Soccer Dad

Cohen pines for palestine

Roger Cohen - the columnist who vouched for the moderation of Iran's rulers - was off to such a promising start, in Hard Mideast Truths:

Here's what I believe. Centuries of persecution culminating in the Holocaust created a moral imperative for a Jewish homeland, Israel, and demand of America that it safeguard that nation in the breach.

But then he takes a quick turn into nonsense.

But past persecution of the Jews cannot be a license to subjugate another people, the Palestinians. Nor can the solemn U.S. promise to stand by Israel be a blank check to the Jewish state when its policies undermine stated American aims.

Israel has made continual efforts since 1993 to reach some sort of accomodation with the Palestinians. But in the end the biggest efforts: Barak's offer to Arafat at Camp David in 2000 and Olmert's offer to Abbas in 2008, were rejected as insufficient. Yaacov Lozowick summarizes:

Since Rabin in the 90s, Israel has had the following prime ministers, who had the following take on how the conflict with the Palestinians might be either resolved, or at least managed if resolution is impossible, as most Israelis are convinced, even though this means it's they (and the Palestinians) who aren't going to have peace:

Shimon Peres, 1995-96. Considerably more dovish than Rabin, and elected out of office because he was refusing to recognize that the Palestinians weren't using the same rulebook.

Binyamin Netanyahu, 1996-1999, elected only after changing the Likud's platform to acquiesce in partition as the way to resolve the conflict (i.e repudiating Greater Israel).

Ehud Barak, 1999-2000, elected on the clear platform of negotiating a partition with the Palestinians, he offered to dismantle some 80% of the settlements in the summer of 2000, and was praised for this by Bill Clinton.

Ariel Sharon, 2001-(Dec) 2005, initially elected to defeat the 2nd Intifada, not negotiate with Arafat, in 2005 Sharon unilaterally pulled out of Gaza while dismantling 23 settlements, then split the Likud and set up Kadima so as to continue the partition on the West Bank.

Ehud Olmert, 2006-2009, Olmert was elected in 2006 on an explicit promise to disband settlements and evacuate Israel from most of the West Bank, even if the Palestinians wouldn't give peace in return. This intention was derailed by the 2nd Lebanon war, yet by September 2008 Olmert was offering the Palestinians more than they had ever been offered, including an effective 100% of the West Bank or adjacent areas and partition of Jerusalem.

2009-- Binyamin Netanyahu indeed doesn't look like your run-of-the-mill NIF activist, yet he has openly accepted partition as the way to reach a two-state solution.

Even with those rejections, Palestinians are, for the most part, ruled by their own corrupt and dysfunctional governments. They may not constitute a nation, but that's the result of choices made by Palestinian leadership. Cohen, in effect, approves giving the Palestinians a veto over peace thus removing any incentive for them to reach an agreement with Israel.

Cohen is not alone in promoting this. But given how utterly discredited he was by the Iranian regime, I didn't think it unreasonable to pile on.

Crossposted on Yourish.