I have written this before, but not enough people are getting the message. I will try again.
Israel is not the problem of the Middle East. The Arab and American governments are putting too much emphasis on Israel. We are not the problem. They are.
Condoleezza Rice is making another effort. It is never clear to us common folk what the important people are saying to one another. But at least part of her message is that Israel should be more flexible. Somewhere in her baggage might be a bit of magic that will make the Middle East a better place and ease her president's way in Iraq. He should not have gone there in the first place. Now he or his successors have to find their own way out, hopefully while doing as little damage as possible to the American economy and society. The rest of us depend on the superpower. We can wish for wisdom at its head, but recent events have not given us a great deal of confidence. Most empires have crumbled slowly. I can probably make it to the end of my life without learning another language, but my children had better consider the option. We should not count on Hebrew as the key to the future.
Until there is a Palestinian government where the prime minister is willing to recognize Israel's right to exist, there is no point in Israel making concessions. The man who calls himself the president of Palestine says that he recognizes Israel's right to exist, and wants peace. But that is not enough. He must get wise enough and strong enough to persuade Palestinians to stop insisting that they can cancel history by returning to their homes of 1948. First he must stop making that promise himself! And he must stop the people who continue to fire rockets at our towns. A couple of years ago the same man was in charge of 30,000 security personnel in Gaza and he did nothing to stop the rockets. Now it is time for him to do something that impresses us, and not the occasion for giving him a free lunch.
The supreme leader of Hamas is saying that it must again begin violence if Israel does not respond to its demands and begin its disappearance.
Maybe he should look at the record. Who loses more from violence? The Palestinian economy is half the size it was in 2000. Some 70 percent of the population lives on international hand-outs. His people should find another supreme leader.
The heads of other Arab governments are saying that they offer Israel peace if Israel will be reasonable. To them, that means withdrawing to the 1967 boundaries and leaving open the issue of Palestinian refugees.
They say that Israel's stubbornness is the problem.
Sure Israel is stubborn. It will not agree to give up significant assets while leaving the time bomb of the refugee issue unresolved. Some Arabs say that the posture they have adopted should be the basis of negotiation. Okay, if they can persuade the Palestinian government to recognize us and to give up the dream of destroying us. But other Arab leaders are saying that the offer they are making is not subject to change. If there are significant leaders who take that position and are not able to solve the issue of refugees, forget it. Try something else.
I may have the distorted view of an academic. When I hear the heads of Arab governments say that Israel is the problem, I look at this society and theirs and I wonder if I am seeing what I am seeing. Half of our universities appear on lists of the best in the world. There education emphasizes the learning of texts written a millennium and one half ago, and the most prominent teachers scream hatred and claim that Jews have caused their problems.
One can hope that Iran will make enough mistakes to cause sanctions that are severe enough to derail any dream of nuclear weapons and destroying Israel (and perhaps a few other places). Will their seizure of 15 British sailors cause another Falklands? Probably not. But it is one more item on an list already showing assertions of Israel's illegitimacy and Holocaust denial that may send the Ahmadinejad regime to oblivion. Maybe it will disappear before I learn to spell his name without consulting Google.
How do I see the future? Sadly, as more of the same. We can deal with it. I am not sure that the Palestinians can.