06/25/2003 Archived Entry: "Old entry on Palestinians"

It seems that I forgot to transfer an entry from my old blog. Here it is:

Den Beste's blog entry on Israel misses part of the issue:

The quest for peace between the Israelis and Palestinians has been a frustrating one. Plan after plan has been floated; deals have been made and broken. The single biggest reason why is that through it all the Palestinians have never given up the ambition of wiping Israel off the map and retaking control of the territory they possessed in 1947, which is to say all of it.

But the actual conflict is not a territorial dispute. The motivation of the Palestinians in this conflict is not different from the motivation on 9/11, when they danced in the streets. They were not then celebrating an opportunity for territorial expansion. Rather, they celebrated because they think it is gloriously right for the good guys to suffer and die.

Their primary motivation in the conflict with Israel is to cause the Jews to suffer and die. Conquering the whole land of Israel would help them in their objective. So would fooling Bush into forcing the Israelis to accept a Palestinian state without forcing the Palestinians to give up their inhuman intentions. But the Palestinians will never exchange territory for fundamental cultural intentions. The inhuman intentions must be destroyed first, and territory is not effective as either a carrot or a stick. Ultimately, the Palestinians must have a state, but first, they must want one for itself, and not as a means toward inhuman aims. Until they desire that, no state will serve the cause of peace.

It is not clear at this point whether Bush understands this aspect of the situation. Some things are clear from his speech. There can be no serious doubt that he recognizes that Israel is a state that deserves peace and security. It would also seem odd to assert that Bush fails to recognize that peace will not come by way of appeasement. But, he might think that this is basically a territorial issue, and that the Palestinians can be persuaded to live peacefully with Israel if only they can be forced to realize that they cannot ever have a state unless they drop their intention to harm Israelis. He might not realize that the Palestinians want most of all to hurt the good people in front of them, and that to the extent most of them want a state, it is to serve this cause.

As it stands now, it is not difficult for the Palestinians to harm the Jews. Because they want to harm the Jews more than they want to be free and secure, the present situation is much more satisfactory to them than the prospect of a peaceful Palestinian state. Something much deeper than proving to them that they cannot expand their territory needs to take place to solve the problem.

If Bush fails to understand this, the status quo will continue, and the world will have another failed attempt at peace to learn from. Perhaps what is learned from it will make the next attempt successful. If Bush does understand this vital point, then this attempt might succeed, the Palestinians might become good, and Israel might become much more secure. All of these things will make the world a much better place. Let's hope Bush understands what's at stake.