Saturday, July 19, 2014

Get used to the new reality of the “New Middle East”

Excepted from The Jerusalem Post:
For the past two decades, Israeli policy has been based on the twin pillars of pretentious Peres-ian optimism: That a “New Middle East” was dawning based on peaceful economic cooperation, and that the establishment of a full-fledged Palestinian state alongside Israel would guarantee security for Israel.

Both conceptions have collapsed. They were illusions.

No peaceful “New Middle East” is emerging any time soon no matter how much Western largesse is invested, and no Palestinian government can be trusted to keep the peace. Be they weak or nasty, our Arab neighbors, especially the Palestinians, cannot be relied upon to act in ways that meet Israel’s security needs.

[...]

Time has moved on and circumstances have changed. A Palestinian province or autonomous region is now the maximum on the table. A Palestinian “state,” as in “two-state solution,” is both a misnomer and an anachronism. Get used to it.