Re-Educating Ourselves, Re-Educating the World

WHEN YOU ARE ON A TRAIN RUSHING TOWARD A CLIFF AND DISASTER, WHAT YOU NEED TO DO IS CHANGE COURSE, NOT INCREASE SPEED.

            Mr. Prime Minister, I don't want to attack you, but to convince you.

            The peace policy of successive Israeli Governments, including yours, has been to propose ever-increasing concessions to the Arabs. They have consistently rejected all offers as not enough and insisted we come up with more, which they will also always reject as insufficient.

            We have educated ourselves and the world that "peace process" means ever increasing Israeli offers of concessions, while the Arabs do nothing except reject and demand more. This has not brought peace one inch closer, but it has landed us in the almost total isolation in which we find ourselves today.

            We have educated ourselves and the world that we are the ones who have to make the concessions, and if the Arabs are not satisfied, it must be because our concessions have not gone far enough, and we must be pressured into making more.

            No concessions we can ever offer, short of our national suicide, will satisfy the Arabs and therefore they will not satisfy the "world". Nonetheless, Ministers and officials, who should know better, insist that the only path open to us is to give in more and faster.

            Now we are not only expected to make concessions in negotiations, we are supposed to make substantive concessions to wheedle the Arabs into talking with us at all, while they sit back and give us failing marks for not conceding enough and fast enough. How much time will new concessions buy us? A day? A week? A month? Then back to isolation.

            We must recognize this and change course, not increase speed.

            The UN has 192 member states. Any resolution the Arabs submit against Israel will automatically get universal support. We must stop trying to convince these countries that we are really nice guys, which they will never accept, and start acting like strong guys, which paradoxically will get us much further.

            Your government has made the point that it is ready to sit down for direct negotiations at any time and place. Now stop repeating that every day. Any country which is willing to hear it already has. Those who are not willing to hear it, will not be moved by the repetition.

            You should announce Israel's conditions for resumption of direct negotiations:

1. The Palestinian Authority must acknowledge Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish People.
2. The Palestinian Authority must control and reduce anti-Israel and anti-Jewish incitement in its media and schools.
3. Until there is a final peace treaty, Israel will continue building in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria in accordance with its discretion.

The purpose of these conditions is to "even out the playing field" so not only the Arabs have conditions, and also to give governments and inter governmental bodies more scope for their diplomacy.

            There is no need to answer those who say this proves Israel doesn't really want peace. Let them convince us.