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Try an Alternative Paradigm to Achieve Real Peace

[Jerusalem Post] Saul Singer - The Arab-Israeli conflict is not based on a misunderstanding. The conflict has a source, and it is the refusal to acknowledge that source - rather than any failure to "engage" - that is the main reason for the failure of decades of peacemaking. Under the conflict-as-misunderstanding model, the more one side takes "confidence-building measures," the more the other side will reciprocate. Israel has been going along with this idea for years, most dramatically by unilaterally withdrawing from Lebanon in 2000 and from Gaza in 2005. Yet instead of reciprocating, the Arab side became more belligerent: The more Israel acts as if it is responsible for the conflict, the more radicalized the Arab side becomes. The idea that pressing both sides is how you make peace has become so ingrained that no alternative is ever considered. There is, however, an alternative paradigm that has never been tried: to recognize, intellectually and publicly, that the engine of the conflict is the Arab refusal to accept Jewish history, peoplehood or sovereignty anywhere in the Land of Israel. The Arabs will not end the conflict that they started so long as they still have hopes that Israel will become delegitimized and will weaken and disappear. When these hopes are dashed, then the Arab world will see that there is no alternative to making real peace with Israel. Someday, the U.S. and Europe will, without equivocation, call on the Arab states to lead the way toward ending their conflict with Israel. When that happens clearly and consistently, and provided that radical Islam's bid for an Iranian nuclear umbrella has been defeated, real peace could come more quickly than anyone now imagines.
2009-08-21 08:00:00
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