By Jay D. Homnick on 7.17.07 @ 12:07AM
Bush joins the club, launching a major initiative in his penultimate year to bring peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
I have a dream.
Someday, perhaps not in our lifetimes, but sometime before hell
freezes over, there will be a second-term American President who
does not make a major initiative in his penultimate year to bring
peace between Israel and the Palestinians. He, or maybe she, will
not issue blustering -- or blistering -- pronouncements about how
"both sides" need to contribute more to "the process," will not
make a big show of pushing Israel around and pressuring it into
making bad decisions. Then, once and for all, we will have seen
modern medicine cure the most persistent of all presidential
maladies, The Seven-Year Itch.
This fond dream, this phantasmagoric projection, this idyllic
chimera, may one day be more than it is now: a cruel mirage. As the
reality of our lives is presently constituted, it ain't happenin'.
It does not seem to matter much what is actually happening on the
ground, or what makes sense, or what morality dictates, or who is
to blame for what. Special envoys must be shuttled, summits must be
convened, statements must be issued. The American President [insert
name here] has "a vision." In the vision there are two populations
living side by side in bliss and harmony, a model for goodwill
among men, all brought about by the avuncular but stern guidance of
Uncle Sam.
As we might have predicted, our own President has just announced such a push, along with a little
shove. He leaned on Olmert and Abbas to meet, proclaimed Abbas to
be interested in peace, said there have been mixed signs from the
Palestinian territories in the last five years: "some hopeful, some
dispiriting." It is time to get back to the table. I suppose that
means to put down the knife of war alongside the fork of resentment
and to pick up the spoon of plenty. If any of the grease of
duplicity lingers on the lips, it needs to be dabbed at by the
napkin of diplomacy.
Someone is crazy here, and to be honest it might be me. After
all, I still stand in front of the mirror periodically, holding an
imaginary baseball bat high in the air and fix my implacable gaze
on the towering pitcher who looms on the horizon of my imagination.
As the ball approaches, I throw all of myself into the swing and
produce a mammoth home run that makes The Natural look like a minor
leaguer. Within the confines of my admittedly dreamy consciousness,
the idea of peace between Israel and "Palestine" looks totally
wacky.
With whom is this treaty contracted? Abbas does not even control
all the Palestinian turf; there are Hamas goons prancing around in
his pajamas at his former Gaza pad. He is old and probably could
not deliver his own Fatah guys if he signs a deal not to their
liking. He certainly cannot be expected to influence the Hamas
element that essentially deposed him from being president of fifty
percent of his domain. "I am the king of all I can see, but half of
my bifocals are opaque." "I am an eternal optimist whose glasses
are half full." Yikes!
What does the newly conceived, midwifed and born Palestinian
state do for an encore? They have made no attempt at developing
industry or commerce. When Israel handed them fully intact
greenhouses and machinery from the thriving hydroponics business
they had developed in Gaza, the Palestinians destroyed all the
structures and equipment immediately, looting all the parts.
(Hydroponics is a system of growing vegetables in water, not using
the ground. It is said to produce a bug-free version; I used to eat
the lettuce and found it crisp and palatable.) Once they have a
full country, it would subsist on handouts from abroad and the
salaries from providing labor to Israel. Does anyone truly see this
as workable?
Do we really believe the citizenry is going to adapt overnight
to a new neighborliness as a substitute culture for the current
white-hot hatred? True, there are a lot of apolitical Palestinians
who just want to go to work and raise a family; I knew quite a few
of them myself. If not, Israel would be much less successful in its
intelligence operations (although espionage ultimately is a form of
shadow politics). But the core of its leadership has consistently
been defined by a hostility that tends to outdistance the
prettified language they lay on Ted Koppel and CNN.
Not to mention the fact they are still holding Israeli hostages
and shooting rockets into civilian areas. These ruffians have
thrived for very long in the three-piece-suit world of
international outlawry.
For right now, my dream must play second fiddle to the
President's fantasy. Let's just hope that does not turn out to be a
nightmare.
Jay D. Homnick, commentator and humorist, is a frequent
contributor to The American Spectator. He also writes
for Human Events.
topics:
Business, Law, Israel
