Changing Circumstances

The current round in the AI peace initiative stakes seems to have fizzled out much in the same manner as all those others that have preceded it.

Even the thought of receiving a possible $1000 dollars a head, courtesy of Mr. Kerry, has cut no ice with the Palestinians. The Israelis appear ready to press ahead in their customary fashion with more settlement activity and so the whole shooting-match can very easily start up again once the moment is at hand. Such moments are rarely in short supply.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it seems, must continue ever onward, its long and wearisome journey still ongoing from one year to the next.

It may very well never end, not on this side of eternity anyway.

So, with that sombre prospect in mind, what other options, if any, are now left in store?

A minimum of two prerequisites are needed to terminate such a conflict. A shared desire to see it ended and a means of living with that decision once it has been reached.

A case in point: Japan, August 1945.

The Japanese desire to finish with the war in the Pacific had been evident for quite some time but such an outcome was hard to accept for many in a nation still under military control. Nagasaki and Hiroshima made that acceptance somewhat easier to digest.

The threat to drop atomic bombs on Israelis and Palestinians cannot be a solution here but it might be possible to simulate that scale of loss to some degree and thereby produce a similar result; an immediate suspension of hostilities and a willingness to embrace changed circumstances in a spirit of hope, even one of reluctant optimism.

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Now, unless Mr. Kerry is going to up his offer and make everyone in the region a millionaire, this might be a more persuasive and certainly a much cheaper alternative.