Intelligent Thinking

A Guest Post by SM

You can read an extraordinarily long justification of the 'never give them anything' position below. Enjoy.

I simply thought that a few facts would be of some assistance to those who are capable of looking objectively at the position.

1. Land for peace was first tried over 30 years ago with Egypt. Precisely the same arguments were presented then. Land for peace has worked for 30 years. It is symptomatic of the refusal of the right wing nut job that they simply will not (cannot) engage with this fact. The best you get is 'wait until Mubarak dies'. They said that about Sadat.
2. The reason that suicide bombing peaked during the time at which peace was possible (although in the end Arafat was too untrustworthy, stupid and corrupt to honour his side of the deal) was that the Arab right wing nut jobs were prepared to do anything to scupper the deal. And they did what was necessary. Netenyahu rendered their activites unnecessary.
   
3. Very few people advocate leaving the West Bank unless a partner can be found to whom it can safely be handed over. Whether that partner can be found and/or trusted is something that needs to be worked on. However, for the right wing nut jobs this is too much like hard work. Rather than engage in the effort required to imagine a situation in which there was peace, they prefer to set up a straw man, cry 'betrayal' and (incidentally) slander other Jews. Then they talk about the halachic position.
   

There are also some uncomfortable realities which necessarily intrude into the stream-of-wishful-thinking below.

1. We cannot keep the West Bank indefinitely. There are too many of them and not enough of us.
   
2. Forced deportation is a crime. I know that some people don't mind being criminals, and that some criminals will excuse their own behaviour. But most Jews are repelled by forced deportation. That may be because they have a sense of their own history, are not distrustful of the whole world, and feel close to other humans even those who are not Jewish.
3. The sooner we give land for peace, the better our chances of finding someone who wants the same thing. A ceasefire will likely soon be imposed in Gaza whether we want it or not. The same will happen in the West Bank, or even the Americans will cease their support. Without which Israel cannot survive.

Finally, if Einstein is really the key to all this it may be worth just looking at a few of his other quotes:

"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."

"In the middle of difficulty, lies opportunity"

"The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge, but imagination".

Well, I can imagine a peace for Israel and the Palestinians...

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