Thoughts on compromise, influence, independence, peace

SoccerDad starts with this post of mine and runs with it , decrying the current US administration as now acting in ways indistinguishable from previous ones, vis a vis Israel.

He comments:

The failing of most administrations when it comes to Mideast peace is that they put a premium on its success. This makes the cost of peace more expensive. The Palestinians loving the attention make sure that their demands are sacrosanct and Israel thus must bend to those to those demands or be obstructionist.

His second sentence is very accurate, but it is also partially Israel's fault. If only the Jews would remember their Talmud!

If two persons hold a cloak, one says, "I found it," and the other says, I found it," one says, "All of it is mine," and the other says, "All of it is mine," the first one shall swear that not less than one half of it belongs to him, the other one shall swear that not less than one half of it belongs to him, and they shall divide it. If one says, "All of it is mine," and the other says, "Half of it is mine," the one who says "All of it is mine" shall swear that not less than three-quarters of it belongs to him, and the one who says "Half of it, is mine” shall swear that not less than one-quarter of it belongs to him; the former shall take three-quarters and the latter shall take one-quarter.

If one party claims the entire item in dispute, and the other one says that they share it, the only thing a third party judge can do (absent other evidence) is splitting the difference. Since Jews are always looking to compromise for peace, and the Arabs aren't, this gives the Arabs a much stronger claim. Israel should have long ago defined their "red lines" in this battle. Unfortunately, thanks to Barak, the Israeli "red line" is pretty much the Green Line. This was perhaps the worst legacy ever left by an Israeli leader.

Back to Soccer Dad's first sentence quoted above, though - I look at it a little differently. The reason that the US always ends up pressuring Israel and giving the Palestinians a relatively free ride is indeed because the US puts a premium on solving the problem - and the US only has influence over Israel because of the billions of dollars it gives annually.

This is not the entire problem - Egypt regularly thumbs its nose at the US and still gets billions every year as well. The problem is that Israel feels indebted to the US because of the money and feels she must bend over backwards to make her "good friend" happy. That's what friends do.

The Palestinians have no such pressures. The EU could play a role here but it usually refuses (although yesterday there was a hopeful sign.)

Let's step back. What things did Israel do over the past few years that reduced violence?

1. Taking the war to the terrorists.
2. Building the barrier.

These moves were successful in making Israel safer (and consequently making Palestinian Arabs safer.) Any "truce" only came about because Israel was successful in doing these things.

And the world community was against both of them.

World pressure (including US pressure) on Israel is almost always counterproductive to true peace.

The only way to reduce this pressure, specifically from the US, is for Israel to plan to wean itself from American dollars. Absurd agreements like Rafah should never have happened, and if it wasn't for US dollars to Israel, they wouldn't have.

Israel is no longer acting as an independent state; rather as an extension of the US. This is not only a tragedy for the Zionist dream, it is counterproductive to real peace.