(Financial Times-UK) Walter Reich - Israelis have grown used to being attacked in media controlled by the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, media that glorify suicide bombers and deny the Holocaust. Israelis know that Palestinian students study textbooks in which Israel does not exist. Meanwhile, Gaza is led by Hamas, which officially declares it will fight until Israel is gone. More Israelis today believe the Palestinians will keep demanding concessions until there is no Israel. The 1993 Oslo peace accords failed when Yasser Arafat rejected concessions under which nearly all of the West Bank and Gaza would have become a Palestinian state. Arafat's successor, Mahmoud Abbas, refused concessions that were even more generous. Even if a two-state solution is attempted, what would happen the day after it begins? Would not rockets soon be flying over its borders? The writer is the Yitzhak Rabin Professor at George Washington University and former director of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.
2010-07-09 09:16:51Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive