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• Tuesday, January 13, 2009 01:59 PM

  @TPaul in KY

  Paul in KY: "The Israelis back then managed to get away with that. It's not fair, but I don't see the Palestinians being allowed that same latitude."

  I don't see it as a matter of "allowing" the Palestinians to get away with continued terrorism - I see it instead as an issue of what's realistically possible here. Again the Israelis couldn't control their terrorists when they were creating a state - their more moderate leaders (Ben Gurion, etc) tried to, but they failed. As such I don't see how we can realistically expect for the more moderate Palestinians to succeed here when the more moderate Israelis were not able to.

  And the flip side of making the peace process contingent upon Palestinians stopping all terrorism first is this: that effectively gives the Palestinian terrorists veto power over the peace process, which they will continue to exercise. Which is why I agree with former Israeli PM Yitzak Rabin's position on the issue:

  "Fight terrorism as if there was no peace process, and pursue the peace process as if there was no terrorism."

  - Israeli Labor Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin, who was assassinated by a Jewish religious fanatic for being true to his words here

  TPaul in KY: "The thing is, IF the Palestinians were able to control their populace for a set period of time, it hopefully forces the Israelis to come & negotiate. The Israelis think they're bluffing 'Be peaceful & we'll talk' (thinking they'll never be peaceful). If you can do what they think you can't, then they get hoisted by their own petard."

  Agreed. Again as a realistic solution, however, I don't beleive that will happen - at least not until after the Palestinians get their own state, like the Israelis did.

  —Publicola Read Publicola's other letters
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