Closure method even the avenging angel might envy

‘US deal will trade off ‘Jewish’ Israel for 1967 lines – report’                         Times of Israel: December 29, 2013

If Mr. Kerry’s new plans for the region are merely something to hold the line while current negotiations proceed on their merry way, then I doubt that very much will come of this latest US initiative.

Palestinian leaders will find it impossible to recognise the State of Israel as an exclusively Jewish entity while their Israeli counterparts would be committing political suicide by agreeing to a 1967 Israel as the fullest extent of their country’s internationally recognised borders.

And yet both objectives appear mandatory and vital to what is the absolute minimum each side will accept for hammering out a permanent peace settlement and entering a long era of coexistence thereafter.

Let us concede therefore that such an outcome is impossible in the present climate and should not be further pursued until much more time has passed and attitudes have changed to accommodate or even supersede these stated requirements.

What then to do in the situation immediately to hand?

Israelis can’t make peace. Palestinians are in exactly the same position and the Americans, for all their can-do energy and friendly persuasion, are just as helpless in conditions that have not really altered one iota since hostilities began nearly seven decades ago.

Then now may be time to introduce new conditions, ones that will sink deep within the collective consciousness of all men and impose themselves upon a conflict that, up till now, has never had any real chance of winding down and going away for good.

The alternative is surrender to the petty ambitions of politicians and narrow-minded persons of whatever race, creed or colour that exist throughout the world, some which can be observed here in these pages as ‘contributors’ to the discussion process. If so, then our abject failure to understand and remedy this matter will forever make us complicit in all the misery and conflict that must await us in the years and tears that lie ahead.

Much better by far to sort the thing out once and for all and then have done with it for the rest of eternity.

www.laxiankey.com

Sometimes it takes a certain amount of muscle to chose and force through the best deal that can be had in circumstances that must otherwise prevent closure of any description.