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How Peace Keeps Receding in the Middle East
(Washington Post) David Ignatius - This month of peace anniversaries forces us to reckon with the reality that the efforts of a generation of Americans, Israelis and Arabs to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have largely come to naught. The Palestinians are yesterday's problem. Even the Arabs are tired of their fractious demands. You can argue that the Palestinians kept balking at the peace deal that Israel would accept in hopes that if they waited and kept agitating, they could get more. The four-year-plus "intifada" that followed the Oslo agreement was a self-destructive waste for the Palestinians, poisoning good feeling in Israel. The same is true of Gaza, which greeted Israeli evacuation with continuing, self-defeating attempts to kill Israelis. PLO leader Yasser Arafat allowed his chief intelligence officer to maintain secret contact with the CIA, even as he kept trying to kill Israelis. He wanted a peace deal, so long as he could hold out for a better one. The Palestinians deserved better.