with the Second Intifada and an Israeli election.
Tons of books and articles have been written about this, I’ve even read and forgotten a few, but I recall enough to know that a lot of ink was spilled about just what percentage of the Palestinian demands were acceded to by the Israelis. Some said as much as 98%, while others said more like 90, or maybe even a paltry 88.
Now here’s the thought experiment part. I’m assuming most of the readers here — in this case I’d wager 99% of you — have been in negotiations themselves. When you got 98% or even 88% of what you wanted, did you walk away and start a war… okay, just walk away? And if you did, why did you do that … when you were so close to making a deal? You could obviously hang around in negotiations and get most, if not all, of what you wanted.
Well, the answer is — no fair peeking — because you never wanted the deal in the first place.
First one in with that response wins the used iPod. Sorry, it’s last year’s model because the answer is so obvious. Well, obvious to everybody but the Walt/Mearsheimer crowd (who seem to think that Israel is the rough equivalent of Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge) and the Peter Beinart set (who keep advising Israel to make concessions “for their own good,” whatever that is).
Indeed, most of us realize what is even more obvious. If the Palestinians had really wanted a state of their own beside Israel, a two-state solution, they could have had one thirty years ago — or more. They don’t want a two-state solution. They want a one-state solution.
No comments:
Post a Comment