The article is a mixed bag of good, bad and naïveté, and there is a lot to comment on. But one throwaway sentence within the following two paragraphs grabbed my attention:
Visiting Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Ramallah, Bethlehem, including walking along a "refugee" area, with the infamous concrete security wall towering above me, and shaking hands with a number of youth, I was struck by the relative calm in the area. As someone all too familiar with situations of subjugation and despair, I could sense that this is a very fragile peace. Violence will flare-up if the much promised and much delayed Palestinian State does not become a reality within the next two years. Nevertheless, at this particular point in time, Israel and Palestine (West Bank) form an oasis of tranquility in a region in turmoil.He visits, he sees that things are doing remarkably well, that terrorism has gone way down and the West Bank economy is way up.
Visiting the West Bank I envied the relative prosperity of the Palestinians and the progress being made in their State-building exercise. Palestinians in the West Bank are far ahead of most Sub-Sahara African States, and indeed well ahead of my own country, in economic well-being and the development of the State institutions.
But he says, with certainty, that "Violence will flare-up if the much promised and much delayed Palestinian State does not become a reality within the next two years."
Why? Why would people whose lives are visibly improving want to go back again to a disastrous terror spree, one that cost them thousands of lives and tens of thousands of jobs?
Let's see if this similar sentence makes sense:
Violence will flare-up if Gilad Shalit is not released within the next year.
Sounds weird, doesn't it?
But it sounds perfectly normal to state, as a fact, that Palestinian Arabs will choose violence if they don't get their maximal goals - even after they have already rejected compromises that would have led to their state they supposedly want.
The only explanation is that the world expects Palestinian Arabs to be naturally violent.
To the current politically correct mindset, the relative peace we have now is considered an aberration, something counter to the Arab personality. Isn't it wonderful that Palestinian Arabs have managed to avoid sending suicide bombers into Israel for a few years? Let's all applaud their superhuman effort to temporarily overcome their normal, warmongering personalities for a few years! Give them a cookie! We know it is an act, and that if we stop treating them as "special" children they will of course go back to their wild, murderous ways. But if we keep throwing money and promises to pressure Israel at them, they'll stay in line for a couple more years, just enough time to give them their reward.
And if they erupt in their natural violence again, well, that must be Israel's fault.