[Christian Science Monitor] Robert Zelnick - The panel urges the administration to re-energize the Israeli peace talks with Palestinians who accept Israel's existence. Peace talks are not a synonym for peace and unless carefully prepared, they can lead instead to war. Witness the failure at Camp David in 2000 and the resulting human carnage of the second intifada. Does any Palestinian today have both the will and the political power to negotiate a deal with Israel that waives the so-called right of return for refugees from the 1948 war and their descendants? Will the region be more content with a failed Camp David-type spectacular? The bridge between Israelis and Palestinians is fragile enough to barely support the weight of its own parties. Adding to it the weight of a conflict between Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq is simply not smart. The writer is a professor of journalism at Boston University and a research fellow at the Hoover Institution.
2006-12-08 01:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive